My Role

I was the project manager and lead UXUI designer and front end developer on an agile team comprised of another front-end developer, three back-end developers, four software quality engineers, scrum master, marketing writer, marketing specialist and product managers. I was responsible for providing system recommendations and managing the full stack migration as well as UI design, site architecture, content management and creation. 

Proposed Solution

• Redesign the site architecture for a growing product line, new site features and global reach.

• Migrate ASP.net CMS to MVC.net based CMS.

• Redesign the UI to be mobile first, responsive and simple, reduce clutter and improve ease of use.

• Implement process improvement for development and CMS Contributors.

• Third Party integration with Oracle, Custom Product Builders, Salesforce and Hubspot.

Challenges Faced
The initial engagement for the MVC back-end development was delayed due to an underperforming vendor. I pivoted back-end development to an internal applications team that was experienced with MVC.  Through a mixture of in-house and offshore developers and SQA we were able to complete the system migration and develop the core functionality required for the new site.

Deploying new methods of work with agile and scrum took time and education to prove the results.  The benefits, documentation and productivity gains throughout the team were tremendous and agile is now a part of our daily process.

Business Benefits
Reduced average page load times by 4.5 seconds
Increased website traffic 20%
Increase Marketing Qualified Leads 212%
Improved Google Page Ranking to top 4 on top targeted keywords
Provided Search and filter functionality for over 600 products.

What I learned

• I learned the importance of user testing early and often to uncover the real pains that need to be addressed in a redesign and migration. Trusting second hand user feedback is like using elastic personas and will lead to rework and conflict. 

• I learned the complexities of dealing with external project managers on large migrations. Defining project requirements, working through business and design vocabulary issues and pivoting when needed for the health of the project and team is critical.  Maintaining clear communication and understanding of team progress and milestones throughout will help ensure a successful project. 

• I learned the many benefits of agile methodology for software development and that working with a small committed team with the right tools and support can move mountains.  Daily scrum meetings to remove challenges and provide updates keep project momentum up.  Short sprints keep the team focused and protected from project creep while providing tangible and incremental results for stakeholders.  Collaborative user story sizing / estimation and documentation allows for accurate capacity modeling and team support.

How the Problem was solved

• Commerce functionality was added to the site to allow for product categorization and searchability.  This included the addition of over 600 new products listings searchable by categories and attributes.

• During the CMS migration we implemented agile development practices for both the internal applications team working on the back-end MVC development and the marketing team working on front-end development. This increased productivity, improved documentation and made the team more responsive to iterative changes.

• We conducted multiple rounds of user testing during agile sprints. This allowed us to collect observations and feedback that were used to rapid prototype and improve the UI, features and functionality continuously during development.

• We initiated integrations with Hubspot for all form communications integrating to our Salesforce CRM for campaign and communications.  We integrated our product builders with Oracle pulling all pricing , as well as several other third party custom applications.