Squad Manager
Revolutionizing agile team management with a focus on simplicity and productivity
Client
Squad Manager.io
Duration
20 weeks
My Role
Product Designer
Overview
Squad Manager is an agile team management platform developed to solve the main problems that Tech Leads, Scrum Masters and Product Owners face daily: excessive complexity, fragmented data and difficulty in having a clear view of the team's progress.
This case documents the complete design journey, from discovering real problems to delivering a solution that increased team productivity by 35% in the first 3 months of use.
Discovery
38
Tech Leads interviewed
85+
Hours of observation
24
Usability tests
12
Design iterations
Research Methodology
- Contextual interviews with 38 tech leaders from companies of different sizes
- Shadowing of daily standups and agile ceremonies at 12 companies
- Analysis of existing workflows in Jira, Trello and internal tools
- Survey with 450+ tech professionals about team management pain points
Key Insights
- 82% of Tech Leads spend more than 2h/day just organizing information
- 67% use 3+ different tools to manage the same project
- 91% want automatic reports without manual configuration
- 74% feel that current tools are too complex for the team
Personas
We identified two main user profiles that represent the majority of platform use cases.
André Ferreira
34 years old • Tech Lead
"I need to see my squad's status in seconds, not minutes."
Goals
- • Team progress visibility
- • Quickly identify bottlenecks
- • Facilitate agile ceremonies
Frustrations
- • Tools are too complex
- • Data scattered across multiple places
- • Difficulty generating reports
Juliana Costa
29 years old • Product Owner
"I want to focus on the product, not on managing tools."
Goals
- • Efficiently prioritize backlog
- • Communicate with stakeholders
- • Track deliveries
Frustrations
- • Lack of consolidated view
- • Tools that don't integrate
- • Time spent on manual reports
The Challenge
The project management tools market is extremely saturated, with giants like Atlassian (Jira) and Microsoft (Azure DevOps) dominating the enterprise segment. The challenge was to create a solution that was powerful enough for serious teams, yet simple enough to not require extensive training.
How to be powerful without being complex?
How to unify data from multiple sources into a single view?
How to support different methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, hybrid)?
The Solution
We developed a "progressive complexity" approach, where the interface adapts to the user's maturity level. New users start with a simplified view, while power users can unlock advanced features.
Smart Dashboard
Automatic consolidation of key metrics with executive view
Unified Kanban
Single board with GitHub, GitLab and Slack integration
Assisted Ceremonies
Built-in templates for planning, review and retro
Wireframes
Low-fidelity screens focused on information architecture and user flows.
High-Fidelity Design
Final interfaces with visual polish and micro-interactions.
Competitive Benchmark
Analysis of market leaders to identify opportunities for differentiation.
Jira
Strengths
- ✓ Highly customizable
- ✓ Atlassian integration
- ✓ Robust features
Weaknesses
- ✗ High learning curve
- ✗ Complex interface
- ✗ Slow to configure
Trello
Strengths
- ✓ Intuitive interface
- ✓ Easy to start
- ✓ Visual Kanban
Weaknesses
- ✗ Limited for large teams
- ✗ Few reports
- ✗ Lacks advanced features
Asana
Strengths
- ✓ Modern design
- ✓ Multiple views
- ✓ Automations
Weaknesses
- ✗ High price
- ✗ Can be confusing
- ✗ Fragmented features
Monday.com
Strengths
- ✓ Highly visual
- ✓ Flexible
- ✓ Good initial UX
Weaknesses
- ✗ Expensive to scale
- ✗ Too many options
- ✗ Performance issues
Project Requirements
Functional
- Dashboard with real-time squad metrics
- Kanban board with intuitive drag & drop
- Sprint management with integrated planning poker
- Notification and mention system
- Automatic velocity and burndown reports
- Integration with GitHub, GitLab and Slack
Non-Functional
- Real-time sync (< 500ms)
- Support for teams up to 50 members
- Offline functionality with automatic sync
- WCAG 2.1 level AA accessibility
- Native iOS and Android apps
- SSO with Google, Microsoft and SAML
Visual System
Color Palette
Primary Purple
#7F56D9
Success Green
#22C55E
Dark Slate
#1E293B
Light Gray
#F8FAFC
Key Features
Smart Kanban
Board with automatic suggestions and workflow automations
Living Metrics
Real-time dashboard with burndown, velocity and forecasts
Assisted Ceremonies
Built-in templates for retro, planning and review
Async Communication
Threaded comments and integrations with Slack/Teams
Results
+35%
Team Productivity
Increase in sprint deliveries
-62%
Tool Time
Reduction in time managing tools
4.8★
Rate
Average rating after launch
250+
Active Users
In the first 6 months
Learnings
What worked well
- Early involvement of real Tech Leads in all design phases
- Iterative approach with bi-weekly usability tests
- Close collaboration between design and engineering
What could be improved
- Should have included more POs in the initial research
- Accessibility tests could have started earlier
- Dark mode documentation needed more detail