Dispatch board rebuild
Fieldnote
2024
Lead product manager, team of 7
Dispatchers juggled 40 crews on a board built for 10. We rebuilt it around the questions they ask every morning.
92%
on-time arrivals, up from 81%
The problem
Fieldnote's dispatch board was designed when a typical customer had ten crews. By 2023 the median was 40. Dispatchers kept a second spreadsheet open, and late arrivals were the top reason for churn.
My role
I led discovery and owned the roadmap for a team of five engineers and one designer.
What we did
Sat with 12 dispatchers for a full morning each and wrote down every question they asked the board.
Rebuilt the board around three of them: who is free, who is running late, and what can move.
Shipped in four steps behind a switch, so crews never lost a working board.
Result
On-time arrivals went from 81% to 92% over two quarters. The second spreadsheet disappeared in 9 of the 12 companies we visited.
What I'd do differently
We waited too long to test with the largest customers. Their edge cases cost us a month at the end.