Ownership & Task Lifecycle Redesign

 



Tinkoff Bank
Ownership redesign 
 








A year‑long migration from legacy Siebel to a secure in‑house CRM, where I redesigned hidden post‑call work into an explicit Task life ails.

Role: Interaction UX Designer | Channels: chat, telephony | Constraints: SLA stability, RBAC, auditability

350+
Migrating supports to a secure in‑house 
CRM - without SLA regression



4.8
Internal operator CSAT 
3.5 → 4.8 (survey)


+500k

Monthly customers
that CRM platform serves




Context
My role & approach
Users
Problems
Insights
Solution
Lo-Fi Wireframes
Results







CONTEXT

Support linesMass Market support
High‑volume first-line service for standard requests. Fast
resolution, strict SLA, minimal required data exposure.



Premium support
second-line support for higher‑value clients with more complex
requests. Needs clearer ownership and safe follow‑ups.

Private segment (subset of Premium)
Highest‑value clients expecting a white‑glove experience
(proactive follow‑up, fewer handoffs, higher trust).



Back‑Office specialists
Specialists who complete deeper operations asynchronously
(document/account processing, approvals). They rely on
structured tasks, due dates, and clear context.






Click any image to enlarge



The support organization ran multiple service lines with different permissions and identity‑verification requirements.

Migration required role‑aware workflows, strict access control, and an auditable trail for sensitive actions, while maintaining SLA stability through rollout waves. I mapped stakeholders and dependency owners early to prevent blind spots and to align rollout responsibilities.








Involvement & blockers matrices included to show cross‑functional dependency surface during migration














MY APPROUCH

How I worked — Phase 1
Understand the operation (AS‑IS) 























What I designed



New “Task Mode”
Deferred work











USERS


Why this segmentation mattered


A “copy-the-legacy-screens” approach would either slow frontline work, overload premium workflows, or violate back office security.
The solution required role-specific workflows with shared system objects (case/task/queue) and strict permission boundaries.











Different service lines required different workflows due to strict permission boundaries. 

I used role models and a permission corridor to define what each group can see, do and turned those constraints into interaction rules (role and state gating, explainability for blocked actions).

Scroll to see other roles (Frontline / Back office / …)










PROBLEM


Before Task Mode: what work looked like


Before Task Mode, complex cases produced hidden post‑call work: follow‑ups were tracked manually (often in chat), ownership became unclear across shifts, and supervisors relied on manual monitoring. This created operational blind spots and security risk because critical steps weren’t reliably captured inside an auditable system.

Why it mattered: (1) security risk from unnecessary data exposure, (2) operational blind spots with lost follow‑ups, and (3) motivation & fairness issues caused by manual monitoring  and late‑shift overload.




At the start, the project was framed as a technical CRM migration: to migrate multiple support service lines to a new CRM without SLA regression, across rollout waves, with limited training time and strict security constraints. 

The challenge looked like a migration readiness problem: prioritize capabilities, coordinate teams, and ship safely.






INSIGHTS &  FRAMING


But the real problem…


Discovery showed the SLA risk wasn’t mainly about rollout sequencing — it came from hidden post-call work and fragmented ownership across service lines. The core insight was that post-call work (ACW) wasn’t “extra time”, it was a missing system object. Without a Task entity, ownership couldn’t be enforced, states weren’t reliable, and routing relied on tribal knowledge.

So the solution wasn’t to improve “post-call mode” — it was to replace it with a new “Task Mode”, a first-class operating environment where follow-ups surface as owned work instead of being tracked manually.

So the migration required a scalable interaction system: task object, lifecycle, policy layer 








These insights turned into a build plan: a shared Task object, a lifecycle/state machine, and a policy layer that UI/BE/QA could all verify.

What I decided 
to build



Shared Task object
(owner, queue, states, audit log)



Deferred Task lifecycle
 with SLA-aware routing
Decision tables
as the single policy source for UI/BE/QA



Explainability
at every blocked decision point







Hypotheses



What we expected to change,
and how I validated it



H1 Ownership
If ownership is explicit (Task and owner), 
handoffs will drop and supervisors won’t need manual policing.

H2 Policy
If routing rules are encoded as decision tables, 
handling becomes consistent across teams.



H3 Explainability
If blocked states explain why and what to do next, 
users are less likely to create unsafe workarounds.

The AS-IS analysis showed that post-call work was treated as time, not as a system object.
Phase 2 focused on converting that gap into an enforceable lifecycle model.









SOLUTION

How I worked — Phase 2Design the interaction model (TO-BE) 


I checked the experience with quick interface‑level sketches, then defined system boundaries and enforcement rules: converting hidden post-call work into an explicit task lifecycle with enforceable ownership, predictable routing, and auditable state transitions.

I modeled the domain (Request/Task/Owner/Queue/State), defined lifecycle states and transitions, and translated tribal rules into decision tables shared by UI/BE/QA. I validated the core mechanics in lo‑fi walkthroughs before final implementation details. 

Design the interaction model (TO‑BE). I redesigned system logic before UI: 
domain model → lifecycle states → decision rules → lo‑fi validation → implementation alignment.









Once the system rules were defined, I expressed them at interface level to validate how agents would experience the change

Click any image to enlarge











Then, I mapped the operating model at system level: where verification happens, how requests become tasks, and how exceptions escalate to Supervisor / On‑call with audit visibility.











Lo-Fi Wireframes

validating mechanics before visual polish







Finnaly, the deferred follow‑ups became a structured lifecycle with identity gates, explicit ownership, two due dates (customer due date, internal processing date), and predictable escalation paths.

Low-fidelity prototypes validated task surfacing, state gating, escalation paths, and explainability before final UI implementation. The goal here is not visual polish, but to validate that the interaction model works under real operational constraints



Deferred tasks are one workflow type 
Task Mode is the environment
where this work lives (instead of post‑call time)




Decision table
- desided whether to defer



- create the deferred task


- execute at due time


UI behavior mapping table





To remove ambiguity, I translated informal rules into decision tables 
and mapped each rule to expected UI behavior (why blocked / what next).

Click any image to enlarge











NEW “TASK MODE” prototype

Translates policy into interaction: auto-assigned tasks, state-aware actions, and auditable routing.









The shipped baseline: tasks surface automatically (auto‑assigned), actions are state‑aware, and every step is auditable. This “as implemented” baseline is what I took into pilot for Phase 3 validation and iteration.





Click any image to enlarge


    



What’s the result


Task became a first-class object (not a note)
Ownership is continuous across shifts
Two due dates enforce customer promise vs internal processing
Exceptions route through Supervisor / On-call with audit visibility









VALIDATION &  ITERATION

How I worked — Phase 3


I took the shipped baseline into pilot and validated it through rollout waves and focus groups. The goal was reliability under real shift constraints: ownership continuity, correct use of the established deadlines for responding to clients, internal processing dates, and safe escalation to Supervisor / On-call.








What broke in pilot: 
How I fixed it:

Shift boundary
auto-assigned tasks that surfaced late in the shift still landed on agents who were about to go offline. Ownership broke across shifts, and tasks were being rerouted manually  or simply left untouched until the next day, becoming overdue and creating avoidable SLA risk.



Telephony load
instant auto‑answer created abrupt context switching for chat + call agents, increasing missed steps and stress during peak load.
Shift rule
if a complex task surfaces in Task Mode after 21:30 (auto-assigned),
it is re-queued to the next shift queue




Telephony feature
added a 5-second telephony auto-answer delay and a softer alert tone
to reduce abrupt context switching











I used task‑based pilot sessions (think‑aloud) to validate the operating model under load. Below is an excerpt of the pilot script focused on ownership continuity, due dates correctness, and exception safety rather than “happy path” completion alone.








Pilot test script
- Complete an auto-assigned task end-to-end without using chat as a tracker
- Create a deferred task with two due dates and required context
- Escalate to Supervisor / On-call with an auditable reason
- Handle a task surfacing in Task Mode after 21:30 correctly
- Resolve a case while switching between chat and telephony









FEEDBACK PIPELINE


I created short playbooks 
and standardized operating rules so support agents could work confidently under load. Training focused on the few behaviors that prevented most failures: working inside Task Mode (no “status in chat”), correctly setting two due dates, and escalating exceptions to Supervisor/ On‑call with a logged reason.






During early rollout I noticed low feedback volume, while logs showed supports still returning to the old CRM system, signaling friction and unclear reporting procedures rather than low engagement. 
So I redesigned standard form of feedback into a structured stream
intake with standard fields and auto‑captured context → triage board for deduplication/merge → convert to owned tasks (including automation to handle volume).

I reinforced quality through incentives: actionable feedback taken into work earned KPI credit in the internal portal (important for annual accreditation), increasing participatory reporting and reducing clarification loops.






 Reinforced quality through incentives: 

actionable feedback taken into work earned KPI credit in the internal portal (important for annual accreditation), 
increasing participatory reporting and reducing clarification loops.










RESULTS


Project wrap-upThis began as a CRM migration, but the real work was making follow‑ups reliable. When complex cases lived “after the call,” ownership broke across roles and shifts.

I redesigned the workflow: mapped end‑to‑end service flows, defined roles and permissions, and structured follow‑ups as deferred tasks. Task Mode replaced post‑call coordination with an execution environment built for ownership.

I scaled through six new procedures, iterated on pilot failures (late‑shift routing, telephony load), and drove adoption with training and a feedback pipeline that converted operator input into actionable work.






AchievmentsHypotheses
Stop losing follow‑ups outside the CRM → follow‑ups became structured deferred tasks (not chat threads).
Keep ownership continuous across roles and shifts 
→ clear ownership and predictable escalation to Supervisor / On‑call.
Make it intuitive for support agents  
→ designed for real workflows under load, reinforced with procedures and training.
Confirmed
- structured tasks, clear ownership reduce coordination overhead and improve reliability.
- explicit roles/permissions make the system safer and easier to operate.

Adjusted after pilot
- auto‑assignment needed shift-boundary logic → late‑shift re‑queue rule.
- instant telephony auto‑answer increased stress → short delay and softer alert.

Adoption check
people don’t switch tools automatically → I reduced friction and improved signal quality with a structured feedback flow, automation, and incentives.







The Human Side of Scale 

The hardest part for me wasn’t the design itself
— it was the scale and the responsibility



What was hardest for me was the mix of tight timelines and high responsibility. I remember the pilot day clearly: about 200 supports agents were trying the new flow live with real customers, and I stayed on call because I knew I might need to react quickly. It was intense, but it also made the work feel very real and it pushed me to design and iterate with a lot of care.

What I loved most
— was the emotional side of the project



The excited feedback from supports, meeting so many people across roles, and getting to work not only as a designer, but as a listener, a facilitator, and a translator between teams, someone who helps make complex systems feel workable. 

I also genuinely enjoy building things from scratch and bringing order to ambiguity, turning messy reality into something structured people can trust. And honestly, it was fun !! I was in constant conversation with the teams, and that energy made the work feel very real.

That’s the part of this job I care about: understanding how people actually work, what stresses them, what helps them feel in control  and then building products that respect that reality.






Let’s talk
Wireframes
Prototypes
Validation
Res