Design Thinking Process

We shadow an HR business partner through a Q3 performance cycle in the legacy system, sit with three line managers as they try to complete merit recommendations, and interview six recruiters about their ATS workarounds. We map the actual journey — including the shadow spreadsheet HR ops maintains because the standard report does not break down by cost center the way Finance needs it.

Research synthesises into something sharper than "we need SuccessFactors Performance." It becomes: "95% of managers skip mid-cycle check-ins because the legacy form has 7 mandatory fields, no mobile access, and asks for ratings that won't be used until calibration six months later." Now we know what Performance & Goals must actually solve for.

In a 90-minute workshop with HR ops, three managers, payroll, and IT, we generate 20+ ways to handle the Employee Central transfer process — from the cleanest happy path to the messy multi-country transfer with mid-cycle effective dates and shared positions. We sketch, vote, combine, and prune until three viable designs emerge. Two go to prototype.

Before anyone opens Provisioning, we build a clickable Figma walk-through of the proposed Open Enrollment flow — every screen the employee will see, every decision the system will ask them to make. We mock up the manager's "My Team" page before touching EC. The prototype lives somewhere lightweight stakeholders can click through on their phone during their commute.

Eight real managers attempt to complete a Compensation planning task on the prototype while we watch over Zoom with screen-share. We see exactly where they hesitate, where they ask "is this the right field?", and where they reach for the spreadsheet they swore they would give up. Three rounds of iteration later, the design is something they can use without a trainer sitting next to them.