Scott Aquilino

Lead Product Designer
Company: Dayforce 
Duration: 6 Sprints
*Heads Up! There is no interaction design or mockups in this case study. This project was about strategic alignment and developing a prioritized roadmap in order to direct design effort across multiple years. 

Context & Problem

The Dayforce talent acquisition product had grown into a critical revenue generator (30% of total revenue), but workflows had become cumbersome and features accumulated in a fragmented, complex experience. As Lead Product Designer, I led the redesign initiative, aligning stakeholders, defining a cohesive vision, and creating a strategic roadmap to simplify workflows while maintaining revenue performance.

Project Goals

  • How might we streamline workflows while preserving critical functionality?
  • How could we reduce feature complexity and create a cohesive experience?
  • What gaps existed between user needs and current product flows?
  • How could design play a more strategic role in a multi-year, cross-functional initiative?

Opportunity

  • Establish design as a strategic partner, organizing cross-functional efforts to drive a multi-year product redesign and shape the future vision.

Process

Stakeholder Alignment & Workshops
Conducted workshops with senior product leadership and multiple cross-functional teams to define project goals, constraints, and strategic vision.

  • Clarified business priorities and revenue-critical features.
  • Identified target customer needs
  • Established success metrics for user experience improvements.
  • Built buy-in for design-led approach across departments.

Experience Mapping & Product Audit
Audited the product to understand existing workflows, feature clusters, and user pain points.

  • Organized features under Jobs To Be Done frame works
  • Identified opportunities for streamlining and reducing complexity
  • Ensured feature parity while improving overall experience
  • Explored cohesive flows for a user-centric roadmap

Prioritization & Roadmapping
Used an importance vs. difficulty matrix to prioritize initiatives for the first year of work.

  • Balanced impact with implementation feasibility.
  • Created a flexible roadmap that accommodated iterative discovery.
  • Integrated feedback from workshops and user research.

Cross-Functional Education & Ceremonies
Design was very new to Dayforce when I joined. I dedicated a lot of time to educating partners on design thinking and research processes while redefining collaboration workflows.

  • Established design reviews, user advisory boards, and sponsor calls.
  • Improved iterative decision-making and validated assumptions.
  • Transitioned teams from siloed work to an agile, collaborative approach.

Research Integration & Future Visioning
Ran foundational parallel research initiatives to inform longer-term product strategy and prioritized individual problem spaces so that we can direct researchers towards the most critical workflows.

  • Uncovered user needs and pain points for innovative solutions.
  • Built stakeholder understanding of the value of research in strategic planning.
  • Established backlogs to track new opportunities and progress.

Result

Successfully aligned cross-functional teams and elevated design as a strategic partner, ensuring design influenced both immediate projects and long-term strategy.

  • Delivered a clear, actionable roadmap for implementation.
  • Enabled design to participate in high-level product decisions.
  • Shifted perception of design from service provider to strategic driver of revenue-critical product success.

 

Outcome
The initiative established design as a core strategic function, creating structures that ensured long-term impact.

  • Design included in 100% of major product roadmap decisions for the next 3+ years.
  • Reduced cross-functional decision-making delays through improved alignment and structured processes.
  • Provided a foundation for iterative, user-validated improvements across revenue-critical workflows.

View All Work