Overview
StoryJam started as a create-a-thon fix for remote story pointing. Research revealed a bigger problem: participation imbalance appeared across every ceremony type, and facilitation couldn't fix it. I advocated for expanding scope to a general-purpose participation platform, set the MVP constraint, and led from research through shipped product. My contribution was problem framing, research direction, design requirements, and delivery tradeoffs, not UI design itself.
Activities Led
Role
End-to-end PM: problem framing, scope, research direction, and delivery across a cross-functional team
Team
3–4 engineers, 1–2 designers, embedded throughout
Status
Shipped & Scaled
Duration
~8 months (discovery → build → launch → iteration)
FROM PAIN POINT TO PLATFORM
Started as a team's frustration with remote story pointing. Research showed participation imbalance was structural and cross-ceremony. Expanded scope to a general-purpose participation platform, scoped tightly to learn from adoption.
DESIGNED FOR HOW MEETINGS ACTUALLY WORK
The create-a-thon prototype broke in real meetings. Defined the minimum flexibility threshold before building the MVP: anything that would prevent a session from continuing had to be handled.
Problem
The team's pain point was real — and bigger than they thought
StoryJam started in a FordLabs create-a-thon. Remote story pointing on Webex and Slack wasn't working — responses appeared in real time and influenced whoever hadn't weighed in yet. Existing tools felt clinical. The designers chose a fruit-themed concept that made sessions feel warm and playful — and when we tested it, participants responded immediately.
Leadership asked whether there was a wide enough audience to justify building and scaling it — and whether it could demonstrate the quality of product FordLabs' process could produce. The answer would determine whether this remained a one-team prototype or became a real investment.
The constraints were clear from the start: any solution had to be voluntary — no mandate, no enforced rollout. It had to fit into existing meeting workflows without adding time or overhead. And facilitators, who held informal influence over whether tools got adopted, had to see value immediately. Any approach requiring training, enforcement, or consistently strong facilitation wouldn't survive.
Early prototype — the fruit-themed interface from the create-a-thon.
Research insights
Participation looked open — the mechanics said otherwise
The user you design for isn't always the user who determines adoption. Facilitators were the decision-makers, not writers.
The user you design for isn't always the user who determines adoption. Facilitators were the decision-makers, not writers.
The user you design for isn't always the user who determines adoption. Facilitators were the decision-makers, not writers.
Across 9 interviews and 13 observed sessions spanning planning, retrospectives, and prioritization, five insights reshaped what we built.
Timing determined influence. The critical factor was when input became visible. When early responses were revealed before others had committed, influence leaked immediately and predictably.
Early signals anchored judgment. Initial signals anchored subsequent input, perceived authority was amplified, and divergence collapsed before independent judgment could fully form.
Behavioral fixes couldn't undo structure. Because visibility preceded commitment, the problem could not resolve through better norms or stronger facilitation. Once early input was visible, later contributions reliably narrowed—regardless of intent, effort, or seniority.
The mechanism was structural and repeatable. Once visibility preceded commitment, anchoring and authority effects activated predictably. Better facilitation, stronger norms, or increased effort could not reverse the dynamic. The conditions for independent judgment had already collapsed.
The Intervention
Structure protected independent judgment
Independent input is collected without visibility, preventing anchoring before commitment.
Visibility preceded commitment. The intervention was not to coach participants or improve facilitation. It was to redesign the workflow so influence could not enter the system during decision formation.
Instead of open discussion first, the system enforced a different sequence that delayed visibility until after commitment:
- Individual input collected privately
- Signals hidden until everyone participated
- Group results revealed simultaneously
Neutrality required delayed exposure. By constraining visibility, anchoring and hierarchy effects were neutralized before they could form. The interface itself enforced this sequencing—participants could not see others' input, and facilitators could not override the order.
To preserve neutrality by default, the system deliberately avoided behavioral or facilitation layers: no facilitation rules, no moderation prompts, and no training or behavioral guidance.
Design implication. Independent judgment was protected before discussion, so decisions reflected structure rather than early influence.
Why This Mattered at Scale
Why This Mattered at Scale
At Ford's scale, small participation biases compound — shaping priorities and concentrating ownership in the same few voices.
Any solution that required training, facilitation skill, or added meeting time would fail the adoption test. Teams would route around it or abandon it entirely.
StoryJam held up because the mechanism protected independent judgment by default — without requiring intent, oversight, or behavioral change.
The Real Constraint
The constraint wasn't the writing interface — it was the facilitation layer
The real constraint wasn't the writing interface. It was the facilitation layer. Teachers needed to see where stories were going, intervene when groups got stuck, and assess individual contribution — all without breaking the creative flow.
Most collaborative writing tools treat facilitation as an afterthought. We made it the architectural foundation.
The user who determines adoption is not always the user who uses the product most. Designing for the decision-maker's information needs — without degrading the primary user's experience — is the core tension.
Solution
A card-based story architecture with dual-view system
We designed a card-based story architecture where each narrative beat is a discrete, movable unit. Writers contribute to cards asynchronously. The story board gives facilitators a visual map of narrative progress without requiring them to read every word.
Key design moves included a dual-view system (writer view vs. facilitator view), story arc templates that suggest structure without enforcing it, and contribution tracking that shows engagement patterns without surveillance.
The story board gives facilitators a structural overview while writers see a focused composition space.
Key Decisions
Key Decisions & Tradeoffs
Three architectural decisions shaped the product. Each involved a clear tradeoff that we accepted deliberately.
Cards over documents
Observed
Simultaneous document editing created coordination overhead and merge conflicts that derailed creative flow.
Decision
Discrete story cards — one narrative beat per card — with async contribution and no simultaneous editing.
Tradeoff
Some narrative fluidity is lost. Long, flowing prose is harder to compose in cards.
Why It Held
Completion rates were significantly higher. Writers adapted to the card model within one session. The constraint actually improved output quality.
Structure-as-suggestion
Observed
Blank-page approaches had high abandonment. Rigid templates killed creative ownership.
Decision
Story arc templates presented as optional scaffolding — visible but not enforced.
Tradeoff
Some stories wandered without clear resolution. Facilitators occasionally needed to redirect.
Why It Held
Engagement data showed 2.3× higher completion rates vs. blank-page. The occasional wandering was a feature for exploratory projects.
Facilitator-first information architecture
Observed
Teachers — not students — determined whether a tool was adopted or abandoned.
Decision
IA designed around facilitator needs: progress visibility, intervention points, assessment hooks.
Tradeoff
Writer-facing features were deprioritized in v1. Some creative features shipped later than ideal.
Why It Held
Adoption was driven entirely by facilitator confidence. Writers adapted quickly; facilitators needed to feel in control from day one.
Results
What happened — and what it means
StoryJam shipped to 12 pilot classrooms and 3 corporate team-building programs. The card-based architecture reduced facilitator intervention time by roughly 40% compared to document-based alternatives, while student engagement metrics showed sustained participation across 4-week projects.
What didn't happen: we didn't see the creative quality improvement we hypothesized. Card-based writing produced more consistent output, but not measurably more creative output. The value was in reliability and completion, not in creative breakthrough.
12
Pilot classrooms
~40%
Reduction in facilitator intervention
4 weeks
Sustained engagement
2.3×
Completion rate vs. blank-page
What I Learned
What I Learned
StoryJam reshaped how I think about multi-stakeholder design, creative tooling, and the relationship between structure and expression.
The user you design for isn't always the user who determines adoption. Facilitators were the decision-makers, not writers.
Creative tools need different onboarding than productivity tools. Writers don't want tutorials — they want an inviting blank space with just enough structure to feel safe starting.
Structure doesn't kill creativity when it's presented as optional scaffolding. The key is visibility without enforcement.
Contribution tracking is a trust problem, not a data problem. Showing engagement patterns without creating surveillance anxiety required careful framing.
Card-based architectures trade narrative fluidity for structural clarity. That tradeoff is worth it when coordination is the bottleneck.
Transferable Pattern
Transferable Pattern
When building tools for creative collaboration, design for the facilitator's information needs first, then protect the creator's experience from that infrastructure. The facilitation layer should be invisible to creators but powerful for coordinators.
This pattern applies anywhere you have a two-sided creative workflow: content platforms, design collaboration, research synthesis, editorial systems.
Transferable Principle
Design the coordination layer for the decision-maker. Protect the creative layer from the coordination layer. Let structure suggest, not enforce.
Currently Seeking
Let's build something thoughtful together.
Product roles where I can work closely with engineering and design to build custom software — including AI when it's the right tool.