CrossLead

summary

CrossLead is an advisory services company with a software solution that enables complex organizations to operate with the speed and adaptability of a small team. Drawing from shared experiences transforming the US counter-terrorism effort from a siloed, hierarchical apparatus into a high-performing network, we developed CrossLead to scale the adaptability of small teams to the enterprise level. It removes silos, eliminates dysfunctional practices, and dramatically increases the pace at which organizations can operate and succeed in complex environments. Our founder and CEO, David Silverman, co-authored the New York Times bestselling book Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World which details the methodology that we implement with our clients. Originally founded in 2011 as McChrystal Group, LLC, CrossLead spun off in 2016 to scale our software-enabled leadership solution to empower organizations to minimize uncertainty and thrive in ambiguity. Based in Washington DC, we work with corporations and nonprofits globally.

role

I worked with the CrossLead team as a Product Designer and general advisor on the product development process in a long-term consulting role. My job was to help the Product Managers and CEO refine the product vision, focus the product around primary use cases, create wireframes, present design proposals to key stakeholders, create final design deliverables, and facilitate design handoff to the engineering team for implementation.

Highlights

Led an enterprise-wide UX overhaul for a SaaS platform used by Fortune 500 clients.
Assisted CEO and company PMs with defining the product through written specs and wireframes.
Introduced process improvements to enhance communication between design and engineering.
Created final design deliverables and facilitated handoff for implementation.

Metrics Import

Introduction

One of the key elements that enables CrossLead to serve as a valuable management tool is the ability to track metrics against goals and see progress in key metrics over time. Much of this data must still be manually imported, so CrossLead offers a tool to upload a spreadsheet of values to import data. As spreadsheets can come in various formats, values from the spreadsheet must be mapped to current metrics saved in the platform for data consistency.

Design

My overall approach with this project was to attempt to get the user through the importing flow as quickly as possible by putting faster options (like applying a previous template) in front of slower options (manually mapping cell-by-cell). In this way, a user is able to go all the way down to the cell-by-cell level if they need that level of granularity, but only after easier and faster options have failed to fit their needs. All designs for this project were either created by me or pulled from our design style guide which was a collaboration between me and another designer.

Artboard Copy 6.png — 1. Upload spreadsheet

The first step lets you upload a spreadsheet. This version shows a spreadsheet upload in progress.

Artboard Copy 11.png — 2. Apply template

Once the spreadsheet uploads, the page automatically transitions to a template selector, or you can choose to continue without a template. If you use a previous template, you jump directly to the last step, which is an import preview.

Artboard Copy 12.png — 3. Configure by column

If you choose not to use a template, you get a page that attempts to map entire spreadsheet columns from your spreadsheet as either metric values or dates for those observations. A user can toggle the “data type” between dates and values to change the display format of the text and enable/disable the metric name option. My thought here from the UX perspective was to make this as easy to understand as possible by writing out the logic in plain English. If these options don’t look right, you can “manually map values instead” using the button at the bottom. Otherwise, clicking “next” here will take you to the import preview screen.

Artboard Copy 15.png — 4. Manually map (step 1)

If you choose to manually map, there are two steps. The first step above exists so you can tell the platform which metrics you are updating.

Artboard Copy 13.png — 5a. Manually map (step 2)

The next step is a side-by-side spreadsheet that you can use to map values from your spreadsheet to the import preview. I also wrote the helper text that explains how to use this screen. **You must complete one of these screens for each metric you are updating. The goal was to keep the import preview simple by having users go one metric at a time (so it will only ever be two columns on the left).

Artboard Copy 14.png — 5b. Manually map (interactions)

Here are some sample interactions for this screen. Cells on the right with a blue border have been assigned to the import preview. The red dots show mouse clicks. The red dot on the right illustrates the ability to select multiple cells at once.

Artboard Copy 16.png — 6. Import preview

Finally, this page shows the import preview along with any errors detected. Once all errors have been addressed, you can “finish import” in the top right.

Product Design Leader