Background
Tara, which provides a product management tool for engineering, was looking for options to take new users from the moment they express intent to sign up for Tara to the point where they have an “aha” moment around the value of Tara. As part of this project, I was given a task to work with a cross-functional team to define and design an optimized onboarding experience for users and integrate features in the onboarding flow that allow them to introspect and unlock the value of Tara immediately. Overall, the objective of this project was to help recognize Tara as the tool for project management for any engineering team from day one.
My Role
I focused on qualitative research with existing and new customers, designed workshops with internal Engineering, Sales, and Product Management teams to identify product gaps, and ideated new features that we should integrate into the product as part of the onboarding experience. I finally led the creation of user journeys, personas, wireframing, designing screen flows, visuals, and interactions, and worked with engineering to drive implementation.
Tools
Figma, FigJam
Timeline
8-12 weeks
The Problem
How can we onboard engineering teams seamlessly to Tara and make them quickly realize and unlock the value of the Tara platform?
Solution
Create seamless onboarding flow for engineering managers, a key persona for Tara, and integrate a new “Blockers Report” feature in the flow. The new onboarding experience integration with the Blockers Report feature allowed engineering managers to quickly identify blockers in their projects by leveraging information from their existing tools (Github, Jira, Slack) and save an excessive amount of time that otherwise would have been spent manually identifying blockers.
Meet Leslie!
“In say two weeks of sprint, if 15 hours per week is spent by each developer in a meeting, we need to know it as a blocker and cut down on meetings. We also need to know other project related blockers”
Basic Info
Age: 35
Location: California
Job: Engineering manager
Education: Computer science
Team: 5-6 engineers
Motivations
Be more efficient
Fulfill project deadlines
Retain engineering team
Pain Point
Spends unreasonable amount of time identifying blockers
Needs to manage blockers in real-time
Tools
Onboarding Experience
I designed an onboarding experience keeping in mind users' intent while making sure we reduce the amount of information we collect at the start and reduce the number of clicks. Overall, I optimized the flow using consistent design elements and added the "identify blockers" action in the flow for the new users to discover the unique feature of getting a free Blockers Report that can also be sent to their email just after connecting their git repository.
Blocked Status
During our interviews with users and brainstorming design workshop, a critical insight identified was that tasks were often left in "Doing" status for too long. Sometimes engineers didn't commit to the task, or in other situations, they were blocked by another cross-functional partner working on the dependent task. This information usually gets lost in the sprint process, leaving engineering managers unsure when the tasks will be completed. As a solution, we introduced a new "Blocked" status that notified dependent teams and the reason for getting blocked. This helped engineering managers be more proactive and identify actionable next steps to unblock their teams. It also provided engineering managers a better insight into broader patterns on what's delaying their projects and the impact on the overall timeline based on identified blockers.
Blockers Report
In the final phase, we designed a "Blockers Report" section that was added as a critical component of the tool. The Blockers Report allowed engineering managers and other stakeholders to get a quick summary of various blockers identified from already used tools (Github, Jira, etc.) by their team. For example, if a PR was not closed or merged in Github or if comments were not addressed, the Blockers Report could flag that PR and highlight it in the Tara tool and notifications seamlessly. The Blockers Report also provided engineering managers with information on all blockers that occurred during a sprint. Our users mentioned that as a result, they were able to quickly address blockers in real-time by taking quick actions like slacking the assignee that is blocked or setting up a meeting if it required deep dive.
Design Ideation
Task Flow
Based on the design workshop and ideation, I identified three broader categories of tasks that can be marked blocked in Tara and designed a journey for them accordingly:
Task marked as a blocker by a user in Tara.
The task is past the deadline.
Task detected by Tara as potential blockers in Jira and Github.
12
Interviews
20+
Concept Validation
8
Iterations