Design Sprint & Web Platform: B2B | RUBICON
INTEGRATING THE DESIGN SPRINT TO DEVELOP A WEB PLATFORM
“RUBICON did a fantastic job running the design sprint. They are true creative thinkers. Not only do they have the experience and knowledge, but they also bring a wealth of technical expertise to the table, making the process extremely efficient for us.”
(Ingmar van Maurik, COO of Making Moves B.V)
BACKGROUND
The Initial Product: Assessment-Training.com
In 2016, RUBICON collaborated with Making Moves B.V to help them build and launch their business- https://www.assessment-training.com/ To this day, RUBICON’s dedicated team helps support and grow Assessment Training.
What is Assessment Training?
It is a web platform that helps users prepare for their job assessments in the best way possible. The platform offers tests and packages ranging from numerical reasoning to verbal analogies, tailored for job seekers all around the world with different occupations. Customers are able to purchase the tests and packages in order to excel in their future job assessments.
THE PROJECT
After Assessment Training was launched and proved to be thriving in the market, Making Moves B.V recognized another audience with a potential business opportunity for further enhancement: organizations and recruiters.
Making Moves B.V requested for RUBICON to create a complete user-friendly and accessible platform called B2B, meeting the needs of organizations and recruiters.
THE WEB PLATFORM-B2B
What is B2B?
It is a cloud assessment platform that covers the gap between psychometric profiling and hiring. B2B is a web platform created for business organizations making the job of a recruiter much easier. Recruiters are given the opportunity to prepare candidates for their future jobs by connecting them to Assessment Training practice tests. Candidates are able to access the content and take part in online training sessions, ensuring that they come to their new jobs fully prepared.
How does it work?
Recruiters access their B2B dashboard where they are able to purchase credits to invite candidates for their online training sessions.
1 credit = 1 training.
The more credits you purchase, the better the price per training session. Prices currently look like this:
Recruiters choose the tests that suit their candidates and send them an invitation to access the training session. Afterwards, recruiters are able to check their candidate’s performance to see how they can help them further prepare for their job assessment.
B2B’s Goal
The goal behind B2B is to make it easy for recruiters to prepare their candidates for the job position they are looking to fill. Recruiters give job candidates direct access to Assessment Training helping them prepare for their job assessment in the best way possible. B2B required an efficient web platform that would meet the needs of recruiters.
PROJECT CHALLENGES
Software solution & UX/UI Design
To develop a complete platform solution that is efficient, fast and built around a user-friendly and simple UX/UI design. It needed to be easy for businesses and recruiters to access their B2B dashboards and invite customers to utilize the tests.
Targeting a niche audience
To build and design a product that would meet the needs of a very specific niche audience: recruiters. Researching, surveying and conducting tests to see what would benefit the audience.
THE PROCESS: DESIGN SPRINT
What is a Design Sprint?
A design sprint is a productive five-day process used for validating ideas through strong communication, prototyping and testing with real users.
The design sprint eliminates endless discussions and makes the product development process both fast and productive. At the end of the five-day process, participants are left with a complete prototype that has been tested, producing real data. After the sprint, the data can be analyzed ensuring a final decision can be made and the development process can begin.
Planning the sprint
Once Making Moves B.V proposed the business idea, it needed to be validated before being developed. The best way to organize our teams was to run our very own version of Google Venture’s Design Sprint.
Our design sprint took place in Sarajevo over the course of three days and the other two days were executed remotely with the client back in their Amsterdam office. We combined the skills of developers, designers, and product owners. A facilitator was assigned to oversee the events of the design sprint.
Design Sprint Week
After welcoming Making Moves B.V in our office in Sarajevo and introducing the process, we began the design sprint.
The following schedule outlines the series of events that were followed during the five-day sprint:
Mapping Monday (In Office)
- Welcome the Making Moves B.V team in our office space located in Sarajevo and explain the design sprint process.
- Conduct interviews with the client’s team and get to fully understand the business idea.
- Set up long-term goals and questions.
- Encourage each participant to create a map of users’ experiences.
- Organize the “How Might We” (HMW) wall by categorizing the stickies into different themes and having each participant vote on a target.
- Choose a target to focus on for the following day of the sprint.
Tuesday Sketches (In Office)
- Organize the lightning demos to inspire the participants by evaluating a range of solutions.
- Dive it up-Decide who will sketch which part of the map.
- Sketching & more sketching-Everyone takes the opportunity to sketch, conveying their solutions and idea.
- Planning out the recruitment of users for Friday’s testing procedure.
Wednesday Decisions (In Office)
- Sticky decisions- Review, analyze and discuss each presented solution.
- Note & Vote-Quickly gather ideas from the group and narrow it down to one final decision.
- Create a storyboard to plan the prototype.
Thursday Prototyping (Remote)
- Based on the storyboard, the team spends the day developing a realistic prototype.
- Share the prototype with the client’s team and seek approval.
Friday Testing (Remote)
- Making Moves B.V organizes the testing process bringing real customers (HR recruiters and businesses) to the office in Amsterdam having them test the web platform. The testing is video and audio recorded.
- The client measures, analyzes and organizes the data presenting it to the RUBICON team.
- Both teams analyze the data and MVP product deciding what further steps to take.
Design Sprint Challenges
Running the design sprint smoothly in & out of the office
Due to the schedule of B.V Making Moves, they could only be present in our office for the first three days of the design sprint so the prototyping and testing were done remotely. Our team communicated the prototype to the client and they took on the testing part of the design sprint. Strong communication between both teams was key.
Friday testing during the design sprint
The testing portion of the design sprint took place in the Amsterdam office on the very last day-Friday. A group of prototype users (recruiters) were invited to test the prototype and give feedback. Our team was not present during the testing process so the feedback and data needed to be efficiently communicated to our team. This challenge was overcome by recording the audio and video testing process so it could be viewed in Sarajevo as well.
Design Sprint Outcome
After Thursday’s prototyping and Friday’s testing, both teams analyzed the prototype and real data. The users that tested the website encountered no major issues. The minor issues found were common for all users, therefore, due to the testing process, they were easily fixed. The recruiters found navigating the website simple and convenient. After receiving positive results, we decided to start the development process to create the real web platform.
RESULTS
The design sprint was successfully held validating the business idea and producing a prototype to be tested. Our team built a web platform that easily connected the content of Assessment-Training.com to a valuable niche market of business organizations and their recruiters.
The web platform is functional, easily accessible and efficiently communicates between job recruiter and potential job candidate. B2B is a great addition to Assessment Training and a lucrative business opportunity for Making Moves B.V.
PROTOTYPING TOOLS
- Sketch
- InvisionApp
TECHNOLOGY STACK:
- ASP.NET Web APIs
- Angular 6
- Entity Framework
- Azure PaaS services: Azure App Service, Azure SQL Database, Azure Blob Storage, Azure Storage Queues
PROJECT SCREENSHOTS:
About the Client
B.V Making Moves specializes in developing software for human resource management solutions. Their products mainly include websites and applications. The core business focuses on training and preparing candidates for their job applications. Their goal is to make moves in careers.
INFORMATION:
Company name: Making Moves B.V
Region: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Industry: Human Resources
Duration: 2017-present
Staff: Less than 10 people
Project: Web Platform
Originally published at https://www.rubicon-world.com.
