Research
Product strategy
Product management
Product design
To protect confidentiality, names and specific details in this case study have been modified.
Quick overview
Product:
Content management system for local councils
Role:
Lead Product Designer
Scope:
Cross-functional leadership
Product management
Research validation
Information architecture
UX strategy
UI design
Prototyping and user testing
Developer handover
Project handover
Timeframe:
3 months and 2 weeks from concept to release, including 6 weeks of user validation (2024-2025)
Challenge
Finance teams across our customer base had a problem. Every June, they spent three days manually updating fee schedules before the new financial year started.
The process worked, but it was painful:
Copying fees from spreadsheets into PDFs
Updating individual service pages
Finding errors after everything was published
For our business, this was a significant opportunity. In a saturated CMS market, we needed premium modules that could attract new clients and encourage existing ones to upgrade.
When I joined the project, engineering had already scoped a technical solution and written it up. Stakeholders thought we were good to go. But my research showed something different.
Customers had already figured out how to make their broken process work.
The solution came from the research, not the brief
Impact
After launch, I validated results through interviews and satisfaction surveys.
Revenue impact
Increase from premium module sales and upgrades
Time efficiency
Reduction in fee update process time and manual work
Error reduction
Decrease in validation errors and data corrections
Task success rate
Council staff completing fee updates without errors or support requests
Strategy
As Product Manager and Design Lead, I had to coordinate Customer Experience, Design, and Engineering teams while figuring out if customers would actually use what we built.
Engineering had done solid technical work. But would customers use it?
I focused on these outcomes:
Validate adoption through customer research, not assumptions
Make existing workflows better instead of replacing them
Build for bulk annual updates to match how finance teams actually work
Create ways to measure success without built-in analytics
Ship before June when councils update fees
Method
The platform didn't have analytics, so I had to get creative with validation using customer feedback and team insights.
I used what was available to track progress and validate decisions:
Support ticket patterns showed adoption trends
Customer satisfaction surveys measured success
Regular interview cycles provided ongoing validation
Customer Experience team shared pain points and wins
Round 1 interviews revealed 78% of customers prioritised reliability over feature quantity
Foundation
The real challenge wasn't building the Fees Manager. It was creating flexibility for different customer workflows while keeping everything consistent.
Based on what I learned from research, I built the architecture around core principles.
I then redesigned the entire fee management process to match how finance teams actually work, making it less complex while improving reliability and speed.
Template upload and standardisation
I simplified spreadsheet imports into one standard process with consistent data structure and automatic validation.
Catches common mistakes through built-in validation checks
Automates structure preparation work to save time
Real-time error validation and feedback
Built immediate error detection during upload, giving clear feedback before processing to prevent publication mistakes.
Identifies data problems right away during file upload
Shows clear error messages with helpful fix tips
Prevents invalid data from getting into the workflow
Bulk import processing and approval workflow
Built a bulk processing system that turns three days of manual work into automated operations with approval steps.
These changes made fee management more efficient, reliable, and easier for customers to adopt. Addressing workflow diversity first let me build confidence in the new system.
Alignment
Getting close to the June deadline, I looked at feature priorities against adoption risk and made the business decision to cut individual fee upload. Instead, I focused entirely on bulk functionality that matched how finance teams actually work.
This required getting everyone aligned:
Convincing Engineering that shipping one great feature beat two poor ones
Showing stakeholders that bulk functionality would drive higher adoption
Working with the same customers from the initial interviews, beta testing revealed something important: adoption would come from long-term workflow benefits, not immediate utility.
During stakeholder reviews, the sentiment was clear:
“
It's about making our annual headache disappear, not perfect features
Finance Officer
“
Finally works with how we operate, not against it
IT Manager
Solution
I improved platform user workflow and public access to fee information based on feedback from beta testing and integrated fee management capabilities.
Contextual interface design
Made the interface more prominent during annual update periods, highlighting fee management tools when needed while keeping daily operations simple.
Highlighting fee tool when close to annual updates
Balanced accessibility with focused functionality year-round
Individual fee editing with automatic CMS updates
Designed individual fee editing that automatically updates changes across all relevant service pages and systems.
Quick fee adjustments without needing bulk import
Automatic page sync maintains data consistency
Immediate preview of changes before publishing
Search and discovery improvements
Improved public access to fee information through better search functionality and intuitive categorisation.
Advanced filtering by category, service type, and amount
Intuitive fee discovery through improved navigation
Fewer end-user support requests through clearer fee presentation
These integrations created a better admin experience while improving system reliability and user confidence. Focusing on finance team workflows first enabled better adoption and long-term platform success.
Conclusion
This project proved that successful product leadership means aligning user needs and business goals by focusing on outcomes, not just output. Having both PM and Design roles let me make strategic decisions that allowed me the opportunity to show it to the team and the business.
Beyond metrics
While efficiency targets matter, real success came from customers being willing to change their established workflows. Their feedback confirmed we'd built platform confidence, not just time savings.
“
We were skeptical about changing process, but this makes existing workflow faster
Finance Officer
“
June updates used to take forever, but now we just get them done
Content Publisher
“
We only do this once a year, but it used to be such a hassle
Administrative Manager
What I learned
Build for how people actually work, not how you think they should
Keep talking to stakeholders or they'll surprise you later
Talk to customers when you can't track what they're doing
Deadlines help you focus on what actually matters
Strategic product thinking means making hard choices under real constraints
Approach for similar challenges
Start learning any existing system, then define the solution
Challenge established workflows
Build validation frameworks around available data
Choose outcomes over output
Check out my other projects
Rebuilding a tool councils had quietly stopped using
Doubled participation and increased tool adoption by 64%
Turning design debt into a shared way of working
Increased delivery velocity by 43%