GovExec Events
Designing and scaling an event management system
A summary of how we scaled and integrated an event management system for a growing media business.
Project ACTIVITY
2023 / 2024
Project Roles
UX Design, UI Design, Usability Testing, Usability Research
Background
In a year of acquisitions, our event management product faced a pivotal challenge. How could we scale to support an ever growing list of feature requirements and facilitate (sales and marketing estimated 120 events to us) an ever growing number of events? As the lead product designer, the following are those efforts to transform this tool into a scalable, credible, and efficient platform that became the foundation of our rapidly growing events business.
As product designer, I was responsible for maintaining and improving our in-house event management product experience and design; used primarily to enable teams to establish and manage their online meetings and event presence.
Some background, the company I worked for 'M', was acquired and by lets say, 'G'. Our team was combined with the G team as part of the acquisition. Our newly combined team would then need to integrate those seven additional businesses (mentioned above) into the company but specifically, integrated into the event management system.
Problem Statement
Execution
Using an iterative stakeholder focused design process, we designed approximately 20 components that have been successfully deployed and integrated into the product.
This project addressed both front and back-end interfaces, with additional time dedicated to collaborating with the product engineers to ensure designs aligned with and accommodated the unique requirements of each brand.
There were roughly 14 brands at minimum that had to be accounted for within the product.
Challenges
The biggest challenge in this initiative was the need to continuously reengage product stakeholders as we scaled to onboard multiple newly acquired businesses. Each new acquisition faced the decision to either remain with an external event management system or integrate with and contribute to the development of our internal product, requiring us to effectively demonstrate the value and advantages of our solution.
There were also scheduling and business reprioritization challenges. A few times business requirements would change that had us abandon components that were deemed out of scope. I always attempted to leverage the work we had accomplished and utilize what we had learned on the new problems or components but it was not fun with unfinished designs.
Our team successfully designed and scaled an event management app, growing its user base from 25 to over 300 users and increasing annual events from 24 to more than 200. Over a two-year period, the software facilitated the production of over 500 events.
Additionally, we brought all major company events underneath a single platform, successfully integrating the various brands and businesses that had been acquired.
Skeleton design
