Smartsheet
2020-2021
Smartsheet is the enterprise platform for modern work management. By aligning people and technology so organizations can move faster and drive innovation, Smartsheet enables its millions of users to achieve more.
Size: ~2000 employees when I joined
Synopsis
Role: Lead Product Designer
Team size: 3
I joined Smartsheet at the beginning of the COVID, to lead three of their core pillars - workflow automation, content generation, and navigation (search & browse). I quickly assimilated into the team and aided in the transition of an on-site design team to virtual processes and ops. I was also responsible for mentoring 1 designer and 1 researcher on the project teams I led.
Product Impact
Led qualitative and quantitative research initiatives that influenced the direction of products I oversaw
Led and shipped the Workflow Template Library project as part of a broader initiative to modernize workflow automation at Smartsheet.
Led and shipped the v1 Document Builder project that helps users automatically create PDF forms from data within Smartsheet.
Led the holistic rethinking of search and browse behaviors within Smartsheet.
Contributed to the evolution of Smartsheet’s Lodestar design system.
Team & Operations Impact
Involved in most hiring panels for new designers
Codified design processes and tracked design work to allow adjacent engineering and product partners to anticipate handoffs.
Coached junior talent and supported their growth into senior roles
Building community & solidarity
I was peer-nominated to Co-Lead our AAPI Employee resource group at Smartsheet. As one of their founding members, my responsibility was geared toward crafting a charter and understanding how AAPI employees at Smartsheet wanted to define community within a climate of anti-Asian sentiments. I’ve selected a few snippets from employee workshops and documents that I’ve help craft as part of this initiative.
Chris is a passionate and influential leader. With his mentorship, I’ve learned helpful frameworks to evaluate myself and my career goals, and how to navigate my career growth. Not only is he a great listener, but he would ask questions that help me reflect and the conversation always ended on a positive note.
I am grateful to be able to learn from him and he definitely inspired me to do the same - give back to the community!
Janel Wong · Senior Product Designer, Smartsheet
Leading Automated Workflows
Automated workflows had an 80% drop-off rate after the first click due to the significant learning curve. To address this, I led an initiative to have an animated library of commonly used workflows for a user to select from. This feature was met with huge success and an increase in workflows created by 30% in the first month and a continued 3% MOM increase during the first 6 months.
Chris did a great job balancing a demanding situation with a short ramp-up time while supporting multiple projects on multiple teams at once. He brought a fresh perspective to the job right away, identified process inefficiencies, and helped codify the decision-making processes to expedite time from concept to dev-ready design.
Scott Tewel · Director of Product Management, Smartsheet
Leading Document Builder
I led Smartsheet’s Document Builder product from inception to launch. Content creation in Smartsheet was a huge pillar and market of investment from our leadership team to capture the legal and administrative markets. Document builder saves users time and removes error-prone steps by allowing users to map the fields in their sheet to a fillable PDF form. This helps customers scale their data and rapidly generate documents for one or more data-sets without leaving the Smartsheet platform.
Chris is a strong advocate for quality design, holding himself and others to the highest of standards, both in design and in collaboration. He works to strategize and prioritize design needs. To do this, he partners, strategically, with cross-functional partners to craft user-informed designs that lead to effective and impactful products. Additionally, Chris works to ignite and mentor designers, earlier in their careers, encouraging deep thought and helping them build a diverse toolkit to ultimately spur a successful career.
Crystal Morey · Manager UX Research, Smartsheet
Leading search & browse
I led one of the largest navigational changes to our product and spearheaded discovery research, whilst mentoring a junior designer on the project with me. Unfortunately, I can’t share any of the work because it hasn’t GA’ed. If you know someone at Smartsheet, can you tell them that the designs are ready? I even authored a PRFAQ and Design Vision doc so you have everything you need to make some moves 😉.