The importance of design problem-solving in UX, UI and product is multifaceted. It can never be made possible without the optimism of teamwork. Effective teamwork in-and-out of product design can help transform complex problems into elegant, user-friendly experiences; and directly impact the overall quality of our services.
It's important for me to be an empathetic and supportive lead/manager. By understanding the individual needs and challenges of those around me, I want to foster a collaborative and welcoming environment where everyone feels supported. Like Octopus Deploy, I also encourage open communication, teamwork and an environment where people are excited to share their knowledge; which leads to more innovative design solutions. As an advocate I'm a huge believer in bringing our personal passions and interpersonal contributions to the workplace.
The best offence is a good defence, and the same can be said when we focus on data insights to uncover new opportunities. I love the complexities and problem solving that go into data research and user testing. It makes innovation a lot more meaningful when we consider the impact it can have on both users and stakeholders.
Design also benefits when data and user experience is prioritised as core evidence for new opportunities, and detaches design as something driven by aesthetic trends.
Let's face it, devs and engineers have often saved me from a world of hurt. Since working as a consultant I've found it so motivating to learn and grow from those working in sales, DevOps, solution architecture and many other disciplines.
Their collaboration and expertise inspire me to experiment with new ideas.
Over the last several years, I've had the pleasure of working across diverse industries, spanning marketing and creative agencies,
B2B companies and strategy, in-house design and consulting. Here's a couple of projects I've lead
Disclaimer: Creating a portfolio as a consultant is difficult when majority of projects are signed under an NDA.
Therefore detailed information on the following project have been omitted to obey the agreement.
I was the design lead in an engagement in which the product owner was looking to uplift and extend reporting on their finance and management data to include a wider range of end users. The goal of the project was to holistically design and implement a data visualisation platform that is efficient, flexible and usable to ensure that reporting can be submitted in a timely manner.
In the first phase the report will be utilised by the Asia-Pacific team, and with enough design strategy will become their global platform.
I started by taking the two main stakeholder groups through an 'Identify & Define' workshop which rapidly interviews users on what their current operations are, what are their painpoints, needs, wants; what are the key metrics, and the audience they think will benefit from this platform.
Through this workshop I was able to define and visualise three key personas. The personas range from those who input the data, those who collate the data, and those who use the data to identify trends and mitigate risk. From the identify and define session I was also able to synthesise the insights into six key issues.
The insights and personas from the stakeholder interviews inspired the co-design workshop. Which engaged stakeholders and end users with an exercise that visualised the possibilities of data vis and how a centralised data platform can look/function. What filters do we need? What KPI numbers are most important? How might we make this flexible to consider the global team?
The insights and personas from the stakeholder interviews inspired the co-design workshop. Which engaged stakeholders and end users with an exercise that visualised the possibilities of data vis and how a centralised data platform can look/function. What filters do we need? What KPI numbers are most important? How might we make this flexible to consider the global team?
The high-fidelity design was implemented through PowerBI, and I documented the project in a playbook which details the design outcome while providing a future roadmap of how the client can configure and implement the dashboards for a global audience.
By introducing a holistic approach to data visualisation I was able to design a product that reduces the need to manual collation and streamlining the data input process. Centralising the data into a platform means the finance team no longer have to spend a huge amount of time doing manual checks, chasing-up late reports, and correct errors before collating the report and sending it to executive leaders.
The centralised data platform also contributes to the team working in a uniform reporting process. The business will benefit from data-entry users to have a streamline process to follow, which off-sets unnecessary workload from the finance and management team.
One of the challenges that always comes with getting stakeholders to come to workshop is all the cat-herding, especially since this project began just before the holiday shutdown period, and schedules in January we're up-in-the-air.
My many experiences with people in finance is that they're very efficient people, which is fancy for saying they can be a bit time-poor and can struggle to see the pragmatism behind co-designing. To counter this I made the workshop less about a drawing exercise and more of a modular drag and drop of data vis examples available for PowerBI, which I called 'Data Vis Tiles'. This reduced the time spent in a workshop by roughly 40 minutes.
The last challenge was how to make a dashboard customisable so that the scope for global implementation would be intuitive enough to adapt currencies. The client's company is based in Europe, however the Asia-Pacific team work with a combination of local and continental currencies. For this to work in-scope we would need a system of checkbox filters and tags for the dashboards to be dynamic, while implementing the dashboards in a way that users can customise the default currencies by preference or geo-location.
Hopefully I've given you a glimpse as to why I think I'd be a good fit for Octopus Deploy. I feel like I not only own the skills required to do the job right; but I also bring a lot of uniqueness, joyful and entertaining qualities that can breathe life into a workplace that's so welcoming.
I've heard Octopus Deploy is a super fun place to work and I want in!
You're more than welcome to prowl around the rest of my portfolio. But if you want to get in contact I look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks again,Flynn Barbary
0476 121 211
flynn.barbary@gmail.com
