Systems thinking

Summary

This page is a collection of systems thinking methods and artefacts that I’ve developed over the years.

📫 Want to learn more about my methods or go deeper on a case study? Get in touch.

Object-oriented UX

Certification

I recently completed the Object-Oriented UX strategist certification. Following the ORCA (Objects, Relationships, CTAs, Attributes) process, OOUX offers a repeatable, pragmatic approach to delivering high-quality, consistent experiences by focusing on nouns before verbs. Having baked the ORCA process into my recent client work, I’m looking forward to sharing this process with in-house product teams.

Object models

Although recently certified in OOUX, I’ve been using a similar approach to unpacking a product’s objects and relationships throughout my career. When joining a new team, these models offer an accelerated understanding of the product and domain while also assisting with alignment across design, product, and engineering teams.

Bitbucket

Basic object model Basic relationship model Commit object File object Branch object Tag object Pull request object

Uplay

An earlier example of an object model created during my time at Ubisoft for their Uplay platform. User object Game object Actions object Rewards object Unit object Avatar object Video object

Billing models

During the push to deliver Atlassian Enterprise plans, we struggled with the complexity and inconsistency of Atlassan product architecture and billing systems. Atlassian had a product mix that included pure SaaS products that were billed on a per-user basis, such as Bitbucket and Trello, and also products that belonged to a multi-product site, such as Jira and Confluence. The site-based model was a remnant of Atlassian’s original server-side business.

The following models were created to simplify the problem space and propose a path forward. The solution proposed unified, per-user billing and the dissolution of the site-based model. It would take years of iteration to achieve, but eventually, Atlassian products would align on this as the correct path forward.

Billing model diagram

Billing inconsistencies between pure SaaS and site-based products Simplified per user billing across all products

Product architecture iterations

Initial product architecture
Step towards a siteless architecture Unified architecture and container model Snippet from the blog share with Atlassian