Panorama
Delivered a net new feature that saw 25% more usage than the tool’s previous main feature
Duration
2021
Team
1 PM, 1 designer, 2 devs
The Problem
Originally designed for managers at a startup called Pivotal, Panorama, an internal tool developed by the startup Pivotal, acquired hundreds of new users that had different needs and behaviors than the tool’s original customer base. After VMware acquired Pivotal in 2019, leadership established the goal of onboarding all managers within the org to this tool.
During this transition, the Panorama team received a significant amount of negative feedback. After interviewing several new users, I found several usability pain points that needed to be addressed.
The Solution
In response to this feedback, I designed a net new feature that easily allowed VMware managers to extend project durations, a feature that was used 25% more than the original Panorama view.
First Iteration
I created this prototype based on the outputs of a group brainstorming session. This allows managers to see all their direct report projects in one view, but the tabular view made it difficult to see when projects overlapped in a timeline. Next, I would try a more visual approach.
Second Iteration
In making the design more visual, it became easier to see where projects overlapped and, thus, where there might be an over or under project allocation.
Final Output
When a user clicks on a project, I introduced the idea of a quick links menu and proposed that we add an “extend to end of quarter” option for these managers who often kept direct reports on the same project quarter after quarter.
Results
As a result, the action I proposed received over 3,000+ clicks, more than double the frequency of the second most used action that was proposed by the product team.
Results (continued)
In addition, this feature was intentionally used by over 1,000 managers. Only around 800 managers continued using the old view (there may have been overlap between the two; some managers may have used a combination).
