Managed two design teams for Microsoft (Caregiver Application) and Cerner (Diabetes Management MVP)
Sponsored by Micrsoft and Cerner / January-May 2021
I managed 2 design teams, one team working with Microsoft and one with Cerner. As a Project Manager, I handled project management and duties through 1) overseeing project timelines and direction 2) communicating with company sponsors 3) handling team conflicts and leader relationships and 4) championing project documentation and handoff.
The Microsoft team was working on creating an application for caregiver/care recipients, with the goals of reducing isolation, creating shared experiences and improving health outcomes. The Cerner team built an MVP for a diabetes management platform focused on social support.
I will go more into detail on my contribution and the process of each of these projects.
Project Owner
Figma
Keynote
Slack
Microsoft Teams
Google Drive
Trello
1 semester
The problem space for this project was to create multiple solutions aimed at reducing isolation, creating shared experiences, and improving health outcomes for care recipients and caregivers. This prompt was given to the team by Microsoft's Connected Care Team.
As a project manager for this team, I led and organized a team of 7 designers through design sprints to research, ideate, test and iterate solutions to caregiver and care recipient needs. I worked with Microsoft designers, PMs and executives to develop hi-fidelity prototypes to pass on to their team.
Microsoft wanted this team's main design outcome to be multiple solutions and a wide range of ideation, and because of this we utilized agile design sprints. I set up weeky rotations of research, sketching, testing, iterating, and presenting the designs to Microsoft designers. This ideation cycle led to the creation of over 35 ideas that were presented to the sponsors and eventually narrowed down to 3 which would be handed off to the team. The overall timeline and more detailed weekly sprints are seen below.
At the same time as the design sprints were going on, the team was also working on ongoing design methods such as secondary research, interviews and affinity diagramming. The team also completed an ongoing documentation (led by me), participated in weekly desk critiques with professors, weekly presentations to the Microsoft team, and monthly class update presentations.
After a semester of a lot of progress and a lot of amazing work, our team came up with 3 design solutions that help reduce isolation, create shared experiences and improve health outcomes for care recipients and caregivers!
The Wish Board is a creative tool that enables family members to create a memorable experience, naturally bringing in family engagement and togetherness. The Wish Board is designed to help family members, especially care recipients, achieve and live the best life possible. Family members can plan events, activities, and goals through the Wish Board. They can save pictures and videos from the event for everlasting memories, helping each other to achieve future goals and strengthen family bonds. Activities such as hiking or cooking created by family members using the Wish Board help to reduce feelings of isolation, improve the health of family members, and decrease caregiver burden by focusing on attaining happiness within the family. Care recipients can also make virtual pink promises with the family.
The Family Hub solution allows care recipients and caregivers to get together in a collective space to discuss old and new stories. There are a range of topics to choose from to start the weekly discussion, such as favorite vacations and most embarrasing moments. Family members can add a photo of this story, video, voice recording, or simple text. Family members have the ability to participate in these topics through an audio call or via text. These conversations are saved for later on the app. If someone can't make it to the call, they can tap a button to tell the care recipient they are thinking of them. There is also a highlight section which allows care recipients to update their family on latest achievements, in order to share those proud moments.
Teams Legacy is a central hub for families to store and look back at life events and found memories of loved ones. Family members can create a time line of important life events or memories they want to share with the rest of the family. If someone is stuck or does not know what to share, that can choose to be prompted with specific questions that are important in everyones life such as “tell me what it was like to graduate high school”.
Family members also have the option to hand write letters to loved ones using a type to handwriting conversion software. These letters can be written for birthdays, weddings, holidays or any important life event. On a specific date, chosen by the writer, the letter would be sent to that person in physical form. Users have the option to write letters far into the future, so even if someone passes away, you would still receive letters from them and always have them in your hearts.
The problem space for this project was to create an MVP and hi-fidelity protoypes for a diabetes management platform from stratch. Due to the later onset of type 2 diabetes, patients struggle to adapt to a new daily routine, Type 2 Diabetes patients need a place to track and monitor their condition. The team narrowed down to focus in on social support as a scope. This problem was given to the team by Cerner, a healthcare information technology company.
As a project manager for this team, I led and organized a team of 6 designers through a linear design process to develop a MVP to handoff to the sponsors. I worked with Cerner designers to create these designs which would eventually be taken and implemented by the company.
Cerner's team was focused on rolling out an MVP, and therefore we utilized a more linear design process timeline. Instead of maximizing ideation, they were focused on informing the features they were going to include in their prototype they would hand over. With Cerner's team, we implemented a weekly timeline check in. They had a more structured process and staying on track was extremely important, so we met each week to make sure that they weren't falling behind.
Like Microsoft, Cerner was also completing an ongoing documentation (led by me), participating in weekly desk critiques with professors, weekly presentations to the Microsoft team, and monthly class update presentations.
Below are a few pages of the support document that the professors would use to keep up to date with Cerner's progress.
After a semester of a lot of progress and a lot of amazing work, our team came up prototypes for a diabetes management app that focuses on building social support and motivation.
In this final design, users are able to track and monitor their diabetes by following their blood glucose levels over time. This platform allows diabetes patients to track trends, input manual/automatic entries for food and glucose levels and recieve alerts if they are high or low. It also recommends a calculated insulin dosage. The team also focused on implementing a motivational and social support dimension to the application. They created a little character who is used throughout, making the app personal and fun.
I will now talk through team building strategies that apply to both teams.
One of the key parts in helping develop inter-team relationships was 1 on 1s with every single person on my two teams. I met with everyone at the beginning, middle and end of the semester. For the new designers, I asked about what they were learning, their goals for developing in the field, their relationship with the rest of their team, and how I could help support them. For the experienced designers and leads, I asked about their leadership technqiues, mentorship plans, goals for the project and what they wanted to get out of the project, and how I could support them better. This dialogue was important to understand the interworkings of the team, understand how each team member could get the most out of the project, and also for evaluating performance.
My team also consistenly came to me for informal 1 on 1s, meaning they just needed extra support and someone to talk to about the project. They would message me asking me to meet, and I provide support in a variety of ways depending on what the team member needed (advice on the project, talking through a teammate issue, etc). These informal 1 on 1s helped me become aware of some team conflict that needed to be addressed.
Another large part of my role was mediating team conflict. As with any professional team, this team experienced personality clashes and disagreements about design decisions between team members. In order to handle this conflict, I played the mediator role between the two conflicting parties, using techniques such as "I" statements and role playing the other side ("As Leah, I felt...."). I communicated with sponsors, professors, the team leads and the teammates about the conflict and actions we could take to resolve it. I worked with each individual to make sure everyone felt valued and then came up with a plan. The conflict resolved with the plan I created, which for the protection of the team I am going to keep private.
There were a lot of other smaller ways that I helped to support my teams throughout the semester. I have listed a few examples of support I would offer my teams.
Overall, this was an awesome experience to practice project management and oversee a design team! I got to practice my interpersonal skills, developing a team's relationship, management styles and project organizational skills. It was also exciting to approach the design process from a different perspective (instead of as a designer, as a manager). I am super grateful to have been selected for this position!