Turning Endless Loops of Frustration into Simple Program Delivery

How systematic thinking and design cut our average development cycle from 4 months to 3 weeks

Annotated diagram of a business program card interface showing the Coach Accelerator Bonus program with labeled elements including program title, description, text link, current month display, amount earned tracker, card component boundary, and large checkbox indicators for tracking new client signups

The Problem

Leadership requested new coach business programs every 3 months, but our team was taking 4 months to build one. Every person was already behind by the time they started. Management was frustrated, and the product management team was stuck in endless meetings trying to figure out what to do.

After experiencing 3 of these cycles firsthand, I started to pick up on a few patterns the business programs shared: Time-bound challenges with rank-based requirements and each request started from scratch, creating bottlenecks and team tension.

Our Approach

I interviewed product managers and company stakeholders and gathered the information needed to understand what was going on, then analyzed the requirements from my interviews as well as what I could learn about previous program requests and identified the underlying system.

All programs shared the same core variables:

Hand-drawn sketches showing three core variable concepts: a timeline with bidirectional arrow, monthly requirements depicted with checkmarks and wavy lines, and rank-based qualifications illustrated with three medallion icons

Instead of designing another one-off solution, I proposed building a flexible system that could accommodate future programs. I worked with the product management team to build a case for this approach and presented it to leadership.

Hand-drawn wireframe sketch of a program card component with annotations pointing to key elements: program title, description text, text link, month indicator, card component boundary, and requirements checkbox area

The Solution

I designed a modular program framework that abstracted the common elements while allowing for customization of specific requirements. This covered all historical program types and could adapt to new variations without custom development.

Design system diagram showing the modular business program framework with the Coach Accelerator Bonus as an example, illustrating how program components (title, description, dates, progress tracking) can be configured and reused across different business programs Side-by-side comparison of mobile dashboard and desktop profile preview screens showing the Coach Accelerator Bonus program implementation with personalized greetings, rank progress indicators, client signup tracking checkboxes, and performance metrics including frontline qualifying volume

Impact

This system reduced the 4-month development cycle to 3 weeks. Leadership requests could actually be delivered on time, and details about incentives for coaches were delivered within the time they needed to prepare their teams.

Why This Worked

Instead of treating each business program request as a unique design challenge, I recognized it as an organizational problem that needed a systematic solution. Sometimes the best design work happens behind the scenes beyond the high tension emotions and drama - I used critical and systems thinking to identify the root cause and solved the real problem rather than just continuing to deliver what was requested.

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