Case study:
Building an eCommerce platform for T-Mobile for Business prospect customers
I joined T-Mobile for Business as a Senior Digital Experience Manager, tasked with driving a net new eCommerce experience for small to medium (SMB) prospect customers, responsible for owning and driving all business, user experience, and merchandising requirements.
What: Build a scalable platform with a beautiful, usable UX, which we could optimize and extend over time.
For: Small to medium business owners, specifically the micro segment (twelve lines or fewer).
With: Great partners (in UX, Engineering, Sales Ops, and Marketing).
When: 2020 Q1 (catalog); 2020 Q4 (cart).
Challenges
In addition to an aggressive schedule, a tight budget, and a platform blank slate, the UX resources were thin. Additionally, shortly after onboarding, we underwent a merger and enterprise-wide re-org.
It’s a good thing I don’t shy away from a good challenge cuz I was thrown right into the fire.
Solutions
Staying cool and focused was crucial. I met with every partner and stakeholder I could find and forged relationships in order to as quickly as possible lock arms and build a healthy, functioning three-legged stool (read: team).
Stronger together, we were able to focus on the work, resourcing, building a roadmap, and securing funding while the dust settled. I drafted, contributed to, and socialized the foundational documents (business case and requirements; guiding principles; schedule; roadmap and strategy) necessary to align the leadership teams, which enabled us to move forward aligned.
Impact
Once the team was fully staffed and had a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities, we were well on our way. We emerged from the merger and re-org with a shared vision, set of clearly defined goals, a schedule, and priorities. We shipped the catalog on time, as planned, in Q1 of 2020 .
Learnings
Is there a limit to the number of times you can learn change is a constant and the best thing to do in the middle of it is stay calm and prioritize? This project was a reminder.
By locking arms with my partners, we were able to continue to make progress against our goals, even in the middle of the storm. And as soon as the wind died down, we could see the shore.
