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A project management tool to help managers document decisions made during a project
We noticed that in spite of project management tools like jira and Trello existing, project managers still relied on their team, hand written notes or even memory to revisit old decisions.
The idea of backtrack (as described by the business) is to allow project managers track key decisions made during the project along with their reasons. This not only allows PMs to have a better understanding of the project, but also take more informed decisions in the future.
We decided to follow the double diamond design process for this project.
Being in the ‘Discover phase, our aim for user research were as follows:
See if backtrack is even a necessary product for people
See how project managers function (their likes, dislikes, how they work, how they log decisions)
Know their expectations from a tool like backtrack
We interviewed 5 Project Managers over the span of 5 days.
The WHAT was recorded, not the WHY - what change needs to be made is recorded, not why it needs to be made.
This leads to things like not fully understanding the project by team members and confusion down the line.
All 5/5 managers we interviewed agreed that due to heavy schedules, tracking reasons behind decisions is not a priority, but everyone agreed it was important
Looking back at slack messages by searching for key words
Going through the notes written on pen and paper
Comparing document versions to look for differences
Checking the BRDs and FRDs.
These documents however don’t answer WHY a certain decisions was taken.
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The idea was to build a product that not only helped you track the changes made during a project, but also the reasons behind these changes.
In case of any confusion during the project, decision tracking helps PM advocate their point factually.
Avoiding confusion helps gain the customers trust.
Helps PMs to come up with informed suggestions to provide the customer as they have a better understanding the customers reasons from the past.
A PM on a new project feels lost if they aren’t aware of WHY the project is moving the way it is. They need to do a lot of self research to understand the project, which can be aided with BackTrack
Click here for the whole research report (it’s a notion document)
We found there are 2 distinct types of project managers with 2 separate ways of doing things:
People oriented, is particular about delivering on time, wins trust by building friendships
Very keen about tracking everything, loves micromanaging, wins trust by meeting deadlines
We found there are 2 distinct types of project managers with 2 separate ways of doing things:
Figure out where in the project management process can BackTrack step in
How it can be of maximum help to managers
This is not a high priority job in spite of being important
Project managers do not have a lot of time for this
Simple
Organised
Collaborative
In order to motivate our users to log decisions.
We could get the managers to compulsorily log their project details in BackTrack at the beginning of the project. That way, we have a foot in the door as we already hold some value for the managers. (their “hook” to keep coming back to us)
We could ask the managers to log details after each sprint too.
We could have decisions approved from the client for maximum transparency and ease.
We would also have to make looking for previous decisions simple. They should be easy to look at and easy to understand why they were taken. Kinda like a universal search like Notion’s.
(this feature was picked up in later versions as universal search)
In the beginning of each sprint, we could ask them to log what’s needed from that sprint as output (which is usually routine for them, so hopefully it won’t feel like extra effort), with a dedicated field for why that output was decided. This will keep everything documented in one place.y
We knew the solutions we brainstormed were rife with assumptions. The best next thing to do was to have a basic MVP out there and test it. That’s exactly what we did!
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That’s all from the project Backtrack for now.
Next, we worked on the feedback from the user research for our MVPs, did a whole lot of stake holder management and added cool new features like universal search and admin access. But that’s a whole different case study.
