Enhanced homeworking: A viable product/service system for young professionals

Abstract

The ongoing pandemic raises questions on how the current situation paints the future context of doing work. Although a lot is still uncertain, we can say with confidence that the home workplace will preserve a prominent role. Young professionals, who are limited by space, require extra attention on the long haul. The assignment is to design a viable product/service system that enhances the young professional’s homeworking experience. An iterative design approach, enriched by other methods in design and entrepreneurship, helped me in solving this project. Working from home accelerated in almost every sector. The near future of office work is hybrid; we will work from home several days a week and several days from the office. Mostly young professionals encounter challenges. Their limited space makes maintaining a healthy work-life balance a vital challenge. Working at home, and working in the same room in particular, makes work-life boundaries dissolve and transitions disappear. If we ignore this growing problem, the Dutch workforce will go down on mental illness. “The home office facilitates a healthy work-life balance by creating smooth transitions between daily activities.” The physical office is an example of clear boundaries; the office is for work and home is not (or at least less). The time people spent in between these physical places helps them to transition mentally from work to private life. Based on principles and my own experiences, a combination of good time management (principle) and the change of scenery can recreate these boundaries and transitions when working from home. Therefore, I developed Sceny. Sceny can assist young professionals in time management and create new transitions while limited by space. A combination of smart LED bulbs, an app and a controller helps users in improving time management by notifying on transitions, giving quantified insights, timeboxing activities and establishing goals for different life quadrants,. Users feed the system with data by arranging scenes that support them in what they are doing. Different light settings prove to enhance user experiences, such as for focus work, creativity and relaxation. After work, the scene changes and indicates a transition to private life. A Proof of Concept aimed at validating the desirability and viability of the riskiest minimum concept features. This first iteration of Sceny was a service that offered pre-programmed smart lighting for “switching between work and private life with the push of a button”. Interviews verified the desirability but denied its viability. The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) required better-argued features. The new version emphasises the work-life balance more using time management. Users set their boundaries (in time and scene), plan transitions, timebox activities and reflect with quantified insights. Continued validation of Sceny’s MVP on its problem-solution fit is a next step into building a viable business. This validation, together with the product-market fit, will take at least one year to complete. We aim at launching Sceny halfway of next year with young professionals in the IT service sector. This market shows the most viable opportunities for entry. Partnerships with business psychologists and coaches should increase these opportunities. Year two will be about growing and validating the business model fit. After that, we will expand and replicate markets.