Workforce Management Strategic Product Discovery
#designresearch #productdesign #designstrategy #researchops #greenfieldsinnovation #saas #mentalmodels #dovetail #jobstobedone #userarchetypes #domaindrivendesign
Industry: Mining, Energy & Construction
Role: Manager
Team size: 3
No. stakeholders:
Facilitation team composition:
- Strategic Designer – Project Lead
- Head of Product
- 1 Product Manager
- 3 Product Owners
- Business Analysts
- Solution Architect
- Product Designer
summary
- Managed the delivery of a strategic discovery research program aiming to identify and translate emergent market opportunities into strategic product innovations for investment.
- Facilitated 60+ hours of research workshops with 15 clients representing 3.3million of Annual Reoccurring Revenue (ARR).
- Identified 250 value chain activities, 55 strategic insights and put forward 3 strategic product opportunities for investment. One product opportunity approved for immediate development and another approved for a deep dive product discovery for future investment.
- Successfully trialled and implemented the Mental Model research framework by Indi Young. Produced debut Mental Model which mapped the organisation’s most complex product domain – Workforce Management.
- Established the organisation’s ResearchOperations capability including the establishment of the Strategic Designer and Design Researcher roles, operational structure, governance framework, impact measurement framework and client partnership delivery model.
- Established a partnership approach with the Account Management function to successfully promote and recruit clients to participate in research workshops.
- Successfully informed the 3-year product strategy for the Workforce Management stream which comprised of the organisations two most profitable products with the largest client accounts.
- Developed the organisations first research knowledge translation framework – producing short educational videos on the insights and outcomes of the research to be consumed across the organisation.
the ask
The organisation’s workforce management software is a core part of their value offering to customers and is estimated to be USD$3.5 billion industry globally. CEO stakeholder interviews with long standing clients indicated a unique opportunity for the organisation to lead the Workforce Management software market due the product’s reputation and the accumulated IP of this highly complex domain. To capitalise on this position, feedback suggested that strategic investment into future proofing and modernising the organisation’s workforce management product offerings was required. To understand the scope and scale of investment needed, a strategic discovery was requested into order to validate the assumptions generated from the CEO interviews, map the domain and identify high yield product innovation opportunities to retain and grow the organisation’s client base globally.
The objectives of the discovery were to:
- To identify emergent customer needs and lucrative market opportunities for existing and prospective customers in the Workforce Management domain.
- Validate the product hypothesis for Greenfields SaaS product innovations from CEO interviews.
- Understand and map the Workforce Management domain and translate insights to key business functions including – Executive Leadership, Product Management, Sales and Account Management, Architecture and Engineering.
- Collate and present quick wins and next generation SaaS product innovation proposals to the executive for investment.
This discovery was the first of its kind to be conducted by the organisation, meaning that no research operations practice was in place and that this was the first time that many of the staff had worked with a researcher. In addition to delivering the outcomes of the discovery, it was also a requirement that a research operations practice was established, and staff had access to coaching and support throughout the process.
the approach
The research approach followed the Product Discovery Framework allowing for two layers of research to be conducted in an iterative cycle – strategic discovery and then practical concept validation (see approach below). To effectively translate the insights of the research both into clear product investment opportunities and domain artefacts that implementation teams could consume, the Mental Model framework was used to conduct and synthesise research insights.
the work
Problem framing
In order to effectively frame the research goals and intent, insights from the initial CEO interviews were analysed and a series of internal stakeholder interviews with senior leaders and client facing teams were conducted. The outcome of this preliminary research provided a series of high-level customer and market assumptions that would inform the direction of the interviews. It also ensured that the researchers conducting the research activities were able to convey a strong base line understanding of the domain to customers and ensure that interview time was maximised. The research program was officially kicked off with a cross disciplinary team of Product Owners, Solution Architects and Business Analysts.
Participant recruitment
A target hit list of customers combining a mixture of small, medium and large clients in Mining, Energy and Facilities Management were selected for the research program. The list also included clients from Australia and North America as the organisations two biggest markets. Using the hypothesis statements and client demographics, a series of ideal research customer profiles were created based on the Jobs to be Done Framework. This ensured that the target contained the right mix of roles within client companies. In partnership with the Sales and Accounts function, customers were approached to participate in the discovery. In total over 40 research participants were recruited across 15 diverse company profiles.
Research
Research sessions combined a series of generative questioning techniques that aimed to map the client’s strategic priorities, operational KPIs, organisational structures, delivery value chains and roles. A deep dive was taken to map processes and systems of the parts of the value chain where clients identified pain points or partnership opportunities. Sessions were run remotely via Microsoft Teams, with recordings uploaded and transcribed in Dovetail. Over 60 hours of customer research and was conducted, 20 points of customer documentation were analysed and 25 hours of research with internal stakeholders was carried out.
Synthesis
Following the Mental Model approach by Indi Young, research transcripts, customer artefacts and meeting notes were combed for tasks, philosophies and expectations. A bespoke tagging taxonomy in Dovetail was created to facilitate the identification of tasks for the mental model as well as generative themes and insights from the data. Once tasks were identified they were grouped by affinity to create a complete map of the different users’ motivations, thought processes and beliefs in relationship to the activities they perform to do their jobs. Whilst the organisation’s existing software only supported a subsection of the tasks identified, the completeness of the mental model allowed for opportunities to add value to quickly be identified as well as opportunities for whole new offerings and product verticals. Alongside the mental model creation, high level market research was also conducted to compare the organisation’s product offerings with competitors and uncover emergent trends or technologies.
Research outcomes
From the synthesised mental model and combined with market research, three new product opportunities were identified – shutdown and event management, onboarding and mobile capabilities. The research also shed light on the feasibility and utility of maintaining two separate workforce management products and what would need to be true for one of the products to reach feature parody to depreciate the other. These opportunities were mapped and evaluated based on their definition confidence through an impact measurement framework that had been developed alongside the discovery. The impact measurement framework provided lead indicators on the impact of research activities independently from investment approval for new initiatives.
Based on the research findings and the internal capabilities of the team, a Workforce Management strategy was proposed in conjunction with the Senior Leadership team comprising of the following key initiatives.
- The development of a mobile capability. This was approved for immediate development as it was the most well-defined opportunity and provided immediate value to existing customers.
- A mapping exercise of our existing product capabilities against the mental model in order to determine quick wins, feature parody feasibility and onboarding enhancement needs.
- A deep dive product discovery with customers and internal teams on the onboarding and identity experience including detailed service blueprinting on the onboarding journey.
- A deep dive product discovery to determine the needs and shape of a market leading shutdown and event management capability.
Validation
To secure funding approval for the proposed strategic initiatives and validate the research opportunities identified, playback sessions with key clients who participated in the research was conducted. Feedback from clients was overwhelmingly positive providing the green light to continue with the initiatives as recommended. A program of knowledge translation activities including presentations and educational videos was created to uplift the domain knowledge of the internal teams responsible for actioning the approved initiatives. Once all of the initiatives had been initiated, the strategic discovery was transformed into a continuous program of research activities for the Workforce Management stream as per the Domain Drive Design model.
the outcomes
- Facilitated 60+ hours of research workshops with 15 clients representing 3.3million of ARR.
- Identified 3 strategic product opportunities to inform the Workforce Management product strategy – with all proposed initiatives approved for investment by the Executive Leadership team.
- Successful established the organisation’s ResearchOperations capability including the roles and operational structure, mental model framework, impact measurement framework, knowledge translation framework and client partnership delivery model.
- Established a partnership approach with the Account Management function to successfully promote and recruit clients to participate in research workshops.
- Successfully informed the 3-year product strategy for the Workforce Management stream which comprised of the organisations two most profitable products with the largest client accounts.
learnings
- Taking time to educate and coach staff on the process of research including what to expect and how to be involved was a critical factor in the scale and success of the research discovery.
- Managing perception and expectations of Senior Leaders and Executives was a critical factor in ensuring that the Research Leads had the space and autonomy to conduct their research activities without constraints.
- Developing a strong partnership with the Account Management function was critical in ensuring that the right research participants were recruited, and the right level of research depth could be obtained.
- Managing expectations and the experience for customer who participated in research was critical in managing perception of the company and the comfortability from the Executive to continue research.
- Ensuring that Product Owners, Solution Architects and as many of the product team members were involved in conducting research built momentum for the research findings, enhanced a customer first culture and accelerated the translation of research insights.