UX in Safe

Client

Whirlpool Manufacturing

Team

Lodestar Project

My Role

UX Design Consultant

Duration

2 years

Location

Remote

Growing the UX Design practice with Whirlpool Manufacturing

Context and Goal

At Whirlpool Manufacturing, the team is actively undergoing a digital transformation to SAFe Agile Scrum. They build custom enterprise software for Whirlpool manufacturing plants. My role on the team is to support the Lodestar software development team by using UX research and design methods to build tools that are useful and usable.

Outcomes

In 2 years on the job

I educated the client on UX processes that can support the team to reach team goals.
I advocated for UX by showing the value of considering user needs to build successful products. I also ensured time and budget for UX work was planned and implemented well.
I managed the UX work pipeline and collaborated with other designers. I onboarded each UX-er, managed the Jira Kanban Board, and took initiative to grow the roadmap of UX work.
I grew and maintained the client’s trust through timely delivery and provided support in their decision making.
I designed the MVP set of systems for 3 modules.

Onboarding

To understand the opportunities I took to create value, I have to introduce the environment of the job.

The Manufacturing Process

The users are experts in the manufacturing field. They are production operators, quality technicians, materials managers and more.

The SAFe Agile process

The client is a traditional, large organisation undergoing Agile transformation.

The Lodestar Team

The team builds custom B2B enterprise software, based largely on legacy systems and tribal knowledge.

The UX Designer

I was the first UX Designer with this client and had to educate the client and advocate for UX.

A picture inside of a manufacturing plant showing boxes, crates and racks feeding an assembly line

Whirlpool Plant Shop Floor (02/23)

Plant Site Visit

Within the first 3 months on the job, I got to visit a plant site which provided so much value in having tangible contextual knowledge.

From the plant tour and meeting with people from Materials, Quality and Production roles, it gave me a grasp of how some manufacturing processes impact each other, though this was just the surface.

“I’m not sure what we would need UX for, I think we got it. We don’t need UX right now.”

— Product Owner

“I guess you would create the look and feel?”

— Product Manager

Materials Project Context

Design a solution for the Materials Module to manage movement of parts in the warehouse, parts delivery to the line, tugger driver routes, and line side inventory.

The team I was on had a low agile maturity level; the PO was new to both Agile and software development.

They had already begun development, creating Jira tickets based on the business requirement of a new Materials Module. There was no MVP defined and scoping was unclear.

The team had no prior experience working with a UX-er so they did not understand the benefits of UX and how it could help bring clarity to the project.

A zoomed out image of a Figma canvas with many sections of iterations of wireframe designs and comments

Materials MVP Wireframes (02/23)

First time having designs before development work

I was creating wireframes heavily reliant on the team to give me the context and requirements I needed. As many common B2B user flows are task oriented and repetitive, simply understanding the task could produce solutions. However, designing the details of the interactions and flows in the best interest of the users were done with trust in the team to give the right context instead of a data-driven approach.

The more questions I asked, the more complex the problem space seemed to get. We simply did not have the resources to dive into the context of each user or each plant. Visualising the business requirements and applying basic UX principles was key in showing the value of UX and building mutual trust.

“I’m not developing anything without the Figma’s.”

— Developers

Reflections

Diving into a real world context of a problem space with high complexity includes working within budgets, vague business requirements, tight time constraints, and limited contact with users.

The goal was to set up good working processes with the team and learn from the many mistakes we were bound to make. We set our bases of Agile; we reviewed how to estimate tickets, set up cadence meetings, write user stories, set expectations and more.

Results

I learned about materials management. I gained contextual understanding of supply chain and warehouse management, up to delivery of parts to the line.
I collaborated with developers, PMs and POs, and stakeholders to create documentation, user flows, and Figma wireframes to tangibly visualise the features and functions of the Materials MVP product.
I bridged the business ask and the technical development by creating wireframes rapidly to build design runway. This put space between decision making and technical implementation to bring clarity to the project.
I tactfully included UX into the conversations of planning work to aid in story creation, sprint planning, and writing user stories that communicate user value.

A year down the road

The deployment of the Materials Module where design first got it’s hands in went well! This grew the credibility of the team for delivering the solution in the time planned. It showed the legitimacy of UX value, opening the door for other POs to ask for greater UX input on future work. Leveraging the planning support that UX provides, we were able to build longevity in decision making through a situation of change management; the user needs were still fulfilled by following through on the plan.

A screenshot of a text that says, "Hi guys! Updates for Materials has been going relatively well. We are now on Day 2 of testing with both shifts and the application is working as expected and operators are liking the product, especially how easy it is to use and navigate. We have gotten some suggestions for enhancements such as (blank), so overall the team is excited about the product. More to come as we finish out the week!!

— Product Owner

Quality Project Context

Design a solution for the Quality Module to manage their master data, reporting, and data entry screens to track the quality of production on the assembly line.

At the beginning of 2024 we had a yearly planning that did not account for design time for the new Quality Module. However, we had already done context gathering and UI explorations.

When MVP was discussed in detail and decisions were made, we had to do some major redesigns within 3 weeks to deliver in time for development. By this time, we were familiar with using the Angular Materials Library.

The Quality team comprised of developers that mostly transitioned from the Materials team. We also had a new PMPO without much agile experience, but many years in software and manufacturing.

Setting UX process

As the second time working with a PO that was new to Agile, and a little more experience in manufacturing, I saw value in creating a Confluence document for the UX practice specialised for the Lodestar Team. It outlined the process from before design can begin, to effective hand overs to developers. Creating efficiencies by defining procedure and implementing a common language with the team had immeasurable benefit.

Documentation includes:

Definition of Ready
Writing UX tickets
Figma File structure and navigation
Working Agreements
Approval processes
Definition of Done
Hand-off meetings
A formal QA process

A collage of some pages of a confluence document

Confluence Documentation

“This is going a lot smoother than we anticipated”

— Tech Lead

Results

I learned about how the quality of production is managed, the critical repercussions of quality inspections, it's effects on production metrics, and it's role in identifying lost or cost savings.
I put into practice a consistent and reliable working structure to help the team know what to expect from the design team. Communication with the team greatly improved, there is a co-dependency and collaboration on a two-way street. The team could trust that design would provide clarity.
Over time, the expectation became clearer that design needs at least one sprint of lead time, if not more than one month of lead time to make meaningful decisions.
Our Agile knowledge and practice improved in accuracy and consistency. Design's role in that began to diverge from being directly involved in story creation and estimation in the developers' velocity.

Backshop Production Module

Duration

Q1 2024 - Present

Scope

Aquire contextual knowledge, use OOUX methods for generative research, design both LoFi and HiFi wireframes to test with users. Design the Production Backshop Configurations screens and Dashboard visualisations. Basic design consultation on Backshop Downtime Entry, and Looker Studio reports.

Backshop Production Project Context

Backshop needed a solution similar to the Assembly Production module, that allows users to manage their master data, log downtime data entry, and provide dashboards and reporting. The MVP will be launched in 2 plants to replace or implement a digital solution that is easy to use and maintain.

A Scrum Master facilitated our team's first set of pre-plan sessions and official PI Planning. This was the first time UX was involved at the program level with insight to the team's intake process, epic creation, prioritisation and planning.

I advocated for UX work during PI planning. We managed to include UX enabler epics on the PI board before the development epics begins. This increased the lead times for design runway. We could ensure a greater quality of work with discovery and user involvement.

The Production team had a change in management. A PO with high tribal knowledge, direct communication channels to users, and ownership over the deployment process had left the team. However, a new PO brought new relationships that was a great opportunity for UX to be involved with work on the production team.

Building user feedback into the product

The benefits we reaped from more than a year of advocating for UX and pushing for user involvement early on in the cycle was manifesting. On the design of the Backshop Production Configuration system, we were able to have user involvement:

We conducted contextual discovery through informal user interviews on their current solution.
Defined MVP features based on the discovery findings and design the wireframes.
Prototyped the designs and prepared a round of user testing to include user feedback on the designs before it was handed off to the dev team.

This was a first for many stakeholders on the Lodestar team to work with designers at this capacity of detail and granularity on technical and contextual decisions. As consultants we work to make it easier for the business to make decisions on what and when to spend efforts on. Additionally, demonstrating greater depth of UX skill help to convince the team that there is value in investing time on discovery and relationship building with users.

A screenshot of Angelia conducting a user test with a blurred out screen of the design

Facilitating a user testing session

A zoomed out view of the screens and prototype created for testing

Prototype preparations

Results

I learned how Backshop Production differs from Assembly in it's ability to be more automated. Plants range in complexity from manual paper and pen management, to an adequately digitised management system.
It was a big win to realistically incorporate user feedback into the design to ensure the system is usable across different levels of exposure to a digital solution and that there was user buy-in across different plant contexts.
The Agile development process does not always have the flexibility that working with UXers and users need. Being constrained into sprints and relative estimates does not lend itself well to discovery work and ambiguous requirements. However, UX can adapt to be the bridge that translates user feedback into structured plans.
The team has come a long way in establishing efficiencies and growing it's trust and synergy. The communication and collaboration has been greatly improved which shows in being able to reliably deliver work building toward the client's long-term goals.

Final Reflection

Materials 03.2022 - 02.2023

A gantt timeline including: minimal planning, development, revised planning, revised development, hopeful deployment.

Quality 05.2023 - 03.2024

A gantt timeline including: some planning, design with minimal user input, development, deployment.

Backshop Production 03.2024 - Present

A gantt timeline including: thoughtful planning, design with user input, planning check in, development with clarity, deployment.

Growth of the team

Up to the 2 year mark on this team, the team made huge efforts to progress both the Agile and UX maturity level of the team.

The timelines above are a conceptual view of the process to go from hypothesis to ready for deployment. With each project, the steps we take and the time allocated to different supporting teams shows benefits towards developing with greater clarity. We cannot accurate compare the difference per project because of the difference in time spans, complexity of the project and scope.

Materials had minimal planning a change of scope more than half way through the year; design was only considered reactively. Quality had some level of planning and design discovery involved, which has resulted in a more robust product that gives users greater control over their tasks. Backshop being the project with the greatest amount of planning and design time resulted in a user friendly product achieved more efficiently over time.

Goals for the future

Make evaluative research a norm with new MVP designs.
Grow more relationships to influence the product before Epics are created. Allow room for generative research.
Refine the benchmarking process to ensure best quality of work is created. Build out a Design Standards guide as part of the design system to create efficiencies when working on UI.
Take a proactive approach to design work, aiming for one PI of lead time.