JOSHUA CHRISTENSEN
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Organizational Management Application

Client:

Large, International Human Capital Consulting Firm

Role:

Lead Product Manager

The Challenge

The client was handling large-scale M&A, organizational restructuring, and other high-impact human capital work using Excel and PowerPoint. This made coordination across teams a logistical nightmare, error-prone, and too slow for client demands.

On top of that, the project had been kicked off with a junior team, resulting in six weeks of knowledge transfer and further misalignment across stakeholders. They were spending more time managing artifacts than addressing client needs.

The Approach

I applied my North Star Alignment Model—a human-centered strategy framework that connects user realities to business priorities—and led Design Thinking workshops to cut through the noise and unify perspectives.

We steered them from scattered, siloed workstreams into a true zero-to-one approach. I also replaced Personas with Mindsets to reframe how they thought about users, needs, and goals.

The Solution

We designed and launched a web-based application that managed all aspects of human capital work—usable internally and externally by the firm’s clients.

The phased delivery moved from strategy to prototype to product:

  • Beta version deployed to 3 teams (~45 users)
  • Version 1 streamlined to meet both user and business needs
  • Later evolved into a white-labeled client service offering

The Outcome

  • Reduced a 3-person, 2-day manual task (~48 hours) to 10 minutes in beta
  • Final version dropped it to 3.5 minutes for 95% of all tasks
  • Reduced error rates dramatically
  • Improved agility and real-time collaboration with clients
  • Created a new revenue stream from the productized solution
  • Client Quote

    "When we started this [workshop] 3 days ago, I was very nervous with how much this was going to cost and afraid it’d be another waste of time. Now I can say I’m truly blown away. You got us where we should have been 6 months ago in 3 days—I’m impressed and can’t thank you enough."

    Alicia C., VP of Talent Programs

    Reflection

    Helping a waterfall-heavy engineering team adopt agile methods was a major hurdle. With careful coaching and small wins, we successfully transitioned their mindset—one sprint at a time.

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