"After integrating Meegle, we have witnessed a substantial surge in the number of deliverables, a notable enhancement in version iteration efficiency, and a consistent reduction of at least 50% in the average delivery cycle that has persisted for multiple quarters."
Yibin Huang | Head of Operation and Quality Department at LIZHI
Meet LIZHI
LIZHI is a business brand under Sound Group Inc. (NASDAQ: SOGP), a global company listed on Nasdaq since 2020. As a leading player in the online audio field in China, LIZHI aims to create a comprehensive audio ecosystem where everyone can be connected and interact through voices. Its flagship products include the LIZHI App and LIZHI Podcast (LIZHI BOKE in Chinese).
Industry: Internet & Tech - Media & Entertainment
Use case: Software development
Departments: R&D, PMO
The Challenges
Inefficiencies in collaboration and communication
At LIZHI, the completion of a project involves the active participation of multiple departments and roles, such as Data, Technology, Operations, Marketing, User Research, and Design. Colleagues at LIZHI found themselves spending a considerable amount of time gathering project opinions, aligning project status, reviewing and voting. This not only hindered the progress of projects but also impacted overall productivity and teamwork.
Time-consuming in repetitive administrative work
As LIZHI expanded globally, the number of business units and employees increased exponentially, and workspaces are being distributed. The reliance on manual administrative work for tracking and reporting tasks consumed a significant amount of time and resources.
Difficulties in ensuring project health due to information lag
The R&D team at LIZHI faced challenges in monitoring project status and identifying risks promptly. The project information they received lagged behind the actual progress, causing inconsistencies in reported figures between monthly and daily meetings.
Limited transparency of manpower distribution
Limited transparency in personnel scheduling of previous tools hindered task assignment based on skills, availability, and workload. Simultaneous demands for individuals or departments across multiple projects led to conflicts in priorities and availability.
The Solutions
Meegle was first adopted by a small project team in LIZHI, who were suffering from late responsiveness to fast-changing user requests. LIZHI has accelerated its R&D efficiency by 50% through the integration of Meegle. Realizing the powerful functions, LIZHI decided to integrate Meegle into the entire company for use and now around 700 employees are using it.
Smoother collaboration with visualized workflow
LIZHI adopted Meegle to establish comprehensive workflows spanning the entire project lifecycle, encompassing idea generation, scheduling, product development, delivery and market launch. By visualizing project details, including review results and opinions, within the workflow, team members can efficiently grasp the project status and context without the need for time-consuming confirmations. This streamlined approach eliminates back-and-forth communication. Furthermore, the risk of information being centralized to a single individual is mitigated, ensuring that progress and important matters are transparent and accessible to the entire team.
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Automate administrative tasks to foster productivity
The integration of Meegle with Lark has proven to be a valuable time-saving tool for LIZHI. Previously, the Project Management Office (PMO) had to manually send reminders to relevant departments after kick-off meetings and continuously follow up on scheduling. However, with Meegle's automated notification feature, the engineering team can now configure notifications that promptly inform other teams of status updates in group chats when specific milestones are reached. It is estimated that implementing this solution can result in a time savings of approximately 5 hours per week for the PMO, as it eliminates the need for manual updating of schedules, continuous progress tracking, and risk exposure monitoring on a daily basis. PMO colleagues are now freed up to focus on other high-impact initiatives, allowing the team to work more efficiently and effectively, even in the face of change.
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Optimize R&D performance monitoring with dashboards
Mr. Huang and his team utilizes Meegle to implement an indicator that enables the measurement of R&D efficiency from multiple dimensions. This indicator serves as a valuable tool for monitoring project progress. By considering factors such as the number of features, delivery cycle, and estimated manpower, Mr. Huang and his team can effectively gauge the efficiency of various R&D efforts. This comprehensive approach allows for a more accurate assessment of project advancement and aids in identifying areas where improvements can be made.
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Allocate resources flexibly for urgent requests
With manpower saturation clearly shown in Meegle's Member Schedules, as the Head of Operation and Quality Department, Mr. Huang is now able to reallocate resources to fight on the most urgent tasks. For example, the workload of a new function was under estimation and required extra support. Noticing that several software engineers, initially responsible for bug fixing, appeared to have extra capacities, Mr. Huang was able to make prompt adjustments to work arrangements.
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