Case Study — Partner Operations

Channel Partnerships PRM

Senior product designer owning how growth opportunities and partner accounts of various scales are prioritized and displayed to managers to enable strategic growth conversations. My success led to product growth and led to future engagements with other MAANG and major social app clients enabling me to grow a design team from 1 to 4.

ClientThe world's largest video sharing platform

While Employed AtRed Argyle

Impact

30%

increase in CSAT scores from channel partner managers, meausured by a dedicated user researcher.

Reduced the need for two external data analytics tools, reducing swivel-chairing

Owned design of features based on program initiatives from 5 program managers.

Ownership

As the only designer for the first year of the engagement, I owned the end-to-end experience of how business initiatives and partners of various scales are prioritized and displayed to managers to enable strategic growth conversations. I led the design process from understanding 5 programs and KPIs, collaborating with PMs on what to build, designing, facilitating feedback, and developer hand-off. I hired and mentored additional designers to support new product areas overtime including case studies.

User Challenges

Partner managers struggle with where to direct their efforts given the high volume of channel partners they oversee.

Large partner managers are looking for focused ways to grow their channel partner's engagement.

Outcome

Incorporating data insights such as dashboards and automating AI-powered next best action item recommendations, allows them to quickly determine action items and spend more time connecting with channel partners.

Design Process

Understand

I used a learn-as-you-go approach to understanding channel partnerships. I documented everything including vocabulary, personas, stakeholders in a google sheet that I later used to onboard a second designer.

Validate

A dedicated user researcher shared insights on CSAT scores and pain points, which I accounted for alongside Product Owner requirements.

Discover

I designed multiple versions of each feature that I could pressure test across personas.

Align

I facilitated group workshops as needed to mitigate conflicting priorities between 5 Product Owners while advocating for 3 user groups as the only designer.

Design

I designed with a combination of SLDS and Material Design, crafting a custom design system which I later used across the MAANG clients other internal tools.

Home Page Design

Portfolio Managers

Problem

After adding new features and product areas, Portfolio Managers need clear direction on where to direct efforts while managing a large portfolio.

Solution

I suggested a rework of the home page including an AI-powered "Urgent Actions" feature.

Alignment

I pitched the idea to the PO who would likely receive it best to gain support before pitching more broadly.

Design

A list component for each product area, showing a priority badge for urgent actions.

Portfolio Manager urgent actions component

Problem

Product Owners struggled to agree which Product Area was most important to influence hierarchy for the list, and there were so many lists and items that the "urgent actions" were diluted.

Solution

Rank by urgency rather than type, reducing the total number of components and actions.

Design

Use cards to show unique metadata for each different type of action (alert, opportunity, etc.), which wouldn't have been possible in a table.

Problem

The page becomes a "to do list" of things you haven't done.

Solution

I decided to include OKRs and top level metrics to show overall progress as positive reinforcement, and to help direct users to specific areas of the application if a certain metric or OKR is looking at a higher level than one specific action.

Design

I decided to use a linear progress bar for OKRs as opposed to the circular one so that it was easy to see compare progress from one OKR to another.

Channel Partner Dashboard

Large Partner Manager

Need

Guide the engagement strategy of a single highly influential channel partner.

Solution

Dashboard with performance statistics and recommend opportunities to increase engagement.

Team Portfolio

Team Lead

Need

Oversee partner managers in enabling channel partner success.

Solution

A team portfolio that gives insights to the partner managers OKRs and more.

Learning

I learned how to earn the trust of leadership and PMs to eventually make strategic recommendations based on user needs and take full design ownership. I also learned how to mentor junior designers and share that design ownership. Since then, I have learned how to integrate with teams who already have design processes and leadership of their own as well.