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As a designer and consultant, I uphold confidentiality through non-disclosure agreements. While I can't share project details, I'm happy to discuss the successful methods, processes, and practices that contributed to their achievements. Let's explore these valuable insights together!

Projects

💼 Identify key problems and define opportunities from the user perspective on a recruitment management platform

From a previous engagement with the client, we identified key opportunities to enhance their recruitment management platform from a user-centric perspective. By delving into the complete journey of recruitment, talent acquisition, and resource management—from discovering resources to handling contracts, payslips, and billing services—we focused on areas critical to business success. Our primary target was improving the creation and management of Requests and Orders while considering the entire resource research and talent pool process. Alongside this, we aimed to elevate the platform's visual consistency and component design by introducing Design Systems and libraries management. Our goal was to not only improve user experience but also to showcase the value of integrating design-focused roles and modern software development practices.

To achieve these goals, we undertook a series of targeted activities:

Problem Discovery Workshops: We facilitated workshops with Operational and HR Managers, as well as Suppliers, to identify and prioritize the top problems we needed to tackle.
Solution Experimentation: We defined experiments and drafted solutions, which we then evaluated with the right personas to ensure relevance and effectiveness.
Design System Implementation: We set up a design system and provided ad-hoc recommendations on the visual treatment of components and modules. This was based on their current component library for both web and native mobile applications.

The goals of the project were clear:

Increase Revenue and Win New Business: By enhancing the platform, we aimed to make it more attractive to clients, thereby increasing revenue and acquiring new business.
Ease of Use: We focused on reducing the cumbersomeness of the process, making the system intuitive and easy to use, thereby improving engagement.
Integrated UX/UI Principles: We incorporated modern design principles, integrating UX and UI seamlessly into the process. This included learning from user experience research and managing design effectively.

Through these activities, we not only improved the user experience of the platform but also demonstrated the importance of a design-focused approach in modern software development, ultimately driving better business outcomes for our client.

🤖 Modernize a core legacy application to create trainings that support car dealers across the world

One of the most renowned German automotive manufacturers has a department responsible for the production and delivery of internal and dealership trainings worldwide. Therefore, it builds and operates multiple tools supporting its training production process.

Help to rebuild a legacy application and continue business

A core legacy application needed to be modernized to a new technology (cloud-based, DevOps, etc), as the old one was getting sunsetted. This app is critical to the process of creating trainings that supports car dealers across the world.

Enablement - Enable the team and build trust

The app was developed over many years by an external partner. A decision was made to move this work to an internal team. In order for this change to be successful, there was a need to:

Help the new team understand the process supporting the legacy app
Help the new team make a shift from a project to a product mindset
Help the new team build trust with the business stakeholders and position themselves as a trustworthy alternative to the external partner

The goals of the project were:

Improve user experience compared to the current legacy app
Support business continuity beyond the product retirement
Help people be more efficient, so they can use the time for other things that are important to business
Build a great product-oriented team (wireframes, roadmap, MVP, iterative thinking, etc)
Enable team and stakeholder collaboration
Help the team Grow
Enable them in technical best practices

🔐 Automating IT Security Processes for a seamless and easier experience

One of the most renowned German automotive manufacturers has an in-house software lab where we coached their seed teams and built products together. They’ve grown to form cross-functional teams that develop software in a lean, agile and user-centred way.

A newly formed client team started to develop a new product to make the IT-Security risk management processes seamless to use and easy to grasp, starting with the most expensive bottle necks. We coached them all the way from the ideation & validation phase to product delivery.

We performed key practices to establish routines and to figure out where to best start.
We mapped out key players and system landscape with event storming and service blue printing.
We iterated on product vision & sharpened product strategy through measurable outcomes. We then mapped user pains as opportunities for each outcome resulting in an opportunity solutions tree.
In alignment with essential stakeholders, we identified which part of the IT-Security risk management business process is most crucial & risky.
In combination, we eventually defined the MVP scope
We plotted the user journey and conducted further validation research with users for more insights and their opinion on prototyped ideas.
We anticipated all steps while crafting the user story map which shed light on further technical validation needs specifically for wanting to integrate with established in-house ordering systems.
To start with, we researched and validated the tech architecture, negotiated with the integration partners, and built a backlog filled with prioritized user stories and technical outcomes.

🚢 Designing solutions to fulfil the export needs of containers by the customers of the shipping companies

As a result of Globalization the whole shipping industry is facing the issue of Container imbalance. Many products are exported from Asia to Western regions such as Europe and the United States. However, exports from Western countries to Asia are only a fraction of world trade.

Empty containers are needed in those locations to fulfill the export needs of the customers of the shipping companies.

This imbalance in export volumes leads to an imbalance of empty containers available in the locations. Asian countries can not fulfill customer needs to the lack of containers, western countries have high costs of storing and not utilizing all containers.

Balancing containers was a very manual process for the client. Each Geotrack (= port) is defined as being overbalanced (surplus of empty containers), underbalanced (shortage of empty containers), or balanced. This is based on historical figures.

Analyzing the need to move containers between locations and the operations of moving containers is done in different ways. Some existing data sources are used, excel files are created, emails are written, etc… Depending on the location of the shortage/surplus, those actions are done on a country, region, or global level.

What we did:

Defined MVP through user research, business, and technical validation
Defined a roadmap to deliver the product
Focus on gathering data sources and adding intelligence to the forecasting

🚗 Create a convincing and trusted vehicle profile to sell your car

For one of the most renowned German automotive manufacturers, we worked to establish a modern approach to product ideation and development.

Gathering information on your car configuration can be time-consuming and laborious. We worked on a solution to provide the information potential buyers really care about and look for to create a convincing vehicle profile including all the equipment and technical data of a car.

What we did:

Validated core idea through qualitative studies
Defined product vision and set products and engagement goals to track the progress of the product development
Defined a roadmap to deliver the product
Set concepts to later integrate third-party solutions and products on AR, banking, and insurance
Defined ad-hoc training plan to smoothly handover and enable the client to continue the development

🏡 Bundled insular solutions in real estate and enhanced them in a customer-centric way

A central provider of communication & digital services within a bank customer, due to its decentralized structure, isolated solutions were favored and the customer experience was hampered.

We collaborated to find the right starting point for an innovation idea in real estate for the group. With the so-called Discovery & Framing process, we defined their business case and MVP by researching, analyzing, and prioritizing a real business problem.

We succeeded in modernizing their real estate portal all around with innovative and more customer-friendly functions.

End-customer facing MVP in production within 10 weeks
User-centered-design approach by involving end-customers and saving banks in regular stakeholder interviews and usability tests
Prevented customer churn and increased revenue
Team enablement through pairing, Test-Driven-Development (TDD), and lean and UX methodologies

More info here

Just a small taste...

Even if I can't share here more details regarding my latest engagements, I can show some case studies/assignments that could give an idea of how I work and my process.

!!! Please note, these are short assignments (timeboxed around 8h max) and would not represent the complexity that a real project would have :)