Problem

Housekeepers managers were using paper printout to schedule teams and assigning one-off and recurring subtasks tasks via sticky notes. Subtasks could be property-specific (i.e. tasks that needed to be executed on in either individual properties or a group with similar characteristics - such as those that have pools or dishwashers), focus of the week reminders (i.e. cohort-level reminders to execute on areas of improvement - such as due to the topic coming up often during reviews), or personalized reminders for performance improvement. Housekeepers were already using their mobile phones to communicate with their managers while working. I saw this as an opportunity to shift the stakeholders’ paper experiences to digital ones.

Pain Points:

1. Papers and sticky notes would get damaged or lost throughout the workday while housekeepers were juggling multiple items and tasks.

2. Inability to track success and monitor overall performance in the current state

3. Dependence on turn audits for quality control

Objectives:

1. Reduce the amount of inbound messages the Housekeeping Management receives daily

2. Improve scores for property cleanliness, accuracy, and quality

3. Provide a simple but flexible user experience, enabling Housekeeping managers to create and manage all Petit tasks

4. Create a simplicity and consistent interface Housekeepers can use to find out what to do for their workday and what will be required to get it done

5. Facilitate/accommodate follow-up actions after tasks and subtasks are attended to

Research

I centered research on the WanderJaunt Housekeeping managers, with the intent of understanding all of the context involved within their workday. I shadowed managers for a few days, so I could experience the variety of circumstances and incidents they encountered.

Intentions to Learn:

1. What are the housekeeping team’s roles and responsibilities?

2. What steps do they perform to complete their tasks?

3. What systems and people does housekeeping management interact with?

4. What is the work environment like for housekeeping managers?

5. What emotions do housekeeping managers experience while working with the Turn Tool?

6. Are there any pain points that housekeeping managers experiences in their day to day?

7. Is the current product/system helping or hurting housekeeping managers efficiency? How?

Findings

The managers day involved monitoring several communication channels and regular interruptions. Workday disruptions could be anything from their own teams calling in to troubleshoot issues, receiving packages, getting status reports from laundry attendants, addressing problems that cross over with the quality team, and helping guests find lost or forgotten belongings. You can view all of my notes from the shadow sessions using this link.

Concept mapping

You can view additional project notes here.

• Subtasks

  • Definition: Activity that needs to be completed by a Housekeeper on a Turn. Can be attached to a specific property or to a specific person (i.e. Housekeeper). Subtasks becomes activated when a Turn is created.

  • Property-specific:

  • Person-specific:

• Subtask templates

  • Definition: Subtask creation machine

  • Components:

    • Task description

    • Recurrence schedule

    • Administrative requirements

• Audits

  • Definition:

  • Approval

  • Disapproval

• Statuses

  • Subtasks

    • Complete - Housekeeper marks subtask as completed, stays ‘Completed’ unless it is ‘Disapproved’ during the audit process. See below.

    • Queued - Subtask is created but the Turn has either not yet been created or is on a future date/time.

    • Unable to Complete - Subtask was

    • Deactivated

  • Subtasks Templates

    • Complete - If all subtasks are competed

    • Queued - If 1 or more subtasks are queued, while the rest (if any) are marked ‘Complete’.

    • Action Required - If 1 or more subtasks are marked ‘Incomplete’

    • Deactivated - If entire Subtask Template is deactivated

  • Audits

    • Approved

    • Disapproved

      • Marked incomplete

      • Further review

    • Empty (Unaudited)

• Task Management

  • Edit

  • Re-queue

  • Deactivate

Interfaces

 The WanderJaunt Housekeeping Manager Product is an intuitive interface that encapsulates all of the functions a manager would need access to in workday. Managers can effortlessly create teams, schedule work, and assign both recurring and one-off tasks and subtasks.

Schedule Page

Managers can assign tasks by clicking and dragging the task or subtask card over to the specific team’s row. Each card provides information specific to the task or subtask, like the location, type, and estimated amount of effort. Once scheduled to a team, the task card shift to a pill format. The color of the pill indicates the status of the task. Assigned subtasks are indicated by the circular icon with the “S” in the middle.

All Interfaces