Off the hook: November 2018
My monthly journal about the journey to transform Hook&Loop and #ensw
Welcome to my world
My intent for these journal entries is to capture the moments of traction, obstacles and occasional defeats that we, meaning Hook&Loop, face. We continue to evolve our organization to make UX impact at Infor through our actions.
ENSW is a beast—vast and complex. As problem solvers we use our skillsets broadly to test, strive and deliver at scale. These decisions cause a domino effect due to all the areas they manifest, making strategic calls feel daunting. Sometimes we fail, but through our failures we learn which could be the biggest value of all.
Since taking the lead at Hook&Loop (May 2017), I have learned so much and realized I wasn’t ready for what I would encounter. The team wasn’t either because we were all coming from different experiences with their own complexity of problems, yet we were collectively challenged to drive change. I knew that doing something was key, and that’s what we did. By Inforum2018 (September: 15 months later), it was clear that we are actually beginning to do something that was working.
I know that I am feeling it, the team feels it and you just feel it in the office—team meetings, design reviews and monthly product stream strategy sessions. We’ve progressed from just defining how we want to work, to actually working that way, fostering better conversation, becoming more transparent with Infor, its customers and end users.
Hook&Loop leads by design while proving out the power of being design-led to transform people, processes, and products—in the context of Infor. If you care about enterprise software, design, the emerging workforce, mobility, or just new ways of figuring shit out, I hope you’ll join me on this journey.
Feel free to comment, share, or simply clap. All is welcomed!
Whoah 👶—Biggest Success
Minimal effort with maximum reward within a week
Kyriba, a SaaS-based treasury solutions provider and an Infor Partner, worked with Joseph on our team in Manila to leverage our design system to revise their product in the context of Infor. They applied our assets to their software, within key workflows to drive an integrated look and feel. It was a pleasure meeting Ramsey Saab, global VP of Sales, to hear the badass news.
Aww 💩: Biggest Opportunity to Learn
Attack process paralysis collectively
For years we worked within a Design System model (Soho) that used command and control to try to scale better UX across Infor—while it achieved consistency and continuity the 4-year investment was clunky. Evolution was slow, adoption was difficult, and it fundamentally alienated design progress given the process. A 1 hour meeting across leadership, product design, the design system turned into a 3+ hour meeting asking the hard questions: “What if we didn’t do product design at all, or took a stance on the development engagement, or went into an entirely new direction?”
When we, as a team, opened ourselves up to solving a different problem (Why try to fix when there’s an opportunity to work differently?), we found a new way of working that helps us re-purpose previous efforts, scales quicker, and lets us drive more impact and value for Infor. 4 years in the making, a 210 minutes of discussion enabled us to realize we have a goal and a means for traction in the next 4 months. Boom baby!—nice job IDS for addressing the infrastructure to better enable our design community.
Loopers in the wild
Not only does he always have the sickest sneaker game here, but Elan was interviewed for the #PeopleNerds series on data collection. While he is busy hardening our Infor CRM Mobile app, its always good to know we are out in the wild contributing to and learning from the industry.
Amazon to NYC: What happens to our talent pool?
When Amazon announced Long Island City as its new HQ2 I felt mucho concerned about retaining our amazing team members and hiring new members. I just had to reach out to our SVP of HR and our CEO. While I saw the glass half empty, they both saw it half full — that the diversity in the talent pool will expand, welcoming more people to this area and giving us access to an expanded pool of talent. I appreciated the differing view point.
Inforum2019: Hook&Loop OKRs
We level-set every year using Infor’s user forum — rather than aligning with the fiscal year — as the target for demonstrable impact. This constantly reminds us of what is most important: user satisfaction via product.
Here is what we are striving for:
- Design, Develop and Deliver—3 Hook&Loop mobile applications
- Evolve our Assets—Version 5 of our design system is broadcasted
- Optimize Collaboration—H&L Manila evolves the current product development process
- Drive Market Demand—Reposition Hook&Loop, foster market partnerships and build a talent pool for growth (Promote within first)
Infor’s mobile enterprise gateway
Within Infor there are different viewpoints on what a “Broad & Shallow” experience needs to support at an integrated suite experience for end-users. From our perspective we need to capitalized on our current offering and design a path forward that marries enterprise R&D enhancements and user acceptance through reduction and aggregation principles. Making good on the broad and shallow authoring a lightweight experience that surfaces up meaningful interactions and helps navigate the complexity of the deep and narrow power of our purpose-built apps.
On24 for Infor Expense
Big shout out to the team and Melanie for representing Infor Expense on a public-facing webinar, articulating the app’s value and our positioning on mobility within the enterprise. The key milestones this year rely heavy on ML and integration to keep the on-the-go business user productive and satisfied.
Fashion Institute of Technology: Think Tank & Intern Review
Our partnership with FIT via the Infor/FIT Design & Tech Lab (DTech) lets us engage with the next generation work force on a couple levels. We’re giving students and faculty access to business software to help solve real world problems in the lab and welcoming interns at Hook&Loop where they work side by side with our team. Two presentations at Infor this month — one on the partnership and work in the lab in general and one where the students presented the work they have done in the lab and at H&L, were amazing. Biggest takeaway — I can’t believe how well the students articulated the business need and design decisions they made. Looking forward to making a few of them full-time Loopers by Summer 2019.
Rebranding Hook&Loop
Given we are in our 6th year and transforming the organization means that the brand and our assets need to reflect our mission and support a more human view of our identity. The team has been exploring our ampersand to make it more representative of our product development process at Infor and give it a visual relationship to the Infor square logo. Mobile is authoring a new future state for H&L and Infor and we believe the brand needs to reflect the human-centeredness of the experience.
Curious about your thoughts as we finalize our new mark to launch in the New Year!
I ❤️ team
Welcome back Becca from your wedding and honeymoon (congrats!) — glad you’re here because we need you heavy on M3.
Nothing’s more exciting that new team members: 2 new designers have joined our team in Manila. Your contribution is creating space for our org to evolve strategically. THANKS!
Our two interns from FIT just rock! We’re lucky to have you on the team. Fashion Institute of Technology should be super proud of you!
