Kantata Pulse

 

Launch Vision

Much of our focus early on was in making Pulse as quick as possible to get up and running, with a minimum of setup that might slow adoption.

We defined an initial default state, which we referred to as “the easy button”: Without any preparation, a busy project manager could enable Pulse on their project with a single click. Our tool would automatically begin gathering valuable project health insights at regular intervals.

Clicking “the easy button” would:

• Start sending weekly surveys to the internal team
• Send an initial “Start of Project” survey to clients, followed by quarterly surveys.
• Surveys would contain 3 questions—one each from 3 categories—with the final question followed by a free-text response (“Please tell us more about this…”)

Pulse launched with our initial default state intact, but over time, we recognized the need to balance simple automation with greater customization for users at more strategic levels within our customers' organizations.

 

Product Evolution from Discovery to Delivery

Over the course of the project, I evolved the design by leveraging customer insights gained through continuous discovery, and close collaboration with product management, engineering, content design, and QA.

 

 

The Pulse Widget

The Pulse Widget, displayed on each project's main page, shows recent survey scores, includes a toggle to start or pause survey campaigns (“the easy button”), and provides access to campaign settings.

We learned that our customers needed more independence between their client and internal team survey campaigns than we had initially planned. The updated Pulse widget allowed for each campaign to be started and paused separately.

 

Pulse Schedule

I appreciate the axiom (often credited to Einstein) “as simple as possible, but no simpler.” My initial design for survey campaign scheduling was elegant but too simplified for real customer needs.

I moved all of the campaign settings to dedicated pages. This allowed for more granular control over schedule, and also allowed room for survey previews that update in real-time as settings are adjusted.

 

 

Custom Questions

My initial prototype did not include custom question creation, but we learned soon enough that this would be a requirement for launch. I first designed a robust version, which was then scoped down to an MVP for launch.

 

Challenges

 

 

Unforeseen delays caused front-end development to halt for a time. This put some key customization features on the backlog, and required a pivot to MVP versions of others for launch.

 

 

Customer interest in Pulse was high. Even with development delayed, my evolving prototypes generatied enough interest that several customers purchased the product even before release. By the end of the fiscal year, we had exceeded our goal for the number of customers using the new tool.

While Pulse was adopted enthusiastically by smaller commercial customers, our ambitious revenue goals would require the higher-dollar interest of larger enterprise customers.

Pulse Success Metrics for 2024

Key Result	Target	Actual	Variance
GA Launch	October 2024	October 21, 2024	--
Customers with Pulse Active	15	20	133%
Avg Active Campaigns	10	17.2	172%
Avg Response Rate	40%	39%	97.5%
Revenue	$250k	$226k	90.4%

 

 

“The easy button” was useful for smaller, scrappier firms where busy project managers (with many competing priorities) needed as simple a solution as possible. Larger firms, on the other hand, had operational leaders with interest in running more organized campaigns across larger departments. Some even had people dedicated exclusively to addressing this need. These teams needed a higher degree of configurability than we offered at launch.

 

 

Next Steps

Following launch, completion of features that would make Pulse useful for enterprise customers became our top priority. Here are a few that were in progress following launch.

 

 

Question Sets

Full customization of surveys has two components:

1. The ability for our customers to write their own questions
2. The option to place those questions into surveys of any length, in any order

The creation of custom questions was available at launch (see above), but the ability to organize these questions into custom Question Sets was not. This was the first feature the team began work on after launch, and was scheduled for completion approximately five months later.

 

Learnings

We enjoyed a high degree of collaboration on this project, which resulted in both a more enjoyable process and a better quality outcome. I also learned some valuable lessons.

Partnering with Customers

We implemented a continuous discovery practice, meeting with customers multiple times per week throughout the course of the project. This provided a near-constant stream of input on whatever I was working on at the time, from high-level product direction early on, to specific interactions as we dug into details.

Getting the Best Out of Your Team

I ran design discussions with the product team twice a week: once to present features the team would be working on in the near future, and another to field questions that came up on current work. This was a valuable opportunity to gather feedback from people who hadn't always been given a chance to give it, including all levels of engineering, content design, and QA. The team's sense of psychological safety increased as they saw their ideas reflected in mockups and prototypes, which generated a palapable sense of trust.

Bring Engineering in Early

There were no engineers involved in the discovery phase of the project. Although many eyes were on the project early on, there are some questions that executives, stakeholders, and customers (and even product managers and designers) don't think to ask. When we finally met with engineering to spec the data model, we had to make assumptions about certain details. When we later gained insight into those details, the data model required time-consuming changes.