Two platforms, one product: B2B
pensions for HR and brokers

Vinci had the financial expertise to enter corporate pensions, but the product brief hid two incompatible workflows inside the word “platform.”

HR specialists worked in batch mode. They processed employee groups, reconciled invoices, handled plan changes, and looked for exceptions before they became payroll or compliance problems.

Brokers worked in deal mode. They needed to model contribution scenarios, compare options, and keep a corporate buyer in the conversation without disappearing into spreadsheets or static decks.

Competitor analysis gave us hypotheses; interviews with HR specialists and brokers tested them. By week two, the evidence pointed away from a configurable single surface and toward two focused products sharing the same data foundation.

The design work separated the two platforms while sharing foundations. Each major screen embodied a principle derived from research: HR needed batch operations and exception visibility; brokers needed deal speed and visual persuasion.

The client wanted to stay closely involved in selecting and briefing research participants. That created a real credibility risk: if we accepted it blindly, interviews could become feature validation. If we refused it outright, we would damage the relationship.

I designed a middle-path protocol: shared recruiting criteria, intervention rules for leading questions, and post-interview cross-checks against competitor workflows and neutral evidence.

That safeguard mattered because the research had to support a difficult recommendation: build two platforms, not one. The dual-platform decision became easier to defend because the evidence was visibly cleaner.

Testing then happened in weekly working sessions with HR and broker reference users. Each session reviewed three to four screens, and feedback moved into the next iteration.

The HR table view was initially too dense. We had optimized for information density but sacrificed readability. Testers asked for adjustable column widths and row density controls. We added both; HR specialists customized their views immediately.

The broker proposal builder lacked a comparison reset. Users could create scenarios but struggled to return to baseline. We added a "reset to original" control that preserved the conversation flow.

The wizard step indicators were confusing. HR specialists did not understand which steps were complete versus in progress. We moved from abstract dots to explicit status labels: "Pending," "In Progress," and "Complete."

Shipped two distinct platforms on a shared data foundation in three months. The dual-platform decision, validated through research, prevented a single-product compromise that would have pleased neither audience.

100+ research insights anchored every priority call. When debates arose about feature sequencing, we referenced the interview data. Research gave us ground to stand on.

The shared design system enabled the timeline. Component reuse across HR and broker platforms meant neither surface was an afterthought. Without shared foundations, three months would have shipped one platform well and one poorly.

User story quality improved after the rewrite. The product manager's second-draft stories — written after internalizing user motivations — drove clearer priority decisions than the technical specifications she started with.

Stakeholder engagement remained healthy despite the research protocol. The mitigation strategy — checkpoints, intervention protocols, cross-checks — preserved both data quality and the client relationship.

What worked: The dual-platform decision actually simplified stakeholder conversations. When we presented research showing the two audiences had non-overlapping primary tasks, the "build two" recommendation felt inevitable rather than expensive. The data made the case.

What was hardest: Managing stakeholder involvement in research without damaging the relationship or biasing the data. The protocol — explicit checkpoints, intervention triggers, cross-checks — was more work than expected but worth it.

What I'd do differently: Get the product manager into user research sessions from day one. By the time she rewrote stories the second time, she understood the audiences. Bringing her into interviews earlier would have saved a rewrite and caught priority calls we made twice.

What surprised me: The shared design system was not just efficient — it was essential. Three months for two platforms was only possible because components could be reused. I had expected efficiency gains; I had not expected the project to be impossible without them.