J.Blanchard.Portfolio
From Expert Services to a New SaaS Product
Digital Innovation & Services Platform Design
Challenge
Genioo is a leading global provider of project strategy & management services. Looking to scale, they had a hypothesis that there was whitespace in the market for a new kind of project management application; one that would combine best practices along with access to resources and expertise. They sought an external perspective and design leadership to explore this market, identify the core features such a product should have, and how it might extend their offering & reach in the project management space.
Process
Over an initial research & design phase of 4 months, my team identified the leading jobs to be done of company leaders who take on special business projects, using qual & quant methods. We mapped an abstracted project leader's journey, then began a series of design sprints, systematically testing desirability for numerous potential value propositions that could satisfy customer needs.
Through multiple iterations, we winnowed down, reframed, and uncovered additional product opportunities, while assessing high-level feasibility and corresponding UX for the emergent SaaS product. Finally, we prioritized likely features into alpha, beta and MVP build phases, identified market segments & size, and proposed an initial G2M plan, including supporting services for integration with the core business.
Outcome
Genioo's executive team & board found the resulting designs and product strategy to be much more sophisticated than expected. They approved an initial 1-year build to produce the MVP and begin testing with early users. Our team has now started developing the SaaS product, including redesigning core services within the organization to equip Genioo to support this product through its launch and initial growth.
One key finding through concept testing was that customers highly value such a product as channel for engaging services Genioo already offers, thereby providing both a key differentiator as well as a natural bridge to reach their market with a feature-limited MVP.
