Reservei: what it is, and why we did it

At the end of 2015 Maxwell Forest decided to hold its very first hackfest, something a few of us had been suggesting for a while. With the holidays fast approaching, we set time aside to put our heads together and use our collective energy, skills and creativity to turn a great idea into a software app.

The hackfest was an opportunity to cut loose on something completely different to what we’ve all been working on for the last 18 months. It was important that everyone in the company was involved and given the chance to take ownership of their role in the creative process.

Our goal was to get something out the door within two days. We decided to release the app initially on Android’s Google Play as a closed alpha.

Has anyone liked an app or a product, but been frustrated or annoyed by the way it worked? How could we do it better? Has anyone ever thought: “why hasn’t anybody done this already?!”, or simply: “wouldn’t it be great if….”

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS

Firstly, we split into small groups and spent the first few hours ideating. We asked ourselves some key questions:

The idea was that each group would choose and present one idea to the whole team, and then we’d come back together to vote for the one we liked best.

THE WINNING IDEA

It was no surprise that our talented team came up with a ton of ideas.

In fact, the biggest challenge for each group was to whittle down all of the ideas put forward and choose just one. Once all the groups had presented, we each voted for our favourite idea over lunch.

With the votes counted, a clear winner emerged. It was an app that would allow people to book rooms for immediate, impromptu meetings quickly and easily by tapping NFC stickers mounted outside the rooms. Getting a meeting room on the fly can be pretty tricky sometimes, even at big multinationals with dozens of meeting rooms. We could all see how useful this app could be for companies and other organizations.

DAY 1: THE USER JOURNEY AND PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

As a group, our first task was to describe the user journey for onboarding and app usage, and map it out on a clean whiteboard.

With the rough journeys outlined, the developers got to work, wireframes were sketched and business analysis began.

Once the wireframes were in place and the prototype was well under way, we were in a good position at the end of Day 1 to come up with a name: Reservei. Inspired by the Portuguese word for “I reserved it”, we felt the name suited the purpose of the app — it does what it says on the tin and sounds kind of classy, right?

DAY 2: DEVELOPING AND RELEASING RESERVEI

Day 2 began and we picked up where we left off following a short review and recap. Design started working on the assets, logo and app icon. The product team clarified with QA the user flows, and then began writing the criteria and tests and identifying any edge cases. The developers continued building the prototype while sales and marketing began to formulate a campaign to get Reservei out there. NFC stickers were ordered to mount outside the meeting rooms.

By the end of Day 2 we had a working prototype app, assessment criteria in place, a Twitter page, a Facebook page, an advertising campaign ready to go and three blog posts written (including the one you’re now reading!).

Due to time constraints, the prototype wasn’t fully formed as originally envisioned. Instead, we released a beta MVP version that we hope to continue developing and polishing. Nevertheless, in two days we conceived, designed, built and launched an MVP that the whole team could be very proud of.

Originally published on the Maxwell Forest Draw & Code blog January 5, 2016.