Leading a team to design a future-proof solution for community-drive patrol coordination
SaaS
Route-logistic dashboard
0-1 Design
The premise
This case study showcases how I led a design team through a series of sprints to design an MVP dispatch management dashboard for an NGO, as part of the TechFleet co-op program. Beyond the final solution, it highlights my approach to leading collaborative design — grounded in agile philosophies and service leadership principles — where my role focused on designing the process as much as the product.
My impact
As well as contributing to core components of the route logistic dashboard, I ultimately created a framework for collaborative design that supports autonomy, accountability, and strong collective ownership under tight sprint constraints.
Team Leads
Sharmeena
Jessica
Designers
Hope
Hazuki
Bronson
Kamilah
The project scope.
Philly Truce's Peace Patrol program was founded in 2020 as Philadelphia's homicide rate climbed. The program that empowers justice-impacted men to carry out daily neighbourhood patrols in high-risk areas of Philadelphia. It is a community-based approach to safety, where, unlike police officers, Peace Patrol members focus on education and engagement.
Our goal
As the network of Peace Patrol Officers (PPO) continues to grow, Philly Truce now faces the challenge of digitizing its operations to enhance coordination and expand its impact. Our team was responsible for designing the MVP dashboard to digitize this co-ordination effort for 100+ peace patrol officers.
My role.
Leading collaborative design.
After working solo in a non-agile environment at Anxilla, I embraced the fast-paced, collaborative nature of this role. This role was not just about making meaningful impact for Philly Truce's mission, but first through how we worked together as a team.
Stepping into the Design Lead role was exciting. Having been part of the design team in the previous phase, I had some insight into team dynamics — what was working, where collaboration could improve. I welcomed the opportunity to better understand myself as a leader and to engage with the very human processes behind effective collaboration.
The challenges.
Evolving client needs
With limited time per sprint, the exploratory research and design processes ran in parallel. The clients’ needs and preferences for how a digitized version of PPO management should function was being identified in real time by the research team, as the design team began to work on wireframes.
With limited initial data and time, we had to identify core functionalities for the MVP while ensuring the platform could support evolving needs. The challenge was to balance structure with adaptability, allowing for seamless digital transition without disrupting their existing workflows.
Alignment and shared decision-making
My challenge also included aligning six designers within a series of two-week agile sprints to move swiftly from ideation to testing—producing a unified dashboard and core components for the design system while enabling shared decision-making, rapid iteration, and genuine ownership across the team.
My strategy.
Developing a framework for collaboration in design.
Below is a snapshot of the collaborative framework I established. It was shaped by both the needs of the project and understanding how the team worked best. It evolved through a series of collaborative practices I introduced over time, and became the a part of how we worked each sprint.
Below are some of the key principles and outcomes that I advocated for and led with through the above framework:
Knowledge is shared not siloed
Actively referencing each other’s work—borrowing patterns, flows, or interactions that work well, and openly crediting where ideas originated.
Separating ideas from identity
Acknowledging that we all contribute best in different ways, whether it is through quick ideating, asking questions or identifying edge cases. Working as a team meant design can evolve without it reflecting individual identities.
Building on ideas rather than replacing them
Treating designs as inputs to a shared solution instead of individual ownership. Decisions are more resilient because they’re informed by multiple perspectives
A future-proof solution.
Given the scope of the solution, not all aspects are shown here. Below I highlight a focused story that demonstrates how my framework for collaboration was put into practice for one of our core elements: The scheduling flow.
Going beyond digital
I mapped out the Peace Patroller and Dispatcher journeys beyond the digital touchpoint, to create designs that integrate with their real-world coordination methods.
Surfacing core assumptions & criteria
As Design Lead, I framed the sprint epic and explicitly surfaced our core assumptions before any design work began. This was important in giving the team a shared baseline to be able to ideate quickly.
Surfacing decision points through initial designs
The team explored multiple design directions in parallel. Rather than converging too early, we compared our designs side by side to surface meaningful differences in approach. I translated these differences into clear either/or decision point. As a team we decided on 'action step' for each decision point.
Re-aligning as a team
As decision points accumulated, it became clear that we needed to narrow our scope. I facilitated a quick team voting session to collectively decide which core element of the route logistic scheduling flow to design first, ensuring focus while preserving shared ownership.
Converging on a core component
We centered our efforts on the scheduling card, a foundational component reused across the scheduling experience. We designed different versions and states of this card and then conducted a series of votes to narrow down each element.
Delivering a futureproof scheduling flow
The final outcome was a scheduling page that worked cohesively across the platform. It supports multiple shifts per route, multiple patrollers per shift, and clearly communicates publishing status, accommodating both operational flexibility and future system growth.
The outcome
100+
The dashboard solution can support over 100+ peace patrollers, over 20+ routes.
The dashboard is future-proof. The system is adapted so that the details can change, without major shifts to design.
The dashboard was built to be modular and scalable, re-using patterns and created the first core components of the design system.
My contribution & learnings
Designing the process, as much as the product.
Being visual thinkers, designers are prone to being biased when we start assuming how the users will interact with our system/product. We often already have an ‘image’ of how this interaction will play out. A core focus in my work is challenging those assumptions—starting with my own.
As Team Lead, I brought this reflective approach to the broader team by shaping a collaborative design workflow that balanced individual autonomy with shared alignment. By anchoring each sprint in a clear epic and explicitly breaking down the assumptions, I helped the team separate what we knew, what we were assuming, and what we still needed to learn. This made it easier to disagree productively, surface our assumptions and biases, and leverage them to make better group decisions.
Practicing service leadership in a fast-paced environment.
I also learned that meeting the product goal depends understanding how each designer worked best, how they wanted to contribute, and how they needed to be heard. Rather than enforcing a single way of designing, I focused on removing friction for the team— encouraging designers to narrow down and design for constraints. This allowed us all to move quickly without feeling rushed, and to take ownership without working in isolation.
Ultimately, this project reinforced my belief that good design leadership is less about having the right answers and more about deeply understanding people—how they think, and what they need to do their best work. In agile environments especially, I see that service leadership and collaborative design isn’t a “soft skill”; it’s a practical strategy for delivering resilient, human-centered systems under pressure.
