Our Approach at Innovation: Meet Dwellworks' Product Development Team

“Can we turn this into an app?”

It’s a frequent question in Dwellworks meetings between our C-suite and Product Development teams. They are constantly looking at ways to innovate the Dwellworks customer experience – for Destination Services, Intercultural Services, and Corporate Housing services alike by constantly looking through the lens of our customers and every use case that touches the product. Dwellworks knows relocating for work can be tricky. We believe one of the best tools to improve this process for relocating employees, clients, housing partners and network consultants, and our own team is thoughtfully built technology – from our purpose-built epictm software for the corporate housing sourcing, selection, and booking process to myDwellworks, our one-stop-shop employee portal to assist relocating employees with a move.

Leading the product and technology innovation effort at Dwellworks is our Product Development team of Ken Gilroy and Masa Homma, with more than 50 years of combined experience as designers and innovators, the most recent ten of them with our company. Ken is our Director of Product while Masa is our Senior UX/UI Manager and the graphic design arm of the team. The pair is hard to miss in the office as they gather daily in the same spot, at the same hour of the morning with coffee in hand, to discuss their daily priorities and go over project timelines for rollouts in the works.

2024 has certainly kept those meetings busy – with several upcoming product launches, updates, and rollouts on the ‘prod dev’ calendar at Dwellworks. When asked what parameters need to be in place to begin any new project, Ken says a new idea is examined through 3 lenses:

• Customer experience improvement - How will this make the relocation process or doing business with Dwellworks easier for clients and/or customers?
• Internal efficiency - Will this project make our jobs easier – thus improving our ability to serve clients and manage our total cost of operations?
• ROI - Will the investment in this project improve our bottom line and our value to clients and customers? 

We believe these criteria go hand-in-hand and fall under our core value of integrity - meaning this assessment is something we never compromise on.

Product Innovation – A Commitment Year Over Year

Every suggested idea goes through the above examination in Dwellworks’ yearly Product Roadmap meeting, attended by Ken, Masa, our C-suite, and the department heads who lead our business in sales, account management, service delivery, supply chain, marketing, finance, legal and compliance, and technology. The meetings are typically held in the second quarter to get ahead of budgeting season.

Going back to the app question, for example, if such an idea is suggested, Ken and Masa send internal surveys to understand everyone’s perceived intent for the app. Typically, survey results vary and it is Ken’s and Masa’s job to listen for ‘what’ people want to see accomplished and then advise on ‘how’ best to meet those needs, addressing shared interests when they officially launch a project into development and production.

(The following is an example of how we build and rank inputs for a product’s design.)

In the 2023 Product Roadmap meeting, an upgrade of our myDwellworks portal look and feel and a total platform overhaul for our Intercultural Services was approved. This led to weeks of discussion with Ken, Masa, and the appropriate department heads and subject matter experts for each project. It can take up to 6 weeks of meetings between our Product Development team and the appropriate department representatives to come up with a solid scope of work. As Masa says, “It’s during this brainstorming that we establish the what and why of the project.”

Establishing a Plan – How A Project Begins

Once a clear intent is established, each goal for that intent is organized in a Project Charter. A charter is laid out as so:

• Primary Goal(s) of Project: list of primary goals of the product to be developed
• Development Team Members: list of Dwellworks associates assigned to the project and their respective roles
• In Scope Items: Tasks and goals to be addressed within the product development project
• Out-of-Scope Items: Tasks and goals to be addressed in other projects or items for future consideration

Ken likens the in and out-of-scope items to a car being built: “Let’s get the car off the assembly line before we start thinking about ‘what stickers should we add to the back window.’”

While myDwellworks is a customer experience we are continuously reviewing and expanding upon, and for which the next planned innovation is a new ‘look and feel’ to come later this year, our Intercultural Services will go through a broader overhaul, for which three main goals were outlined:

• Create a new and more appealing content flow and interactive experience for customers
• Make it easier for our content team to update and upload new content and information as it is developed
• Make it easier to track customer engagement and feedback to keep the offering current and responsive

These priorities led to a successful launch of development, with team members from our IT, sales, account management, marketing, and of course Intercultural Services departments contributing to its creation with weekly meetings to update its progress. Tasks to complete have included our IT department identifying an optimal learning management system (LMS) and switching over the Intercultural Services platform from a PHP to .net-hosted site, meaning more functionality for internal and external use. Our marketing department is writing the value proposition language for all our intercultural products and services and is guiding the overall design appeal. Key to the success of the revamped product is the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) expertise that Masa brings to make the design more intuitive and up-to-date.

Graphic Design – Not the First Task but the First Impression

As the graphic design guru of the Product Development team, there is no set time for when Masa is brought in for a project. His involvement is dependent on the project's needs. For instance, as he shares, he has been involved in the Intercultural Services overhaul since day one. The decision to migrate to a better learning platform meant a need for both product and site design. Masa is in charge of the “new appeal” goal of the project – refreshing the look of the Culture pages with new branding and easier-to-use navigation. He explains what he does when first creating a design to save time and make his creation process as efficient as possible.

“The way I design is, I try and design Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3 rather than Type 1a, Type 1b, and Type 1c. Different types rather than different versions of one type.” He says Type 1 is always reminiscent of the original framework of the product, but with some changes and Type 2 and 3 build off it with some slight changes (color, logo/button placement, etc.) This way the project without delays from the graphic design perspective.

“Masa is a highly collaborative designer,” comments Ken, “so every time a team member sees something, they’re going to have some input, and Masa’s day is changed.”

The Key to Innovation – Never Label Anything as “Complete”

Though a product or project is expected to go to market according to the delivery date pre-determined in a project charter, Ken and Masa’s job is to follow up and improve on it well after “launch.” User feedback is key to defining the success of a product. While customer input is always part of the ‘build’, it’s not until internal and external customers begin to engage that we know what additional investments to make. This may mean adjusting some “out of scope” items in the original charter, gauging how users and the market respond, or making requested, recommended, or necessary changes. Ken’s job, as the Director of Product, is to be selective with how this is done.

“I’m not just saying no, I’m saying let’s see what we learn from the first 10 users,” he explains. Not only does waiting for feedback from several sources give Ken and Masa time to focus on other coinciding projects, but it also allows Dwellworks as a company to be strategic in prioritizing and responding to what our clients and customers want. Pausing for market-led feedback means we’re not making changes based on our own assumptions. Ken says this moves things along at the desired pace of the Product Development team – which he applauds for being one of the quickest and most inventive he’s ever worked with.

“Since Dwellworks is so much more intentional about what we want to do, it’s getting us to a better place competitively and it’s getting us there quicker.”