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Developing a New Feature Set: Deforestation Reduction

The Context: I worked on this project during my time as a Senior Design Researcher and Strategist for a venture studio. The core product, a proprietary enterprise software, was developed for a global agricultural commodity trader so they could use geospatial imagery to monitor deforestation within their supply chain.

The Problem: After a successful core product launch, new legislation required the client to shift from just monitoring deforestation to actively mitigating it, with potential fines up to 8% of global revenue for non-compliance.

The Objective: As Research Lead, I was tasked with determining how the current product offering could be expanded to effectively reduce instances of deforestation within our client's supply chain.

The Outcomes:

Defined and validated the Sustainable Agriculture Support Platform, a key feature set enabling traders to connect farmers with resources and land management practices proven to reduce agriculture-driven deforestation over time.
Presented findings as team to secure $1M in funding from client for the build of the new feature set.
Within the first year of deployment, the new feature set is projected to save the client ~40% in fines that would have otherwise been incurred.
100% increase in user satisfaction: Before the new feature set was developed, users rated the product with an average CSAT score of 2 when asked how well it equipped them to comply with the new legislation. Following the feature set’s development, the CSAT score rose to 4.

Project Type

B2B Enterprise Software

Company

NAX

Client

Agricultural Commodity Trader

Methods

1 on 1 Interviews

Card Sorting/Stacked Ranking

Co-Design Workshop

Concept Testing

Systems Mapping

Deliverables

Regulatory Compliance Flow Chart

Causal Loop Diagrams

2 Comprehensive Research Reports

Farmer Personas

Farmer Journey Maps

Role

Lead Researcher

Timeline

14 weeks; Jan-April 2024

Project Timeline

The cross-functional team spent 14 weeks defining a new feature set to help the client comply with upcoming legislation.

Team

I led research for a junior team of 2 and collaborated with product, design, business, legal, and engineering teams to develop and de-risk the new feature set.

Setting the Project Scope

The research team worked alongside the product and business teams to collaborate with the client and define the scope of the project.

Developing Strategic Research Roadmap

I was responsible for developing the overall research strategy, which I shared and iterated upon with the broader team until we felt aligned on the set research objectives.

Determining Methods for Phase 1 Discovery

The first step in developing a new feature strategy is understanding the problem we are trying to respond to. For this reason, I chose to conduct a thorough analysis of the impending legislation as well as the systemic drivers of deforestation using both primary and secondary methods.

Synthesis and Analysis: Deforestation Legislation

By creating a regulatory compliance flow chart, I was able to propose an equation that could be evaluated by legal and replicated by engineering that we could use to identify farms at highest risk of contributing to deforestation. I was also able to identify what coming back into compliance would need to look like in order to comply with the legislation.

Synthesis and Analysis: Drivers of Deforestation Engagement

We also prioritized understanding why farmers contribute to deforestation and what would make them more likely not to engage in this type of behavior. It would be unrealistic to speak with farmers regarding deforestation so I elected to obtain understanding through expert interviews with sustainability consultants familiar with agriculture-driven deforestation.

Share Out of Phase 1 Insights and Defining Phase 2 Objectives

As a result of Phase 1, the team was able to determine that more discovery work was needed in understanding sustainable land management methods, how feasible they were, and what farmer reception to these methods looked like. The research team worked collaboratively with the broader cross-functional team to define research objectives and goals for Phase 2 based on Phase 1 learnings.

Determining Methods for Phase 2

We needed to identify scalable sustainable land management methods and potential implementation obstacles. We consulted agronomists on effective methods and farmers/farm cooperatives to identify barriers to implementation.

Synthesis and Analysis: Understanding the Reality of Sustainable Land Management

We interviewed agronomists to create and categorize sustainable land management methods, then used card sorting and stacked ranking to evaluate their effectiveness on various criteria.

Synthesis and Analysis: Understanding Farmer Perception of Sustainable Land Management

We then interviewed farmers to identify their preferred sustainable land management methods and understand their adoption barriers.

Share Out of Phase 2 Insights and Determining Additional Research Needs

From Phases 1 and 2, we were able to understand the legislation, identify that supporting farmers in adopting sustainable methods could reduce deforestation, and recognize that organic pest/disease control was a preferred sustainable land management method but faced barriers to adoption due to yield uncertainty. Understanding this, the team collaborated via an Ideation Workshop. The result was a consensus to explore insurance offerings as a way to break down this barrier.

Conducting Co-Design Workshop with Farmers to Ensure We Develop a Solution That Fits Their Needs

I led a co-design workshop with farmers to learn about their current exposure to insurance offerings, identify their willingness to engage with insurance, and develop insurance terms that met their needs.

Preparing to Present Our Findings and Creating a Low-Fidelity Concept Rendering to Bring Things to Life

With the foundation of a feature set in hand, we prepared to present our findings to the client in order to secure buy-in for the full build. To bring the proposed feature set to life, I worked with the design team to put together a low-fidelity prototype showcasing the offering.

Project Share Out and Outcomes

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