Samantha Chee

Product Owner

Hi, I’m Sam. Based in Stockholm, born in Singapore.

About me: A people-oriented Service Designer/Business Architect with over a decade of experience leading successful transformation initiatives within top-tier companies like Ericsson and Volvo. With experience in driving business modelling, customer journey management and design thinking in global teams for projects valued at 52M USD, I have the proven ability to translate complex projects into effective communication, actionable next-steps and tangible results. This, to facilitate shifting from a hardware-driven business model to a SaaS 'recurring revenue" driven model.For more recent projects that are signed with NDA, please contact me to possibly review them collectively. Thank you.

"I am impressed by Samantha in handling complex projects. She leads multidisciplinary teams by skillfully streamlining project management, and implementing design thinking and agile frameworks. This simplifies decision making, improves business transparency, and accomplishes ideal results as a team."
—Emilio Lopez de Mingo, Transformation Director at Ericsson who has had 37 years of experience and led leading project in eight countries over four continents.

Let's connect!

Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +46 72 445 1024

• LinkedIn

BACKLOG MANAGEMENT

Backlog Prioritisation and Visualisation

I worked closely with the scrum master to implement agile and scrum. To ease the team into scrum, backlog boards were visualised alongside the use of Jira. Here, I designed the boards e.g. product and sprint backlogs, conducted workshops with cross-functional stakeholders and team members and visualised ideal outputs and outcomes. These boards are for sprint planning, review and retrospective. Visualisation brings value to a room filled with domain-diverse members and reduces the risk in terms of knowledge and language barriers. This increases productivity and fosters collaboration, cutting meeting times by 50% and increases value for the increment by right-sizing tasks.

PRODUCT STRATEGY TRAINING

Workshops for Organisational Transformation

Having designed, planned and coordinated 2 cohorts of about 40 participants, a product strategy (via design thinking, agile and transformation) course in Ericsson witnessed 40~60% increase in learning satisfaction and promoter score, enabling design thinking and agile adoption across the organisation.My role involves leading, planning, designing and conducting the sessions. I was appointed team leader for this workgroup.

SYSTEMS THINKING TRAINING

Workshops for Organisational Transformation

As a service designer, I've had the privilege to facilitate organisational transformation at Nexer or Sigma IT. My role involves conducting workshops and preparing training material, teaching professionals to think holistically. The following subjects are covered:
• Service design
• Design thinking
• Future thinking
• Systems thinking

WORKSHOPS

Knowlege Sharing

I’ve apprenticed under an IDEO lecturer for 3 years. Since then, I’ve been hosting workshops and lectures.The workshops I've held touch on:
• Design thinking
• Systems design
• Human-centred AI
• Network theory
• Problem framing

CLASSIC FINE FOODS

Customer Research & Journey Mapping

Classic Fine foods had a high turnover rate. And this is how my team and I re-energised the business, internally and externally.

Solution
Combining User Research and Design Thinking, the team and I redesigned CFF’s user/customer experience and change management.

I coordinated meetings with clients and directed service design. I planned, designed and conducted workshops with employees to co-create manifestos with them, then proposed to place them in strategic transit areas. The final manifesto and process screen captures are shown below.

Beyond being an ingredients supplier, Classic Fine Foods is a food network. I streamlined the user experience with visual designers using user flows, wireframes and customer journey mapping.

I conducted surveys, mapped customer journeys and restructured the brand eco-system. This translates into a more cohesive CX later.

In reshaping customer experience, our research shows that chefs and food operators prefer suppliers with whom they keep in close relationship. I worked with visual designers to produce the content for better CX in various touch points based on research and insights gathered from the synthesis.

Results
Surveys show that employees experienced a 40% increase in job satisfaction while CFF had longer lasting relationships with their clients.

CHARTDESK

Customer Research & Product Strategy

With a better designed service, Chartdesk facilitates teams to adapt to the future of work.

Problem
How do you explain an AI/ML SaaS to a paper-based industry? Chartdesk's service and communications had to be redesigned—attracting digitising Maritime teams which are adapting to the future of work.

Solution
Chartdesk's product is great, but the service and communications had to be re-designed. I spearheaded strategy sessions, conducting workshops with stakeholders as we co-created a new narrative of the product together. Lo-fi concept boards are shown below.

In the research process, I sourced for interviewees, conducted group/individual interviews and gained in-depth insight into users’ needs. Research, design thinking applications and collaboratve workshops with clients are shown below.

Based on the outcomes of the research, the designers and I prioritised features customers value, making it easy to adopt by simplifying communications and manuals. The interface is made simpler and more familiar (i.e. like Outlook) while its complex backend functions were retained. (E.g. ML email filters and AIS vessel tracking tools.)

Designed like elevator pitches, the team made customer experience more holistic by streamlining and simplifying marketing collaterals e.g. sales deck and website. These new features are proposed based on the customer research as well.

Users capture business benefits and enjoy a more seamless CX upfront.

Results
Metrics grew on Chartdesk's website, keeping users on its pages. It proved that Chartdesk provided them value.

FCSCS

Product Strategy

FCSCS makes its mark in the hospitality industry as it is shaped from a tech-driven business to a people-centred one.

Problem
FCSCS is a Hospitality Management Software company that needed a streamlined product strategy that aligned with customer needs.

Solution
The experience team applied human-centred design to make onboarding for employees and clients a lot simpler. I spearheaded in research, supporting the team's strategist, and led the design of the solution.

FCSCS wanted their clients to know that they put their best interests at heart. So, it was important to make clear the business outcomes that FCSCS’ technology can deliver. I prioritised features of the website's UX with visual designers.

I did a desk research on the systems' infrastructure, as well as the possible customer journeys users would take to understand the benchmark and gaps of the service.

I also worked with our strategist to restructure FCSCS’ architecture of solutions and brand narrative based on the operations of their prospective clients.

Results
The client experienced 10% more sign-ups and 25% more requests for demos. Here is a portfolio of their clients:

NATIVE

Content Design & UX Writing

Native is a ride-hailing service in a highly saturated market. This is how our team has differentiated it from its competitors.

Problem
Native is a service that provides car rental and driver hire in a highly saturated market.Solution
The experience team redesigned the Native service and CX, turning a mere ride-hailing app into an authentic experience travelling with locals. I directed the content and service design.

The client, previously called WeTrip, wanted a rebrand. In making the brand’s first impression, the team wanted to exhibit a wealth of local knowledge and a deep tribal connection with the land travellers are exploring.

The service calls out to adventurers, backpackers, what have you. The UX of the app is designed to showcase once-in-a-lifetime adventures—offering access to experiences only the locals know.

I content-designed the UI e.g. onboarding process for customers with visual designers.

The offerings have to feel highly curated and authentic: dinner in someone’s home, visits to lesser-known villages, curated street food spots. Travellers enjoy the option of getting there by booking car and/or a driver via the service.

The team researched on what users were looking for in an enhanced CX. They want drivers double to up as tour guides, offering insider suggestions e.g. great photo locations only natives are familar with.

VOLVO AI/ML

User Research, Testing and Product Strategy

Problem
Volvo needed to design an AI/ML service in the blue ocean market.

Solution
The process belows shows how user and customer data informs the ideation (e.g. customer journey mapping, user flow mapping, concept/feature development), testing (e.g. Usability testing and A/B testing), and prioritisation of front-end and back-end features. The activities mentioned in parentheses were led, designed and directed by myself. The outcome of this is understanding the features customers desire, saving 6M SEK due to the insights gained.(The specific service cannot be disclosed due to NDA.)

VOLVO CI/CD

Process Analysis and Design

Problem
Volvo needed help in streamlining its processes, allowing DevOps and business teams take faster decisions.

Solution
As I investigated the needs and motivations of stakeholders, I realised there was a need for fault analysis via a visualised process that both business and technical teams could understand.Combining value stream map frameworks (captures time and budget) and standardised UML (captures user actions and system outputs), I documented as-is processes via user research, prototyping and user-testing. Developers, engineers/architects and I used these maps to uncover bottlenecks in our processes for the to-be design. The visualisation cuts onboarding time and discussions by 30~50%. (Note that not all data is permissible to be disclosed.)

Prototypes were user-tested, reiterated, and made into POCs to communicate between DevOps and business units.

COMFORT

GTM Strategy and Product Launch

Noone knows how well a product truly works until they've tested it. Here's how our team led an innovative product launch with Unilever.

Problem
Unilever needed help to launch a range of customisable Comfort fabric conditioners—a global first of its kind.

Solution
We formulated a go-to-market strategy that launches the fabric conditioners. We created personas, journeys and value proposition which then informed content. The content was then prototyped and optimised through A/B testing to match what users want. This generated more traction and sales. I led in defining content strategy and ran A/B testing with visual designers. I also adjusted content according to metrics.

Results
Our team won Mumbrella Innovation Award (2018) for the APAC region and saw a 20% increase in sales over time.The Mumbrella Awards celebrate the best work and talent across the marketing, advertising, media, production, PR and communications sectors in Asia Pacific.