Conducting a Symphony

As Head of UX at Tempo Software, I led a vibrant team of 10 across 15 SaaS apps to craft a game-changing Strategic Portfolio Management platform. Picture stepping into a world of scattered apps, each marching to its own beat, and being tasked with weaving them into a seamless, forward-thinking experience. My job was to lead the charge—guiding Growth Design, Product Design, and UX Research teams, pioneering AI-driven tools, scaling our research prowess, and representing this work as a keynote speaker at Atlassian’s Team25 conference. From redesigning navigation to launching AI-powered tools and envisioning a future-ready platform, we turned chaos into a symphony of user delight. It was a wild ride of late-night sketches, rapid prototypes, and bold ideas that landed resonated with customers and garnered boardroom buy-in. Here’s the story of four key projects that defined my time at Tempo—a tale of grit, innovation, and a whole lot of UX magic.

Project 1: Redesigning Global Navigation – The Foundation of Unification

When I joined Tempo, our six major apps were like a band playing different songs at once—unique navigation patterns, inconsistent branding, and clunky cross-sell prompts left users dizzy. Our first mission? The Global Navigation Redesign. I led our 10-member team to create a consistent standard across apps, unifying navigation, branding, and component usage while boosting cross-sell opportunities. A complicating factor is that some of our apps lived as Atlassian Marketplace apps inside of Jira, which the navigation had to work in concert with, while others did not. I led the roll-out to ensure a consistent launched experience including product tours to ensure user engagement. This project laid the groundwork for everything that followed, proving that consistency is the heartbeat of great UX. Here is the video that highlights that updated navigation:

Project 2: Adaptive Planner – Zero to Launch in Three Months

Next up, we took on a bold challenge: designing and launching an AI-powered Scenario Planning tool, Adaptive Planner, from scratch in just three months. I led a high-octane design sprint using a fantastic Miro template (check it out here), condensing a week of ideation into a whirlwind of creativity. My sketches—scribbled in the heat of brainstorming—became the visual and conceptual backbone of the app, envisioning a tool that let portfolio managers simulate scenarios with AI-driven insights. Here are those original sketches along with the final prototyped view:

We prototyped in a week, then I spearheaded user research with over 25 customers, gathering feedback to refine the design for the Team25 conference deadline. The result? Adaptive Planner launched on time, wowing users with its predictive planning and sleek interface. Task completion rates improved by 30%, and user feedback was electric. This project was a testament to speed and heart—proof that a tight timeline can spark innovation when you trust your team and your users.

Project 3: Tempo Insights & Team25 Keynote – AI Meets Ambition

With momentum building, I led the team to design Tempo Insights, a new AI Analytics solution that reimagined how users interact with data. This wasn’t just another dashboard—it featured a chat-agent-style interface with smart suggestions that anticipated user questions by analyzing dashboard data and alerts. Picture an assistant that whispers, “Hey, want to check this risk before it grows?” I also oversaw updates to a Customer Experience Feedback solution, ensuring our platform listened as much as it advised.

The real crescendo? Presenting these innovations at Team25 as a keynote speaker. I wrote the script, ideated and managed animation creation, and handled much of the visual prep to showcase Adaptive Planner, Tempo Insights, and the Feedback & Idea Manager. The keynote was a hit—live demos sparked engaged customer conversations, and our vision of AI-driven portfolio management earned attention from partners and customers alike. This project wasn’t just about design; it was about storytelling, showing the world how UX can transform strategy into action. Here is the Keynote I presented at Teams25 (forward to about 17:30 for the Product & UX portion):

Project 4: Prototyping the Future – A Vision for 2024 and Beyond

Fresh off the Team25 high, I led the team to prototype the future of our Strategic Portfolio Management platform, looking 1-2 years ahead. Our mission had three pillars: become ecosystem-agnostic, enable new apps like Adaptive Planner and Tempo Insights, and create seamless user flows between these and our legacy apps. In just two weeks, we built a prototype that wove everything into a cohesive experience—think of it as connective tissue that made the platform feel like one organism, not a collection of parts.

This prototype wasn’t just a design exercise; it galvanized internal teams and impressed board members, securing additional investment to fuel our vision. This project was my proudest moment—turning a two-year vision into a tangible prototype that rallied everyone around a shared future.

The Encore: A Legacy of Bold UX

From unifying navigation to launching AI tools and prototyping a future-ready platform, my time at Tempo was like conducting a symphony—the talented team, our app ecosystem, and one audacious goal to empower users. We faced tight deadlines, tough feedback, and many iterations, but every challenge fueled our creativity. The result? A platform that’s intuitive, intelligent, and inspiring. If you’re crafting your own UX story, remember: it’s not just about pixels—it’s about people, vision, and daring to push the limits. Here’s to designing a future where every user finds their flow!