Transforming ad-hoc processes into strategic, repeatable systems
Note: Collaborative research and design work completed with TOPdesk team members.
TOPdesk's feature releases lacked standardisation, creating inconsistent user experiences, burdened UX teams, and development efforts that failed to generate expected adoption.
This operational inefficiency was actively undermining product value, team productivity, and customer satisfaction.
Without consistent communication and onboarding, users struggle to discover and adopt new features, reducing ROI on development investments.
UX designers and researchers spend excessive time reinventing release processes instead of focusing on innovation.
Product teams face significant bottlenecks from lack of standardised workflows, delaying time-to-market.
Without standardised approaches, teams lack mechanisms to address perception issues, measure communication effectiveness, track feature adoption, or collect post-release feedback systematically.
Collaborative session with UX researchers across product teams to map current practices, decision factors, and identify gaps in existing processes.
In-depth conversations with 7 key stakeholders: 4 Product Owners/Managers, 2 User Guidance team members, and 1 Copywriter.
Systematic synthesis of research data, clustering insights into actionable categories and identifying patterns across teams.
Our affinity mapping process transformed hundreds of interview notes into structured, actionable insights:
Through affinity mapping, insights emerged across four critical categories:
We documented the current release strategy and journey to understand the existing state and identify opportunities for improvement:
Transforming insights into actionable opportunities across stakeholder groups
This research produced actionable recommendations across the organisation:
Standardised decision frameworks for release approaches
Reusable solution patterns and templates
Earlier integration and clearer content requirements
Aligned communication strategies across channels
This is the argument the research supports, not a set of results. Nothing below was measured — the study produced recommendations, and instrumenting the release process to test them is the next step rather than something already done.
Clear communication helps users discover and adopt features faster
Standardised processes free teams to innovate rather than reinvent
Features users actually use justify resources spent building them
Consistent improvements demonstrate active product evolution
By standardising the feature release process, TOPdesk can transform from ad-hoc release management to a strategic, repeatable system. This research provides the foundation for improving customer satisfaction, team efficiency, and product competitiveness—turning internal process improvement into measurable business value.