Overview

Meet ChEO!
(Chief Engagement Officer)

ChEO is an AI-based Management-as-a-Service solution that acts as a virtual team assistant tasked to elevate engagement and productivity.

Challenge

Solution

People create informal networks of rapport and transmit more information with their bodies in person compared to the average online meeting. COVID and the transition to remote work has radically reduced the number of in-person meetings and company events leading to a more impersonal workplace. To reduce administrative burdens related to team engagement and meaning touchpoints become a challenge for WFH workers.

ChEO is an AI-based Management-as-a-Service solution reduces disengagement and low morale.

We use voice and facial analytics to track engagement and use it to figure out the ideal time to push for an in-person meeting or event and use algorithms to find meeting spaces and activities that are accessible and work for everyone.

Lean Canvas For ChEO

Business model canvas with sticky notes.png

Research

Customer interviews and surveys were sent out workers to understand more insight into their challenges in work. The sampled workers covered workers working at different positions in WFH or hybrid mode.

The list below shows some questions asked during the interviews:

Demographic Info
Challenges and the reasons behind when working in WFH or hybrid mode
How do you feel about team engagement at work in different working modes?
Rank your satisfaction level about team collaboration in different working modes
Rank your working performance in different working modes
Top pain points & potential solutions to your problems
Do you plan to spend on tools for virtual collaboration or training for remote managers?

The result showed:

About 40% of managers expressed low self-confidence in managing workers remotely.
38% of managers agree that remote workers perform worse, while 22% are unsure.
Collaboration decreased by a factor of 25% due as a result of Work From Home set up.
60% of executives plan to prioritize spending on tools for virtual collaboration or training for remote managers.

Pain points:

Lack of Time

Managers don't have time for people management, which results in low engagement

Lack of Skills

Managers lack skills to implement creative solutions to improve engagement

Lack of Touchpoints

WFH or Hybrid model resulted in less in-person meaningful team interactions

Targeted Segmentation

Segmentation Level 1 Segmentation Level 2 Customer related characteristics, working style orientation, and goals

Corporates

Startups
(Both emerging and highly successful)

With fast working pace, they are self-starter and open to new things, but they lack time for people management; employees seek to ask for feedback, obtain other viewpoints and engage in discussions that will help improve the team; remote working challenges them in efficient communication and team engagement.

Small and Medium size businesses
(Across all industries)

It’s crucial for managers to motivate and support their teammates, but they may lack relevant management skills; employees need to feel valuable to the company; they complain that isolation kills collaboration and motivation to work productively.

Large enterprises
(Across all industries)

Managers have skills to improve engagement, but they’re not sure about the touchpoint; communicate cost is high due to company size. They need to ensure everyone get on the same page; They want to develop a feeling of connectedness and recognition for corporate culture.

Colleges
(For students working on term projects in groups)

Young college students feel alienated, lonely on their screens; wish they could return to ordinary, face-to-face conversation; meet challenges in building strong connections with teammates; they need social life for peer learning & entertaining.

Personas And Customer Journey

abstract-technology-background-background-3d-grid-cyber-technology-ai-tech-wire-network-fu

Persona # 1 College Student

Eva Swift
College student majoring in marketing

Age: 21
Personal details:
Have 6 courses per term with 1 group project for each course

Goals

Collaborate better with teammates so that I can learn more from teamwork.
Improve team engagement so that I could build strong relationship with my teammates.

Frustrations

Remote learning reduces opportunities for me to network with my peers.

I do not have enough time to investigate into teamwork management, as the workload for 6 courses are already heavy for me.
I cannot easily find a time to fit all my teammates’ schedule to meet in person.
I don’t know when and how to organize in-person activities to improve team connection and engagement.

Profile

I am in my last year of bachelor’s study. There are a lot of teamwork for students majoring in business. I know the importance of networking and teamwork, but I’m not experienced in managing a team.

Key Drivers

I have to work in a team very often.
I am not confident and experienced in managing a team.
I love team project, but I hope it could not focus on finishing tasks only.
Make sure teamwork is meaningful.
Make sure my needs for social and improvement are met.

How I expect to Use the Service

I can behave as usual in teamwork, so there would be too much time cost for me & my team.
It could coordinate among teammates, which helps remove decision-making burden.

Persona # 2 Professional Manager

James Smith

Senior manager | IT industry

Age:35

Personal details:

People manager with a team of 5

Marriage status: married

Income: $200,000

Company size: 200-300 employees

Goals

Improve team morale, transparency, comradeship, ensure all members feel seen and to connect with them person to person.
A more relaxed subjective state allows for his team members to lower their personal barriers and increases the likelihood that they can connect with each other with in person out of office events.

Frustrations

Lack of transparency regarding team members’ availability and preferences.
Lack of training and time to implement creative solutions in WFH mode.
Feel like I could not really connect with the team I am managing at my job after the transition to remote work during and after COVID.
Don’t know the timing/touchpoints for in-person activities to increase moral, improve employees job satisfaction and engagement of the team.

Profile

As an experienced manager, I am struggling to keep my team engaged in a hybrid setup, all while being overwhelmed with my tasks. I am trying to plan events with my team that appeal to everyone and where they can all reconnect.

Key Drivers

I have 5 people to manage while dealing with my own work.
I feel authority and power fade away when my team operated remotely.
Make sure there’s less miscommunication and low productivity in my team.
Everyone could overcome social isolation and get feedbacks from colleagues.
High-quality in-person activities could improve team cohesiveness

How I expect to Use the Service

This service could reduce my administrative burdens and easy to apply
With your service, my team can seamlessly create meaningful touch-points to connect, improve collaboration and stay engaged even in a Hybrid model

Customer Journey

high-tech-technology-geometric-and-connection-system-background-with-digital-data-abstract

Prioritization of Features

Must-Have

Service introduction page to educate around the capabilities of ChEO
Dashboard for managers to review sentiments
Data collection during internal team meetings
AI team assistant suggesting touch-points
Integration of an AI-bot to communication tools and calendars
Message notification
Customer support center

Could-Have

Autonomous research and booking venues
Engagement goals setting
Availability/preference sourcing
ChEO online community
Staff mentoring service

Should-Have

Real-time working status assessment
Systems Admin integrates ChE(OS) into the workflow and video/audio platform like Zoom
Capture employee preferences and meeting availability
Account management
-Account login
-Membership center

Won't-Have

Service to order team treats for team
3rd party ads

User Stories

✓ As a busy manager, I want to get my team’s words& behaviors analyzed automatically so I can figure the working status of my people.

As a busy manager, I want to get my vocal and facial expressions analyzed automatically when we’re on video/audio call
As a busy manager, I want to have real-time working status assessment so that I could get instant feedbacks.

✓ As a busy manager, I want the result to be presented clearly so that all my team could understand the meaning behind the data.

As a busy manager, I want to get a report with clear structure so that I could get the main point immediately.
As a busy manager, I want all my team member could see the analysis result clearly so that all of us could monitor ourselves.

Acceptance Criteria

✓ The software layer shall identify and interpret people’s words & behavior automatically.

The software layer should interpret sematic and emotional signals embedded in vocal and facial expressions from video/audio calls run by the team.
The software layer should collect data and do assessment automatically to provide suggestions to client in time.

✓ The software shall translate signals into anonymized mood maps and engagement metrics and present the key findings.

The software should generate and present a well-structured report, in which key information can be seen quickly at a glance.
The software should allow managers and team members to get access to results to realize self-monitor.

✓ As a professional, I want to use ChEO without installing or turning on anything so that I could save my time.

As a professional, I want to integrate ChEO with other commonly used software so that ChEO could help me in communication and coordination.
As a professional, I want ChEO operate in background system without requiring me to turn it on.

✓ The Systems Admin shall integrate ChEO into the workflow and software stack on the back end so that users don’t have to turn anything on or install.

ChEO should be integrated into most corporate communication and scheduling tools including MS,Google Suite, Slack, Zoom.
The system shall be operated automatically once authorized so users needn’t turn it on every time.

✓ As a college student, I want to ChEO to suggest the touch point and coordinate schedule among teammates so that I could focus on more valued tasks.

As a college student, I want to set a target for ChEO so that its suggestions could be more accurate and helpful.
As a college student, I want to acquire advice from ChEO on any action plans.
As a college student, I want ChEO provide time slots to every teammate and help us set the schedule.

✓ The software shall find and report a touch-point based on analysis meanwhile schedule a time among different members within the team.

The system shall enable users to set specific touch-point targets.
The system shall suggest actions based on AI-based sentiment analysis.
The system shall use AI to analyze team schedules and reaches out to individual team members to confirm availability and preferences.

Risks and Mitigations

Risks

1. Schedule Risk
There might be issues that affect the timeline of the project.

Mitigations

1. Diversifying tasks and the time it takes to complete them among the project team.
Tracking the time it takes to complete each task and assigning specific tasks to team members according to the estimated time.

2. Budget Risk
Changes in scope and engineering rework might cause budget overruns.

2. Create a buffer in financial planning. Build non-technical prototypes and ensure engineering resources are allocated to critical tasks only.

3. Technical Risk

Possible integration difficulties with oversea platforms WeChat, Tencent Meeting, DingDing due to unfamiliarity.

3. During planning tasking phase, provide more time for engineers, and reach out to specialist from each platform for API support

4. Business Risk

Competitors might react quickly and allocate resources to create similar service to compete with us.

5. Legal Risk

The privacy concern and system safety may pose the team a legal right.

4. Optimize every factor of our value chains. Seize the market share quickly by adding core value to client with high-quality services.

5. All privacy rules will need an external legal team review. Use encryption to safeguard private data and algorithms.