The Elegant Solution to Stakeholder Chaos
With no time for traditional UX process, I developed a rapid decision framework to cut through the chaos
1) Does it serve the daily user (sales manager)?
2) Can we build it in time?
3) Does it prove business value?
Rather than building three different dashboards, I found a way to satisfy everyone with one flexible design:
The "User vs. Team" Strategy: For VP Sales and Sales Managers, I created exactly the same dashboard with one crucial difference - where Sales Managers saw "USERS" (individual rep data), the VP saw "TEAMS" (aggregated team data). Same interface, different perspective. Each manager saw their version perfectly tailored to their needs.
This lens kept us focused when stakeholders suggested feature creep and ensured every design choice moved us toward our core objective.
For Sales Ops, I made targeted adjustments - removed the meetings widget and customized other widgets to show their specific operational information.
Decision-Making Framework
With limited time and competing demands, we used a simple but effective criteria for feature prioritization:
Business strategy alignment - what was a killing feature for our competitive advantage?
Technical feasibility - what could our backend aggregations actually deliver in the given timeframe?
The Decision Trio: Major calls were made collaboratively between myself, the PM, and the company director (who brought valuable sales field experience to the table). This kept decisions grounded in both user needs and business reality.
Validation Approach
We didn't need traditional validation testing in this case - this was a startup environment with performance systems already in place. We could see the dynamics and impact ourselves in real-time, allowing for immediate course corrections based on actual usage patterns rather than theoretical testing scenarios.
