What are you gonna see?

From every man for himself to teamwork in one month

I reduced by over 150 hours the development time in just 3 flows, documented an invisible process, and designed a service that is more intuitive for users and teams.

Scope

One step at a time

The scope of the project was to provide the maximum benefit without making a fuss. Analyze the context, how things were done and provide optimal solutions in the processes of a complex service.

Role

Service designer

As a service designer, I studied the processes, the product and the flows to be worked on. I found the most difficult and complex and I got down to work.

Time

4 weeks

The development team wasn't going to stop for a second to wait for me, so I took the lead, presented my proposals and they let me work. In 10 hours I had a first result, the other 6 hours were iterations with the development team and the project team.

Design lead

Antonio Márquez

Stakeholder

José Palao

Dev lead

Alexande Alzate

"It was like getting on a moving train. Everyone knew where we were going and I was the only one who didn't."

1. The challenge:

How to fit into an inefficient process, which is already at cruising speed, without slowing it down and providing valid solutions.

Context:

In a company specialized in integrated hardware and software solutions for urban waste management (smart cities), I faced a systemic challenge: how to get all the teams to work together.

The main workflow involved not only direct users (municipal technicians, contractors) but also internal teams (development, support, documentation) and maintenance of the system in production.

Key problems with the service:

Each team worked on its own in isolated areas, unaware of what the other teams were doing.
One team's progress was the other's setback.
Team meetings were inefficient and had no clear outcome.
Lack of clear documentation and specific progress.
Confusion between user and customer.
Development without validation.
Development without design.
Technical flows requiring technical training.
Flows designed from hardware limitations.
Users did not understand why or how to interact with the product.
High number of errors → calls to support.
Extremely costly and slow development

"What surprised me most was to find such talented and willing individuals wanting to work as a team without a plan to do it."

2. The plan:

Let's grab the notebook and get started: Analyse the situation, find solutions, simplify processes and deliver results.

Product analysis

I started with a design audit.

The reality was clear: the product was simply unusable without weeks of training. In just the specific module under development, I identified more than 50 heuristic issues affecting usability.

The user flows were extremely confusing. There was no sense of place, no visibility of system status, and an enormous cognitive load on each screen. The interface lacked any consistent standards, system feedback, or user guidance.

Beyond usability, this design had direct consequences for the service itself:

Every new employee required dedicated training, and even basic tasks led to frequent calls to support. The lack of intuitive flows and consistent patterns made the product difficult to scale and maintain.

After this analysis, one thing was clear:

The product had been designed by developers, for developers — with no consideration for users without technical backgrounds. Basic principles of usability and human-centered design had simply not been applied.

Design audit of a specific user flow

At this point, it was clear to me: before improving the service, we needed to make it usable.

The departmens and framework analysis

In this project, each team was working in its own bubble.

Developers didn’t know the purpose of the software they were building.

Project team members were unaware of technical constraints and unsure of what would ultimately be delivered.

The control team focused only on assigning tasks, depending on others to set priorities.

Leadership ran long, unfocused meetings where alignment was assumed — but nothing was documented, and no follow-up processes were in place.

I made a simple flow in my way to understand what's going on.

The flow represent the stage of the process and the departments who are working on it.

Without shared understanding, there is no service, no product and no teamwork — just disconnected tasks.

"Seeing the project manager’s smile while testing the prototype is something I’ll always remember."

3. The solution:

The ingredients for success: a clear framework, teamwork, validated user flows, usability improvements, and prototyping before development.

How I tackled it

This wasn’t about reinventing the product — it was about understanding where the biggest problems were, and introducing the right changes at the right points.

I approached it as a tailored solution, not a revolution.

The most impactful change was introducing validation processes before development.

I created a lightweight, agile working group that brought together key voices that we called Product Analysis team (Similar to product trio).

This group worked collaboratively to review and validate flows before anything went into development.

This simple change alone transformed how the product was built — reducing errors, saving development time, and creating a much more usable experience for end users.

New workflow

Sometimes, the smallest changes make the biggest difference — if you introduce them at the right moment, with the right people.

“This has been the biggest impact I’ve had in such a short time at a company — and it was all thanks to the collaboration of the key people involved.”

What we accomplished

Lets break some numbers

How long

1 month

Since I started to work in the team

How many

3 flows

Validated and tested befor developing

Eficiency

-155 hours

Time saved by the develop team with this flows

Money saved

-4650€

Direct savings from optimized user flows

The impact

The change went far beyond numbers.

By introducing a more collaborative process and validating key flows before development, we not only saved time and money we also improved the quality of the service.

The new flows are more intuitive, reducing the need for training and lowering the cognitive load for users. Support teams are already seeing fewer issues and a clearer understanding of how the system works.

Perhaps most importantly, this project broke old patterns of siloed work. It showed that by collaborating early, validating ideas, and focusing on usability, even complex services can be built faster — and better.

Next steps

This project opened the door to new ways of working, and there’s still much to do.

One clear next step is to scale the framework to new products and extend this approach to other departments and teams, including areas of IT that work with different technologies. The goal is to create a consistent and user-centered way of building services across the organization.

Another opportunity is to improve client training by incorporating storytelling and real use cases. Learning is more effective and more engaging when it connects to real stories and experiences.

Documenting best practices and ensuring they are shared across teams will also help build a stronger foundation for future work.

And above all: keeping collaboration at the heart of the process remains essential. Maintaining this culture of teamwork is one of the key pillars for sustainable improvement.

Personally, I’m excited to continue driving this change. I look forward to running workshops with end users, and to measuring the real impact of these improvements in terms of reduced support, better adoption, and overall service quality.

Learnings

This project taught me valuable lessons — not just about designing better services, but about how to work with organizations:

Strategic adaptation: It’s not always possible to redesign the architecture of a service. Knowing when to adapt and when to push for change is key.

Start with shared understanding: Next time, I would run workshops with stakeholders first and validate wireframes earlier, before going deep into flow logic. I underestimated how technical even simple language can sound to non-technical audiences.

Design for organizational impact: A good design doesn’t just improve user experience — it also makes life easier for development, support, and training teams.

Above all, this project reinforced a simple truth: collaboration and clarity always lead to better services

"At the end of the day, it’s about helping people.

Inside and outside the product."

Let's connect!

Call me!

+34 679 66 41 82

Stalk me!

@antoniorme

Write me!

antoniorme @gmail.com