Marketing Platform –
Future Product Vision
This is an anonymized sample from client work at Fuzzy Math. It showcases select deliverables from a broader engagement – specifically the process design, journey mapping, and workshop facilitation work.
My Role
Process Design · Journey Mapping · Workshop Facilitation · Wireframing
Client
Anonymized direct mail marketing company
Context
Work sample – partial engagement scope
Engagement
Subcontracted through technology development partner
The Situation
Tearing Apart a Legacy Platform to Rebuild It Better
A direct mail marketing company needed their legacy platform reimagined — a tool used to collect key client information necessary for executing marketing campaigns. Our job was to understand it, deconstruct it, and put it back together as a refined future vision.
Fuzzy Math was subcontracted by the technology company originally hired by the client — adding an extra layer of distance between us and the decision-making stakeholders. This structure introduced two complications from day one: limited direct access to the client, and a significant lack of alignment within the client team itself on what the platform was actually supposed to do. Unexpected staffing changes on the client side added further friction early on.
Engagement Complexities
Structure: Subcontracted through a third-party technology partner — extra layer between us and the client
Alignment: Lack of clear agreement across the client team on the platform's intention and purpose
Stability: Unexpected staffing changes on the client side caused friction and information gaps early in the engagement
Before any design work could move forward, we needed to establish a shared understanding of the current state — and then navigate a client team that didn't fully agree on the future state. That challenge became the defining characteristic of this engagement.
Discovery & Current State
Understanding Before Redesigning
Before proposing anything new, we needed a solid grasp of how the platform actually worked — and where it was breaking down.
My teammate and I reviewed documentation from previous discovery work completed by the technology partner. We mapped the current-state process flow as we understood it from available materials, then held candid conversations with the client to confirm our understanding and fill gaps in our knowledge of the existing experience.
This upfront investment in understanding the current state — before touching wireframes or future-state concepts — proved essential. It gave us a credible foundation for client conversations, and it surfaced the places where the client team's descriptions of the platform didn't match each other.
Why this Matters
In ambiguous engagements with misaligned clients, the current-state process map becomes more than a design artifact — it becomes a diagnostic tool. When different stakeholders describe the same process differently, the map forces a conversation that would otherwise be deferred indefinitely.
Current-State Process Flow
The current-state flow documented how the platform collected client information for campaign execution — tracing the process from initial client intake through data collection, campaign configuration, and submission. Mapping this end-to-end revealed both the structural complexity of the workflow and the points where stakeholder understanding diverged.
Current-State Process Flow
Future State & Pivot
From Current Reality to Future Vision — With a Detour
With a shared understanding of the current state established, the work shifted toward defining what the reimagined platform experience should look like. Then the client changed direction mid-engagement.
We built out a high-level future-state journey map for the reimagined platform, holding multiple workshops with the client team to map out each part of the process and ensure it accurately captured their desired future vision. We then narrowed our focus to the campaign creation workflow, identifying key process steps and creating granular process flows and screen flows — translating those concepts into low-fidelity wireframes.
Key Deliverables
01
Current-State Process Flow
End-to-end documentation of how the platform actually worked — inputs, outputs, decision points, and manual workarounds.
02
Future-State Journey Map
A high-level reimagining of the platform experience, validated through multiple client workshops to ensure it reflected a shared future vision.
03
Campaign Creation Flows + Wireframes
Granular process and screen flows for the campaign creation workflow, translated into low-fidelity wireframes for stakeholder review.
Future-State Journey Map
Campaign Creation Flows + Wireframes
Refer to the Figma file here for annotated wireframes of the campaign creation process.
The Mid-Engagement Pivot
The lingering lack of alignment on the future vision led the client to reprioritize. Rather than continuing with campaign creation, they wanted us to tackle the initial sales process and information intake experience first. We went back to the drawing board — without losing the work already completed.
Rather than treating this as a setback, we treated it as a signal. If the client couldn't align on a clear direction for campaign creation, the issue likely started upstream — at the point where client information was first collected and the engagement was framed. Starting there made sense.
Interaction Concepting Workshop
I led an interaction concepting workshop with the client team specifically designed to address the alignment gap. Rather than presenting solutions for the team to react to, the workshop invited active participation — asking stakeholders to sketch and concept their own visions for key interface moments.
How The WOrkshop was Structured
Provided instructions and illustrated examples to ground participants in the concepting exercise
Focused on dashboard sketching — a shared touchpoint that forced stakeholders to articulate their vision concretely
Synthesized results across participants to surface points of agreement and surfaces of conflict
Used the synthesized output to establish a shared, agreed-upon design direction for the first time in the engagement
Why It Worked
The workshop succeeded where previous conversations had stalled because it made the alignment problem visible. Stakeholders who disagreed in discussion couldn't avoid the disagreement when their sketches were placed side by side. The workshop didn't just generate ideas — it created a shared visual language the team could commit to.
Key Takeaways
What Complex Clients Teach You
Complex clients with misaligned teams and shifting priorities aren't obstacles — they're the actual work. This engagement sharpened skills that show up in every project since.
Stakeholder alignment must be established before design can progress
The lack of alignment within the client team was the root cause of most friction. Future projects should invest more heavily in facilitated alignment workshops early — before committing to a design direction.
Thorough discovery before design is always worth the investment
Mapping the current-state process flow before any future-state work proved essential — both as a design foundation and as a diagnostic tool for surfacing hidden misalignment.
Flexibility to adapt is a core consulting skill
When the client reprioritized from campaign creation to intake design, adapting without losing context or momentum was the difference between a productive pivot and a wasted sprint.
Collaborative workshops are the most reliable alignment tool
The interaction concepting workshop achieved in one session what weeks of stakeholder conversations had failed to accomplish. Active participation creates ownership in a way that passive review never does.
Visual artifacts accelerate shared understanding
Process flows, journey maps, and wireframes served as communication tools as much as design artifacts — giving distributed stakeholders a concrete, shared reference point for complex process discussions.
What This Work Demonstrates
Stakeholder alignment facilitation in high-ambiguity contexts
Current-state process mapping as a diagnostic tool
Workshop design and facilitation
Adapting scope mid-engagement without losing momentum
Connection to Broader Practice
Workshop facilitation methodology carried forward to Nexus/Tempo
Available as a standalone service for teams with alignment challenges
Direct mail and marketing platform domain familiarity
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