The Ninja Point platform is managed by the Pickup and Drop-off (PUDO) team, which faced significant challenges in its processes. I initially experienced strong push-back from the engineers against proposed builds. which I discovered that this resistance stemmed from a lack of motivation among the engineers, driven by frustrations with the current system and ways of working.
"What is the point of revamping Ninja Point platform? Do the users even want this?"
– Software engineer, Ninja Van
As a designer, I embraced this setback as an opportunity to hone skills I had been looking to develop—specifically in design planning and facilitation. Partnering closely with my lead product manager and design lead, we worked together to introduce a mindset shift within the engineering team in PUDO.
Problems
In the first few months of taking over PUDO's design work streams, I began observing the team's overall health and evaluating the efficiency of its development cycle. It quickly became apparent that the team was experiencing low morale, as several underlying issues in their ways of working surfaced early on. Below, I have compiled the symptoms, identified problems, and their corresponding implications to better illustrate the challenges faced.
Problem analysis #1: Losing sight of the bigger picture
Symptom: Engineers focused on completing individual tasks instead of understanding and solving the actual problem.
Problem: The team lacked clear sprint goals, which led to inefficient sprint planning and unfocused execution.
Evidence:
- Sprint planning sessions lasted 3 hours compared to other teams' 1-1.5 hours.
- Engineers spent significant time clarifying all tickets in the backlog instead of isolating only the relevant ones to focus on.
Implication: This resulted in misalignment between their efforts and the actual needs of the product or users, wasting valuable time and resources. They also began losing sight of the bigger picture—this narrow focus limited opportunities for innovation or identifying better solutions, as the team was working without understanding the broader goals or impact of their work.
Problem analysis #2: Reduced proactive thinking
Symptom: During daily SCRUM ceremonies, engineers often displayed a passive approach, waiting for directions from the product team instead of proactively suggesting improvements or alternative solutions.
Problem: The team lacked understanding about the problems at hand and its business implications.
Evidence:
- A lack of design-driven sharing, which limited their understanding of the “why” behind design decisions.
- Insufficient documentation of data from past research conducted by the previous product team managing PUDO.
Implication: The lack of context and visibility prevented engineers from fully understanding the problems they were solving or the impact of their work. This gap hindered their ability to engage in proactive thinking and contribute effectively to problem-solving.
Problem analysis #3: Technical debt slowing team progress
Symptom: Stakeholders expressed dissatisfaction with the team's slow progress, frequently citing delays in builds and unfulfilled promises made by the PUDO team prior to our involvement.
Problem: The codebase was largely made up of legacy code riddled with bugs and technical debt—code that the engineers had not written themselves.
Evidence:
- Build estimations were consistently inaccurate, as unanticipated system dependencies and hidden issues surfaced during development.
- A significant portion of the team’s time was spent maintaining or patching old code instead of delivering new value.
Implication: Constantly fixing and building upon an outdated and poorly structured system proved frustrating, further affecting their morale and sense of ownership. This technical debt often led to delays in builds and slower progress, with the additional effort frequently overlooked during effort estimation.
Goal
Empower engineers to foster a sense of ownership, actively drive solutions, and ensure alignment within the team.
Approach
To foster collaboration and address key challenges, my product manager and I actively involved engineers in both the product and design processes. This was driven by two key initiatives: conducting data deep dive sessions to analyse and prioritise critical problems, and engaging developers in on-the-ground research studies, allowing them to gain firsthand insights from users. These efforts ensured greater alignment, improved ownership, and stronger connection to the problem to be solved.
To address the challenges, we broke our approach into key phases—small, intentional steps designed to incrementally build engineers’ morale and shift their mindset:
Breakdown of approach
Data gathering through surveys
Objective: Provide engineers with the necessary visibility, context, and motivation by exposing them to real-world data.
How does this help:
- Engineers can see how their work directly solves critical user pain points, reinforcing their sense of purpose.
- Exposure to real-world data and user insights encourages proactive thinking and problem-solving.
Impact: Provides the necessary context to tie their work back to business goals and user needs, motivating them to solve meaningful problems and gaining greater ownership by engaging with real-word data.
Focus group with stakeholders
Objective: Align on key problems and their prioritisation, ensuring all teams work toward shared goals and a unified product vision.
How does this help:
- Aligning on problems and their prioritisation ensures everyone works toward the same goals, reducing misalignment and frustration.
- Engineers gain a clearer view of where their contributions fit within the bigger picture, fostering a sense of shared accountability and purpose.
Impact: Reinforces alignment between engineers, stakeholders, and the product vision, creating a shared understanding and direction.
Data deep dive sessions
Objective: Empower engineers by involving them in data analysis and problem identification, fostering a culture of active participation and ownership.
How does this help:
- Data deep dive sessions empower engineers to analyse data themselves and identify pain points collaboratively, encouraging active participation.
- These sessions give engineers visibility into the broader challenges and the impact of their work on users, fostering innovation and proactive thinking.
Impact: Encourages bigger-picture thinking as they connect tasks to larger goals and strengthens team morale by valuing their expertise in the decision-making process.
Involving engineers in concept testing
Objective: Empower engineers by enabling direct involvement in concept testing, fostering ownership, active participation, and a user-centric mindset.
How does this help:
- Involving engineers in concept testing provided them with the opportunity to observe user feedback firsthand, helping them see how their proposed solutions from the data deep dive sessions directly impacted real users.
- It fosters empathy for users and a deeper commitment to solving their problems effectively.
Impact: Helps engineers build a user-centric mindset, which improves engagement and satisfaction in their work.
Results
To understand how the engineers felt about recent process changes and their involvement in brainstorming sessions, we conducted a team health check-up at the end of the first revamped workflow. This check-up provided valuable insights into their overall satisfaction and sense of purpose.
The team health check-up involved 9 participants, compromising of:
- Engineering manager
- Frontend and backend software engineers
- QA engineers
- Product team
Mission alignment
77.8% of the team reported excitement and alignment with the mission.
"Recent brainstorming sessions with product and business stakeholders for the builds have helped with this."
– Software engineer, Ninja Van
Pawns or players
77.8% of the team felt empowered to make decisions and drive solutions.
"Our recent initiatives to brainstorm solutions and having design discussions are very useful, and we get a sense of having more visibility on why we are doing things in a certain way."
– QA engineer, Ninja Van
Delivering value
55.6% of the team felt positively about the value they were delivering.
"We might not always have visibility on whether stakeholders are happy, but I think in the recent builds, as we are collecting surveys from users, we know if the builds are successful. Perhaps, we can also think of ways of getting feedback from operations or stakeholders."
– Software engineer, Ninja Van
The positive outcomes observed in the team health check-up directly influenced and improved our development cycle in the following ways:
- Clearer sprint goals
With a deeper understanding of the problems to be solved and increased ownership, sprint goals became more defined and achievable. Engineers and QAs felt more confident about their role in driving solutions, improving focus and efficiency during each sprint. This resulted in faster build delivery. - Frequent design-driven sharing and business data reviews
This provided the team with visibility into why certain decisions were made and how they contributed to solving key business problems. - Faster sprint cycles
By working with a clean slate instead of constantly building on top of legacy code riddled with issues, engineers were able to develop and deliver features more efficiently. Improved clarity and alignment also allowed sprints to become more streamlined, focusing on high-priority tasks and enabling faster iterations.
These improvements laid the foundation for a more efficient, collaborative, and purpose-driven development cycle, aligning both the team’s motivation and the organisation’s goals.
