Managing ThreeFlow’s Flow

from redesigning an admin dashboard to enabling
operational transformation

Project Overview

Org: ThreeFlow

Role: Product Design Lead

Timeline: 2 months (2021)

Platform: Web

Partners: Product Management, Underwriting, Engineering

The Challenge

What started as a request to redesign an admin dashboard became a strategic initiative to transform how ThreeFlow's underwriting team operates—demonstrating that sometimes the best design solution isn't designing at all.

The Original Request vs. The Real Problem

What Leadership Asked For
 Improve the underwriting dashboard to increase team accuracy and speed by enhancing the admin interface.

What Research Revealed
 The dashboard wasn't the problem—fragmented workflows across multiple disconnected systems were creating cognitive overload, process inefficiencies, and scalability bottlenecks that no interface redesign could solve.

This project exemplifies how strategic design thinking extends beyond visual solutions to operational transformation.

Discovery: Uncovering the System Behind the Symptoms

Research Approach

I conducted stakeholder interviews and workflow analysis with the underwriting team to understand their daily operations beyond the dashboard interface.

Key Research Questions:

  • How do underwriters currently track project progress?

  • What causes delays in the onboarding process?

  • What causes errors and miscommunication during broker onboarding?

Workflow Analysis: Before vs. After Research

The diagram above illustrates the critical insight from my research: what appeared to be a simple 5-day timeline was actually fragmented across multiple systems with numerous pain points (marked with red X's) that created bottlenecks, confusion, and delays. This visualization became key to helping stakeholders understand why a dashboard redesign wouldn't solve the underlying workflow problems.

Strategic Insight: When Not to Design

The Reframe

Instead of designing a solution, I needed to architect a strategy that would deliver immediate value while positioning ThreeFlow for future growth.

Key Insight

The underwriting team didn't need a better interface—they needed a better system. Sometimes the most impactful design decision is recognizing when external tools can solve problems faster and more effectively than custom development.

Solution Strategy: Integration Over Innovation

Challenging the Brief: rather than proceeding with the dashboard redesign, I advocated for exploring external project management tools that could:

  • Solve the immediate workflow problems

  • Require minimal development resources

  • Deliver results in weeks, not months

  • Scale with the team's growth

Stakeholder Navigation

Product Manager Concerns: "We've never integrated external tools before. This isn't what we planned."

My Approach

I presented a cost-benefit analysis showing how external integration would:

  • Deliver 10x faster implementation

  • Free up engineering resources for customer-facing features

  • Provide enterprise-grade functionality we couldn't build internally

  • Allow the underwriting team to operate independently of dev cycles

Underwriting Leadership Buy-in: Leadership immediately recognized the value of operational independence and faster delivery.

Solution Evaluation Process

Gained EPD buy in by:

  • Conducting tool evaluations with underwriting team input

  • Asking the product manager to do cost analysis of the product development required to improve the dashboard for the team

  • Compared the costs of the two solutions to pick the path forward

When we presented the result the savings were undeniable, the integrated solution was selected as the path forward.

Implementation: From Concept to Adoption

Tool Selection & Pilot

  • Research Phase: Evaluated project management platforms against underwriting team needs

  • Selection Criteria: Ease of use, workflow flexibility, integration capabilities, team adoption potential

  • Winning Solution: ClickUp - chosen for its customization options, intuitive interface, and cost estimates

  • Pilot Design: Created a 2-week trial with the core underwriting team

Pilot Requirements

The pilot users were required to:

  • Record one Loom per week of varying steps in the process

  • Maintain a ClickUp diary

  • Record pros and cons and general comments of ClickUp, workflow, automations, etc.

  • Work with product team as needed through interviews and shadow sessions

Pilot Learnings

We learned that the proposed project management could be further simplified by eliminating the use of containing projects by teams and reducing the number of statuses required to move through the process.

Rollout Strategy

Working with the team to incorporate findings from the pilot, we paired down the statuses and removed folders to enhance observability and ease. We then created a rollout plan:

  • Phase 1: Core team pilot with essential workflows

  • Phase 2: Full team rollout with training and support

  • Phase 3: Process optimization based on usage data

After launch, the team was able to manage their workflow without help from EPD.

Results: Transforming Operations Through Strategic Design

Quantitative Impact

The success metrics for this project were set and tracked internally, aligning with the underwriting team's preferences. The one metric they shared with me was that ClickUp saves an underwriter 3 minutes per project onboarded.

Time Savings Calculation:

  • If every customer onboarded has 1,000 projects

  • 3 min × 1,000 projects = 3,000 min saved

  • ClickUp saves an underwriter 50 hours per new customer

Qualitative Outcomes

  • Increased Adoption: Tool usage continues to increase because ClickUp provides new and flexible workflows that adapt to the evolving needs of the company and its teams

  • Improved Customer Support: ClickUp improved our customer support by enabling better cross-functional communication, creating better coordination and efficiency in resolving customer issues and implementing improvements. Improved response rate by 20% in the first three months

  • Company Growth: The integration paved the way for organizational growth, helping to establish a dedicated BizOps team responsible for assisting in implementing new AI processes within ThreeFlow, further enhancing operational efficiency and innovation

The Strategic Value

Don't forget about the effort saved NOT developing our internal tool AND the increased level of accuracy. Which means ThreeFlow saves a ton of effort and money to be MORE accurate.

Strategic Impact: Beyond the Immediate Problem

Organizational Transformation

This project shifted ThreeFlow's approach from UI optimization to workflow integration as strategy:

  • Established blueprint for operational efficiency initiatives

  • Created framework for evaluating internal vs. external solutions

  • Demonstrated how design thinking applies to business operations

Future-Proofing Capabilities

  • Technical Foundation: Laid groundwork for AI workflow automation

  • Process Maturity: Created structured approach for workflow optimization

  • Scalable Operations: Enabled underwriting team growth without proportional dev investment

Design Practice Evolution

This work became a cornerstone for expanding design's role at ThreeFlow, directly enabling future initiatives including Smart Renewals and other platform modernization efforts.

Key Learnings: Redefining Design Leadership

Systems Thinking as Design Skill

Learning The most impactful design solutions sometimes don't involve designing interfaces—they require architecting better systems and processes.

Application: This mindset directly influenced my approach to Smart Renewals and other complex platform challenges.

Stakeholder Influence Without Authority

Learning: Design leaders must be able to advocate for unconventional solutions by clearly articulating business value and managing stakeholder concerns.

Application: Successfully navigating PM resistance required data-driven arguments and risk mitigation strategies.

Strategic Design Impact

Learning: Senior design roles require thinking beyond user interfaces to operational strategy, resource allocation, and organizational capability building.

Application: This project established design as a strategic function that can drive business transformation, not just interface improvement.

The Design Leadership Principle

This project demonstrates that sophisticated design thinking means knowing when not to design. Sometimes the most valuable contribution is recognizing that the best user experience comes from better systems, not better interfaces.

The success of this operational transformation directly enabled ThreeFlow's ability to tackle more complex platform modernization challenges, including the Smart Renewals initiative that followed.

This case study showcases systems thinking, stakeholder management, and the strategic application of design thinking to operational challenges—core competencies for senior design leadership roles.