Risk and Facilities Management
Reducing data complexity to give risk leaders clear guidance on spend allocation
Role
Product Design Lead
Client
Sigma7
The company
Sigma7 is a global risk and resilience consultancy providing customers with a variety of services and data feeds, including threat intelligence, risk engineering and emergency response training.
With business units across the world, they offer their services to many enterprise grade organisations.
“We brought Tim in to lead the product design for our new global digital platform.
In short, Tim is fantastic. He not only single handedly created all of our end-to-end designs, he also has been instrumental in business and stakeholder workshops – being able to lead and explain the rationale for each decision in a non-technical context which ensures that we have business buy-in throughout the lifecycle of product development.
I highly rate Tim and would not hesitate to recommend him for any future engagements.”
Andy Simpson-Pirie
Chief information Officer
Problem to solve
The Sigma7 group brings together multiple business units across the risk management sector, each with the own data sets.
The problem they faced was the ability to give risk leaders clear guidance on allocating spend across their locations to reduce risk, whilst giving engineers the tools to action the recommendations made.
A secondary factor was the requirement to raise awareness of each part of the business to promote cross selling opportunities, further supporting customers.
The initial approach I took was to first work with internal stakeholders to learn more about business process, and as a result began to gather and centralise samples of key data that would provide value. This helped us to determine the most impactful insights to surface to end users.
The result of reducing down the data complexity for the client in this way was a single source of truth for data capture and reporting, eliminating duplication across systems, with the ability to share high level performance with company and board level executives.
Process
Stage 1
Stakeholder and Customer research
Considering the vast amount of data to factor into this project, I started by speaking to leaders within the business to really understand the true value their customers get from the services on offer. This set the foundation for the type of data to be used to power the product solution we would deliver.
As well as involving internal stakeholders, I worked with product managers and subject matter experts to recruit appropriate end users for a series of interviews, uncovering the problems they currently faced whilst carrying out their tasks within the field of risk and facilities management.
In collaboration with the product team, I created a series of concepts based on the information gathered to ensure we were all in agreement with the proposed product direction.
Stage 2
Prototype
The agreed concept is transformed into a fully interactive prototype with clear and thoughtful user experience, complete with a high level of visual design.
With a consistent focus on reaching the goal of identifying where clients should allocate their budget, the interactive design included the end-to-end process that core users work through to review and take action on the data.
The reporting tools were a key part of the journey for customers, so high level organisation visualisations, allowing people to drill down to location level and specific risk factor level datasets for detailed analysis was essential.
This supported various use cases within a single organisation, whilst retaining a familiar, usable product experience.
Stage 3
Testing
To make sure the solution was fit for purpose, the prototyped design direction was tested with a number of potential end users of the software. As they worked through a series of steps based on their day-to-day tasks, their behaviours and reactions were tracked to inform further iterations to the approach.
Stage 4
Implementation
As well as setting the design direction and creating the end-to-end prototype, I put in place a design system to act as both a tool for keeping future design updates consistent, and to ensure a smooth transition into the development of the product.
Through close collaboration with the internal engineering teams, I facilitated the processes of sharing design assets via a front end component library, which ensured the development stayed on track, and to the highest possible standard.
Stage 5
Delivery
To ensure market awareness and adoption of the new product solution, I supported with customer demonstrations, further rounds of usability testing and helped to scope out future product capabilities to support additional revenue opportunities.
This ongoing delivery support has been provided on numerous additional projects with the client, as they prepared for new customer onboarding and market expansion since the original product delivery.
Outcomes
A significant uplift in new client acquisition worth billions within the threat intelligence space, as a direct result of the improved product experience with embedded AI capabilities.
The centralisation of data across business units resulted in a more streamlined method of cross-selling product capabilities for both existing clients and prospects.
Client impact increased more than 50% in pre-sales activities as a result of being able to utilise professional design and proof-of-concept work from day one.
“I can confidently say that Tim is an exceptional Product Designer. His brilliance in design is evident not only in the quality of his work but also in his approach to collaboration and customer interaction.
His ability to bridge the gap between design and engineering ensures that our products are not only aesthetically pleasing but also highly functional and technically sound.
I highly recommend Tim to any organisation looking for a top-notch Product Designer who consistently delivers outstanding results.”
Joe Sweeny
VP Engineering
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