Embark on journey to reconnect former students with their university
The company, undergoing a digital transformation process, faces significant challenges in strategically managing digital products due to a lack of synchronization between business and experience areas. This results in an ongoing failure to understand the customers for whom they develop products. However, through valuable learnings, we have improved the process by implementing tools to identify the appropriate depth of research required, providing clear direction for all stakeholders involved.
By adapting the Eisenhower Matrix, we established a method to define the necessary depth of research based on clarity and risk, resulting in 4 quadrants with estimated timeframes and suggested mixed methods for the size of the research to be conducted:
Quadrant 1 (Size P): Focus on refining.
Quadrant 2 (Size M): Focus on designing.
Quadrant 3 (Size G): Focus on identifying.
Quadrant 4 (Size GG): Focus on discovering.
With the scope of researching the challenges faced by the education company with low rates of students who opted for lifelong learning at the institution among graduates, with only 9% of online graduates and 15% of in-person graduates remaining at the institution to continue their additional studies. With the initial talks, we understood that there was an interesting level of knowledge within the company disseminated in some areas that had researched the subject, so we decided to apply the understanding of the depth we would have in the project itself.
The resulting understanding was that the research would be size M (focus on designing) with Medium Clarity and High Risk, the framework indicated that this research fit into Quadrant 2 (Focus on Designing).
The research achieved an efficient sizing that enabled the execution of the project from start to finish in 3 months according to schedule, which delivered value in less time, increasing confidence in the project's decisions on the part of stakeholders and management who followed the project, and allowed for faster exploration of alternatives for concept validation.
Mapping the graduate's journey based on quantitative and qualitative research already available internally helped to delimit the scope and prioritize the opportunities to be addressed.
The team conducted conceptual research with prototypes to gather feedback in an agile way, conducting concept tests with graduates and alumni to validate solutions, such as an interactive graduation checklist and a new personalized home screen in the app for alumni.
All of this provided a more strategic organization of the roadmap, with estimated deadlines providing improvements and direction for the next features of the product itself.
