As an introduction to the module System Design, we were given a starting point as an article by Lynda Gratton in the Economic Times. Our first step was to analyse the article and extract a possible idea to work upon during the week long assignment. We pitched for correcting the current system of job appraisals and possibly expanding the concept to cover remote workers. We were asked to broaden it and thus the idea was converted to be a more holistic one, i.e., to look at how project management could be handled in emerging work cultures. We took the inspiration of design collectives as well as Zappos recent move to a holacratic way of organisation.

We first decided to do some preliminary research on the existing products in the market as well as sent out a questionnaire to startup founders that we knew. Trello, Asana, basecamp, Podio, Flow were some apps we studied briefly. Our Survey showed us that many smaller startups/collectives (our target audience) used a combination of free tools and didnt bother so much about the logistics or expense tracking.

Thus the survey was instrumental in helping us understand what should be the focus of our product. We decided to differentiate ourselves from the approach followed by the existing companies. We decided to make the system more visual.

We then worked on ideas of the flow in the system as well as the information architecture. After which we decided to brainstorm and come up with different visual ideas. We came up with 15 ideas at the end of the session and after looking at their pros and cons we decided to finalise on the 'constellation concept'.

The application was to be across platforms and devices and we also teased it being used with a wearable device in the concept video. The tasks could be added on the go as well as grabbed on the go.

Watch the video below which illustrates how we believe the system could be used.

This project was a group project worked on by Neelam, Parul, Pramiti and me in the time duration of 1 week.