This internal application was developed in-house to try to forecast consultant capacity and be utilized by managers and team leads. Several companies I’ve worked for as an employee and contractor have attempted to build similar applications. Because of the nature of consulting, there are factors to consider as to how billing is handled. Here the objective was to get clear on capacity without getting too granular in the reporting. There are many reasons for this. Positions vary widely in firms that have billable consultants and those who work on internal initiatives. Unfortunately I can’t go too far into discussing exactly how this application works. But my purpose on the project was to be part of various visual upgrades over many months as people were beginning to depend on it more in their responsibilities. We established the visual language over many mockup iterations I would provide. Mostly the general framework was decided upon.
I was not privy to the entire development cycle of this tool and while I was working on it I believe it had two refactors where design changes were at a standstill. It turns out this can be an advantage. Because the less exposure or understanding of a process you have, and the longer periods of time between usage, the more you can see the design with fresh eyes. So I would notice things that I thought weren’t ideal for newer leads and try to introduce a more simplified visual language and cues.
