FUTURE BACK MOBILE APPS WORKSHOP
Creating a mobile app strategy for
Allegion's Global Software Systems
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KEY GOAL
I co-facilitated a high-stakes, "future-back" brainstorming session with US-based General Managers and business leaders. The goal was to break down silos between business units to define a cohesive, global mobile app strategy for Allegion.
HIGH LEVEL TIMELINE
MAKE OF THE TEAM
2 weeks of preparation for a full day workshop
UX Designer
UX Researcher (myself)
UI intern
SYSTEMS USED
Mural
Microsoft Teams
In person office space and the corresponding room technology
THE CHALLENGE
Allegion's various business units were developing mobile applications independently, leading to technical debt and a fragmented user experience.
The need to address this issue was brought to my co-facilitator and I with the hopes that we could host a workshop to achieve the following:
1) Identify commonalities: Recognize that our different business units have more in common than they realize. This would help ensure that we all at least start on the same foot and foster empathy.
2) Leverage shared resources: Transition toward a "build it once, reuse everywhere" philosophy to minimize tech debt. As Allegion pivots more into software from hardware, senior leadership emphasized that this was an important goal to get the group to agree on.
3) Anticipate the future: Use "Future-Back" thinking to look 5-10 years ahead, ensuring current development aligns with long-term goals. This framework was recently shared with the audience for the workshop so we leveraged that familiarity to create this workshops structure.
Organizing use cases according to persona for each product area
WORKSHOP DESIGN
The day was designed to move from broad empathy to specific actionable themes
We began by aligning on who we are building software products for. I shared with workshop participants the UX Research personas I developed that were most prominent and identifiable to our audience. Key personas identified included the Facility Manager, the Integrator, Installer and Maintenance Technicians.
Using a creative matrix, we as a group brainstormed how mobile technology specifically addresses identity & security (mobile credentials), ubiquity (everyone has a mobile phone), and convenience (meeting the user at their point of need).
This activity was critical as it helped demonstrate the cross over between personas, objectives and tools which would allow for more creative and collaborative thinking as the day went on.
KEY OUTCOMES & IMPACT
Participants recognized that despite different titles, many personas are performing nearly identical jobs across business units.
Having this idea clearly visualized in a matrix they helped build allowed for the group to agree on the importance of building common infrastructure and standardized protocols to enable faster scaling.
As a result of this workshop a "triad team" model was established to maintain consistent touchpoints across brands over the next 60 days.
TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK
LESSONS LEARNED
Sending out a post workshop survey was helpful to learn where we could improve and also demonstrated to workshop participants that we deeply valued their time and effort.
While we accommodated remote users, after the workshop the consensus was that the unique benefits of in person collaboration are vital for these "thorny" strategic discussions.
We experimented with AI generated stickies to increase speed, but found they sometimes sacrificed the nuance required, but are willing to test this again as the technology develops.