Canna: Standardizing Distribution Campaign Operations

Overview

Over an eight-month client engagement, I designed and shipped a product MVP that gave retail supply-chain managers a tool for coordinating contracted field teams in their product distribution campaigns.

The Challenge

Before Canna, my client’s operations relied on an elaborate system of internal tools and spreadsheets to plan campaigns and schedule locally-contracted distributors to run them. The challenge was to translate these separate workflows into a single tool capable of handling the complexities of scheduling, resourcing, and managing campaign lifecycles.

What I Did

I led a phased design process that let the product’s vision and execution strategy emerge directly out of my client’s operational needs. I used wireframes and prototypes to explore and test ideas with campaign managers in a process that allowed user insights to drive the tool’s direction. 

Where We Landed

Canna brought siloed manager-specific workflows into alignment under a shared operational tool. Standardization established a tangible baseline that made campaign performance easier to evaluate and optimize.

How We Got There

Our partnership began with discovery anchored in client interviews that revealed the operational challenges, processes, and opportunities for an internal tool.

What I Did

I synthesized information into discussion maps that informed a feature set for campaign creation and field-team coordination. I used a journey map to visualize opportunities in the manager-tool relationship throughout a typical campaign lifecycle.

How It Worked

Discovery artifacts gave us a broad understanding of the problem space and room to evaluate tradeoffs associated with generic off-the-shelf options. I assembled features and flows into a formal architecture that brought clarity to the tool’s scope, execution strategy and design roadmap.

Why It Mattered

Discovery set the stage for incremental design and testing cycles with campaign managers that focused exploration on practical campaign challenges. Early alignment on scope let us move fast, and testing small before committing big kept risk low.

What Emerged

This small collection of artifacts offers a representation of the work I produced that led to our MVP.

Wireframes

Using the site map, I created low-fidelity wireframes to further define the structure of the tool, its interface components, and basic information architecture. These were key in maintaining alignment across the project team.

Prototypes

I validated complex interactions with managers through lightweight prototypes. Early signal gave us directional confidence as fidelity increased.

Component-Based Architecture

I structured the interface around reusable components so new workflows could be explored without repeatedly redesigning foundational patterns.

Design System Foundations

I designed Canna to grow with my client’s needs and established lightweight design system foundations early. Treating the system as a byproduct of our design decisions and product commitments set the stage for the next level of systematization as the tool matured.

The Outcome

Tool Consolidation

Canna consolidated three distinct tools and a number of independently managed spreadsheets into a single tool. Time spent planning a campaign dropped from two weeks to an average of four business days. Operationalizing complexity enabled supply-chain managers to coordinate distribution campaigns across large regions in a way that more accurately reflected local demand.

Operational Standards

Before Canna, evaluating campaign performance reliably was challenging because effective decision making was obscured behind elaborate manager-specific systems. Standardization made decision-making visible, campaign management consistent, and evaluation possible.

Ongoing Development

Our partnership exposed my client to a process-driven approach to product design. Toward the end of our engagement, I helped establish the internal product team that is working to scale Canna into a subscription-based SaaS offering for retail supply-chain distribution.