Case study

Zenhub — Plan and execute software right where it’s built.

ZenHub board used to manage software projects

I lead the design at ZenHub. Building a product serving thousands of agile focused companies

Insights shown on the board as users progresses through agile events

Roadmap used to give a higher level view of ongoing projects

ZenHub is a project management tool focused on the developer way of working. By leveraging GitHub, developers are able to stay where they work while Project managers get the most accurate and up to date data to plan projects.

Objective

Design a product that delivers agile at scale

Role

Staff Product Designer

Timeline

Projects over 5 years

ZenHub's mission is to make managing software projects more simple, transparent, and accurate.

Developers

Developers transform code into apps and features that contribute to the delivery of the final product. Because of this, developers are often asked to provide project updates in order to give visibility on project delivery.

Process owners

Project managers plans and manages the delivery of software from insights to execution. The communication between project managers and developers drive the efficiency and accuracy of a project delivery.

unique challenges

Agile proficiency

Understanding every agile expert was once a beginner

Data driven impact

Creating data insights for predictability

Using other platforms

Leverage GitHub for the developer experience

Establish processes

Different team process. Kanban, scrum, scrumban

Build to scale

Designing for teams of 10 to teams of 24,000

Design a system

Building out a cohesive design system

P1 MULTI-ACTION

Updating issues can be dreadful so we set out to improve that.

Project managers want to get the most accurate and up to date information to manage a project. How might we minimize the interactions between developers and project management tools so that they can spend less time manually updating issues and more time delivering code.

Heuristics analysis

Start by understanding what works and what can be improved.

Tap to restart

V1. Power-user feature to allow quick actions on multiple issues

Tap to restart

V2. Increase engagement, add discoverability and flexibility

Tap to restart

Multi-action reduced the number of repetitive tasks and the steps it took to give an update. Quick wins can have huge impact in the overall experience and often cost less effort than feature work.

Project results

Since launch it has been identified as one of the top actions for a successful customer. Over 300k actions and countless hours of time saved per month

Methods

Heuristic analysis
Iterative releases
First click test
Facilitated usability study

P2 Workflow automation

Using workflow trends to automate team actions.

Automation rules allows teams to be more flexible but still function as one company. Sprints can be different and between teams can work whatever way they want. The goal was to improve customer happiness

Teams work in various ways. Even within the same organization there are many different ways to run a project. How might we support workflow flexibility and still maintain a cohesive process across teams?

Workflows project

We created a feature that not only allows teams to set automation rules based on issue statuses, but also visualize how the all the teams in your organization function as a whole

Workflows notification sent after board action

Workflows on the board

Dragging and dropping a card in one Workspace can automate a movement in another team's Workspace

Automatic sprint workflows

By understanding the activities involved in planning and executing a sprint, steps such as creation, or moving incomplete issues can be carried out by automation every cycle

Project results

Since launch it has been identified as one of the top actions for a successful customer. Over 327K issues have been automated due to workflows.

Methods

5 day design sprint
Test case mapping
Journey mapping
Facilitated usability study

P3 Roadmap

Building a roadmap directly tied with the delivery of code.

We set out to allow teams to use to show progress and manage a long term goal so that teams can have faster responses to unexpected changes or project delivery challenges

Identifying touch points

Taxonomy exercise

Impact vs effort

Wireframes

Having the roadmap directly aligned with the delivery of code allowed for stakeholders and engineers to speak the same language

Plan ahead

Add projects, epics to the Roadmap to see a clear picture of what your team is delivering in the next 6 months

Predict end date

Predict if something will be at risk of being late if things are not getting completed

Project progress

Track issues directly on the roadmap to see the real-time accurate updates on projects

Project results

Over 50k roadmaps created. Brand new product offering. Introduced new types of personas into the product.

Methods

5 day design sprint
Taxonomy study
Guided usability tests
First impression tests

Outcome + learnings

What started as a simple board scaled to a platform serving some of the top fortune 100 companies.

Working closely with customers

I was fortunate enough to work with customers who were genuinely excited to see new features being built and being part of that process.

Iterating fast and look for wins

ZenHub being an agile tool to help others ship faster and more efficiently, constantly iterating through frequent testing and releases allowed us to achieve small wins faster. Being goal oriented meant focusing on frequent deliver for faster feedback.

Experiment with removing ambiguity

Experimenting with different techniques to validate as early as possible helps to remove ambiguity. From surveys, pretotpying, to design sprints, these methods allowed us to validate faster and ship more intentionally.

Fundraising

$4.7M in seed round

User growth

From 100 to over 150,000 daily active users since starting

Customers

Used by over 2000 companies

Account growth

1 team with over
24k team members

Get in touch

Looking for a product designer to help grow your product?

Let's chat! I love working on new challenges with passionate teams that want to build amazing things.

Case study

Zenhub — Plan and execute software right where it’s built.

I lead the design at ZenHub. Building a product serving thousands of agile focused companies

ZenHub is a project management tool focused on the developer way of working. By leveraging GitHub, developers are able to stay where they work while Project managers get the most accurate and up to date data to plan projects.

Objective

Design a product that delivers agile at scale

Role

Staff Product Designer

Timeline

Projects over 5 years

ZenHub's mission is to make managing software projects more simple, transparent, and accurate.

Developers

Developers transform code into apps and features that contribute to the delivery of the final product. Because of this, developers are often asked to provide project updates in order to give visibility on project delivery.

Process owners

Project managers plans and manages the delivery of software from insights to execution. The communication between project managers and developers drive the efficiency and accuracy of a project delivery.

unique challenges

Agile proficiency

Understanding every agile expert was once a beginner

Data driven impact

Creating data insights for predictability

Using other platforms

Leverage GitHub for the developer experience

Establish processes

Different team process. Kanban, scrum, scrumban

Build to scale

Designing for teams of 10 to teams of 24,000

Design a system

Building out a cohesive design system

P1 MULTI-ACTION

Project managers want to get the most accurate and up to date information to manage a project. How might we minimize the interactions between developers and project management tools so that they can spend less time manually updating issues and more time delivering code.

V1. Power-user feature to allow quick actions on multiple issues

V2. Increase engagement, add discoverability and flexibility

Multi-action reduced the number of repetitive tasks and the steps it took to give an update. Quick wins can have huge impact in the overall experience and often cost less effort than feature work.

Project results

Since launch it has been identified as one of the top actions for a successful customer. Over 300k actions and countless hours of time saved per month

Methods

P2 Workflow automation

Automation rules allows teams to be more flexible but still function as one company. Sprints can be different and between teams can work whatever way they want. The goal was to improve customer happiness

Teams work in various ways. Even within the same organization there are many different ways to run a project. How might we support workflow flexibility and still maintain a cohesive process across teams?

Project results

Since launch it has been identified as one of the top actions for a successful customer. Over 327K issues have been automated due to workflows.

Methods

P3 Roadmap

We set out to allow teams to use to show progress and manage a long term goal so that teams can have faster responses to unexpected changes or project delivery challenges

Having the roadmap directly aligned with the delivery of code allowed for stakeholders and engineers to speak the same language

Plan ahead

Add projects, epics to the Roadmap to see a clear picture of what your team is delivering in the next 6 months

Predict end date

Predict if something will be at risk of being late if things are not getting completed

Project progress

Track issues directly on the roadmap to see the real-time accurate updates on projects

Project results

Over 50k roadmaps created. Brand new product offering. Introduced new types of personas into the product.

Methods

Outcome + learnings

What started as a simple board scaled to a platform serving some of the top fortune 100 companies.

Working closely with customers

I was fortunate enough to work with customers who were genuinely excited to see new features being built and being part of that process.

Iterating fast and look for wins

ZenHub being an agile tool to help others ship faster and more efficiently, constantly iterating through frequent testing and releases allowed us to achieve small wins faster. Being goal oriented meant focusing on frequent deliver for faster feedback.

Experiment with removing ambiguity

Experimenting with different techniques to validate as early as possible helps to remove ambiguity. From surveys, pretotpying, to design sprints, these methods allowed us to validate faster and ship more intentionally.

Fundraising

$4.7M in seed round

User growth

From 100 to over 150,000 daily active users since starting

Customers

Used by over 2000 companies

Account growth

1 team with over24k team members

Get in touch

Looking for a product designer to help grow your product?

1 team with over
24k team members