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Automating workstations
bookings in 2 days

Automating workstations booking in 2 days

Yara — 2018

Yara — 2018

Yara — 2018

My role

Product Designer

Industry

IT

Duration

4 months

Duration

2 days

Problem

Yara International, a leading global crop nutrition company, has always supported home-office flexibility even before the pandemic. However, managing fewer workstations than employees was challenging. The facilities teams at their three offices in Brazil handled nearly 30 daily workstation booking requests - all manually managed.

Outcome

This solution was designed in 2 days, during a hackathon at SAP in 2019, where teams would work on real problems from real customers. We designed an app to automate workstations bookings for Yara Brasil, saving their facilities team and employees hours of work and waiting time.

Background

In 2019, while working at SAP as a Product Designer, I participated in a 2-day hackathon. Teams were given 2 days to develop solutions for specific problems, with the best solution receiving resources to work on an MVP for the customer. Our client was Yara Brasil, and our project won, allowing us to work on it for three months to implement our product.

The team was made of one business analyst, two developers and me leading the research and design.

Understanding
the problem

This problem was brought to us by the facilities team, responsible for maintaining Yara’s offices in Brazil. Their role included managing workstations bookings, keeping offices organized, stocked with necessary supplies, and ensuring a safe and pleasant environment for all employees.

To understand the problem space better, I conducted semi-structured interviews with three team members from two offices. The interviews started with a standard structure but allowed for exploration when potential workflow issues were spotted.

Workstations
bookings

Workstations were always a problem. By the time the hackathon happened, the process was being done manually. Whenever an employee had to go to the office, they had to send an email to the facilities team, telling them the day and period they needed a desk, wait up to 72 hours for their reply, and then have their clearance to go to the office. While the process seemed simple, the facilities team received around 30 requests daily, all managed manually in a spreadsheet, which created a significant workload.

Booking cancellations turned out to be another major problem. Many employees would cancel their bookings without notifying the facilities team, leading to empty desks that couldn’t be reassigned on short notice.

How might we

streamline the process of booking workstations for Yara's employees and ease the daily work of the facilities team?

streamline the process of booking workstations for Yara's employees and ease the daily work of the facilities team?

A new way to book

During brainstorming sessions with the facilities team and four employees from Yara, we quickly conceived a potential solution: a mobile app. This app would allow employees to easily book workstations, simplifying the process for the facilities team and enabling them to focus on their primary goal of providing an excellent workspace for everyone, as well as enhancing the employee's experience.

Lo-fi sketches & prototyping

Because all of us were part of the entire process, I organized a Crazy 8 session with my teammates. We generated valuable ideas which helped me to concisely create the first sketches for our solution.

After we structured our solution, we put together a Proof of Concept on Power Apps, so we could test our solution within the 2 days. After the testing sessions, I worked in the high-fidelity prototype while the developers delivered an Architecture proposal and the Business Analyst delivered a roadmap and a story mapping.

We tested our prototype with four members of the facilities team and four of Yara's employees. Their feedback was very positive, and they shared valuable feedback and ideas that we got to implement later when working on the MVP.

We ended up being the winning team, and then had the following three months to work on our solution.

Measuring
our success

Measuring our success

Measuring our success

With our solution, we got to:

• reduce the response time for employees to book a workstation, from 72 hours to 0, by allowing them to manage their bookings through the app;

• ease the daily work of the facilities team, by removing altogether their need to manage bookings and allowing them to focus on more important tasks.

Reflecting on
the outcomes

Reflecting on the outcomes

Reflecting on the outcomes

1

Collaboration is key

Working with a new team, we didn’t know each other initially. To ensure effective collaboration, I held a quick session where everyone shared their preferred way of working. This was very important over the next two days as it helped us understand each other’s work habits and adjust accordingly;

2

Design as if you're right, test as if you're wrong

While we conducted some research, we also relied on our assumptions to design the solution. We prioritized testing our designs instead of heavily focusing on research to validate these assumptions, which proved to be an efficient approach given our tight two-day timeframe.

Shall we grab a coffee?

Let’s talk projects, collaborations, or anything design!

Shall we grab a coffee?

Let’s talk projects, collaborations, or anything design!

Shall we grab a coffee?

Let’s talk projects, collaborations, or anything design!

Shall we grab a coffee?

Let’s talk projects, collaborations, or anything design!