JEM PROJECT MANAGEMENT

2023

OVERVIEW

FOCUS

PRODUCT DESIGN

UX RESEARCH

SAAS DESIGN

TEAM

ANURAG BOSE | PRODUCT DESIGN

MARKUSS COWBURN | PROJECT MANAGEMENT

OLLIE ROSEN | DEVELOPEMENT

LEONARDO KOOMEN | PROJECT OWNER

As a design and development agency, IDS was taking up many projects. And the need for a robust project management tool was an need of the hour to efficiently manage dispersed teams and finances.

Currently using ClickUp, IDS faces limitations and bugs, necessitating a customized solution.

As a design and development agency, IDS was taking up many projects. And the need for a robust project management tool was an need of the hour to efficiently manage dispersed teams and finances.

Currently using ClickUp, IDS faces limitations and bugs, necessitating a customized solution.

MY ROLE

Joining IDS as an intern on my first project, I collaborated with the developer to create a custom project management solution under tight technical constraints. I quickly adapted to the company's needs, streamlining interactions and workflows. This project required a deep understanding of user pain points and scalable solutions. Through experimentation and analysis, I enhanced system functionality, ensuring a smooth transition for users familiar with ClickUp.

WHAT ARE WE SOLVING

The current process lacks critical features, hindering efficiency for Project Managers and HR. We aim to build on ClickUp's core features and address these issues:
Payment Tracking: Inefficient tracking of employee payments and company financials.
Timesheet Management: Manual and repetitive timesheet submissions.
Permission System: Inadequate permission settings for user-specific information.
Progress Tracking: Poor filter system for monitoring project and member progress.

Our team possessed fewer development assets, thus our designs were required to respect this limitation.

Greater emphasis was on straightforward user interface and interactions.

Our team possessed fewer development assets, thus our designs were required to respect this limitation.

Greater emphasis was on straightforward user interface and interactions.

ClickUp was extensively for every task at that point and everyone was familiar with it. To move to another product would mean a learning curve and decreased overall productivity.

So less deflection from already set user patterns.

ClickUp was extensively for every task at that point and everyone was familiar with it. To move to another product would mean a learning curve and decreased overall productivity.

So less deflection from already set user patterns.

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY

Navigation: Clear, intuitive navigation to minimize user time and prevent disorientation.
Data Acquisition: Primary function is to gather employee data for documentation.
Quick Access: Enable managers to quickly find and filter necessary information.

Objective:
Analyzing interactions with ClickUp.
Identifying pain points and edge cases.
Gathering insights on task management and communication.
Determining the frequency of use and dependency on the PM app.  

Insights from primary research

SOLUTION DESIGN

The main functions of the application would be to track hours and work updates for the users, and give the managers an overview of the projects being worked upon.
An added functionality would be for users to ask for leaves and upload update videos, and for managers to approve them.

Glimpse of initial designs that would be finalized for user testing

DID WE MISS THE POINT?

The initial designs were tested with 4-5 participants internally with the objective to understand how intuitive it was and the effort that might be needed to shift to a new application with certain tasks such as clocking time, overviewing employee updates and project timelines and details.

FINAL SHOWDOWN

From initial sprints and design feedbacks from stakeholders and users, I worked along with the dev to design revised version.

With multiple features and actions, Navigation bar was the make or break deal. Clear discoverability was the main aim.
1. Clear active states
2. Thin navbar to minimize screen its screen space but at the same time not totally getting rid of the labels
3. Enabling recognition over recalling by short descriptions with labels for the icons on hover

Navbar designs and different states

Tasks page contains all the projects and tasks under each project that have been assigned along with their current completion status.
Challenges worth overcoming here were:
Easy and quick scanning by the manager to get an overall gist of project status
Data visualization to show statistics about the project completion to rates for the managers to get an idea
Prioritizing amongst multiple interactions

Tasks page
(Manager’s view)

Tasks page (Manager’s view)

This contains all the projects being worked on or worked on in the past. The projects are categorized by the companies because there had been multiple projects for a company.
Since all were IT related projects, it could also be connected to the GitHub repositories.

Companies page

A major drawback is in the process of reporting updates and other management requirements was that members of the company used Clickup to track time, then made update videos on Loom and then pasted all of them on Google docs to be reviewed by admins. Then admins used others docs and softwares to keep a track of finances.
This timesheet page would serve as a one-stop place to track everything from employee updates and their salary dues, granting leaves to company finances for subscriptions.

Timesheet screen

Assignees have limited permissions so they can only view their personal information on the Timesheet screen feature. This is to maintain privacy of personal data of other employees and maintain data abstraction.

Timesheet screen

(Employee's view)

Timesheet screen (Employee's view)

IMPACT CREATED

While JEM is supposed to make certain tasks easier to be accomplished, the main impact would be on company specific needs, which would reduce using more than 1 application.

WAIT, SOMETHING’S NOT ADDING UP

A major challenge was permission management. For each function, one could only access what their roles in the company allowed them to.

An admin or manager with permissions can edit permissions of an employee and give them roles based on their roles in the project.

Roles can change with projects because there were cases when a person was PM on one project but a developer on another project.

Permission Management

SOME LEARNINGS

Working with different teams helped me with the way I work and communicate. Management, developers, project manager, all had perspectives which had to be accounted for.
Optimizing designs to what can be possible by the developers in the given time frame.
Most importantly, learning to articulate on my design solutions and being able to work on feedbacks.

Working with different teams helped me with the way I work and communicate. Management, developers, project manager, all had perspectives which had to be accounted for.
Optimizing designs to what can be possible by the developers in the given time frame.
Most importantly, learning to articulate on my design solutions and being able to work on feedbacks.

MORE IF YOU'RE STILL INTERESTED

A vast amount of interactions and systems were designed to account for the huge number of actions that could be done on the application, such as starting and scheduling a meeting, adding GitHub links to projects, adding video updates, bookmarking tasks for quick access, creating timesheets by HR for payments, and many more…