In Inspired, Marty Cagan observed, “Strong teams know it’s not only about implementing a solution. They must ensure that solution solves the underlying problem.”

A Float’s first Product Manager, I established the role by negotiating and documenting strategy, OKRs, roadmap, specifications, workflow, and rituals.

‍Float is the #1 rated tool to plan capacity and schedule project work. I was created for Account Owners—such as an Account Director at a design agency—as the primary user. Access, onboarding, scheduling, managing, and reporting were tailored to suit them.

But there was an underlying problem.

Since Float launched in 2011, software has been democratised, teams have scaled, and user composition has changed.

In 2019, user roles were 32% Account Owners and 13% Members—such as a Designer at a design agency. In 2021, user roles flipped to 18% Account Owners and 33% Members.

Float needed to shift thinking from ‘Account Owners first’ to ‘Members first’ and create a simple, powerful, and insightful experience for all users, not just account owners.

I shared some examples to align the team on a shared understanding of the intended experience.

A prototype of a simple toggle, to focus on your work.

A study of Ableton’s arrangement loop, to repurpose as a powerful date range, to log a selected period, for selected people.

A wireframe of an insightful comparison of scheduled hours and capacity, next to a person or project proactively.

I mapped the jobs to be done across the product, broken down by functions and stages.

I specified the solution as a target experience for engineers, a reference manual for QA, a problem:solution guide for Marketing, and a training document for Customer Success.

I asynchronously led a cross-functional team of Analysts, Researchers, Designers, Engineers, QAs, Marketers and Customer Support Agents.

Together, we created the new Float timeline. Simple, powerful, and insightful.

Visualise your team’s scheduled work, utilisation rates, and capacity over any time period using the interactive date selector. Set a custom date range by dragging across the timeline, or select one of the preset date range options to see insights into your team.

Review each person’s unscheduled hours next to their name and your team’s total remaining capacity next to the date range at the top. Hover over a person’s unscheduled hours and see their scheduled time for the date range.

Quickly switch between people and projects. See your team’s hours for each project next to their name and the total hours for all of your projects next to the date range at the top.

Identify individual skills, locations, and other relevant information under each person’s name.

Block out the noise and put the spotlight on your workload with the ‘me’ switch.

Search across multiple categories simultaneously and customise the filter rules to find exactly what you're looking for. Save specific filters and access them next time.

Hover over a person’s unlogged hours and see how many hours they’ve already logged for that date range. Set a date range and then click the hours next to the person’s name to bulk log the actual hours each person worked over any period of time. Log all of the hours for your whole team by clicking ‘log’ at the top.

Customers appreciated the simple, powerful, and insightful experience. 89% of reactions to the changes were positive.

Kevin Jason, Director of Operations at Slatwall Commerce, appreciated that “My team was able to jump in and perform their normal duties within minutes. It was easy to find our way around and quickly see and appreciate the enhancements that have been made. We love the expanded viewing area that's opened up with the sidebar. Seeing available capacity is another small change that's a big win for us and being able to make decisions faster. My team is unanimous in their review of the interface—well done, Float!”.

By 2022, active users had increased by 35% by creating a simple, powerful, and insightful experience for all users, not just account owners. Annual recurring revenue had increased by 55% by improving user roles, navigation, functions, workflows, and core time definitions.

Continue with good products.