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Creating an intelligent onboarding tool for project teams | Tony Vergara

Creating an intelligent onboarding tool for project teams

We designed and prototyped a Slackbot that streamlines project onboarding, delivering document summaries and task liststhat help our team find the right information at the right time. Our project tied for third in the 2025 Fearless Purple Hackathon despite an unfinished body of work.

PROJECT DURATION

This project took place over two weeks in April 2025 as part of the first Fearless Purple Internal Hackathon.

MY ROLE

I was the sole designer working on a team of five, including a product manager and three engineers, but we all worked cross-functionally instead of within our roles.

TASKS & DELIVERABLES

Slack API, AWS Bedrock, AWS App Studio, Prompt Engineering, Value Proposition Canvas, Figma

What was the ask?

How might we help contractor teams onboard faster and more confidently?

If you've ever started a new project, you know the potential time it takes to ramp up and get familiar with the work you'll be doing! For the past ten years, I've been a part of contractor teams working in a consulting capacity, and for us, that problem is even more substantial, because teams are often expected to be ready to deliver greatness on Day 1. Our team designed a Slackbot that guides new contractors through onboarding. We intended for our Slackbot to provide essential first steps, answers FAQs, and connect the team with the right resources, all within their daily workflow.

Solution Definition

Value Proposition Canvas

We ran a value proposition canvas workshop early in the project to clarify what we were aiming to build and to make sure it would be both usable and valuable for the team. The version of the canvas we used was a modified take on the standard one and ended up working well for this kind of service design and AI-focused project. It’s a flexible tool that we could easily use for similar initiatives in the future.
A modified version of a value proposition canvas, with an employee segment in the center

Prototyping in Code

AWS App Studio & Amplify Prototypes

Before we decided on our Slack integration approach, we explored the capabilities for interfaces within our AWS toolbox. We built a functional prototype of our app in App Studio, focused on the leadership view, where multiple programs could be seen alongside eachother. We also built a simple prototype using Amplify, and were investigating how we retrofit that prototype to our app as we shifted gears for the Slack approach.
screenshot of app studio prototype, showing the landing page, containing a list of ongoing projects

Prompt Engineering

System Instructions & Sample User Prompts

To support how our app functions, we wrote a system prompt to clarify the tool’s role within our workflow, along with example prompts that reviewers could try out in practice. This approach gave everyone a clearer picture of how people might use the app on a day-to-day basis, making it easier to gather feedback during our review sessions.
System prompt for the Slack workflow

Telling the Story

Pitch Deck & Presentation

As the deadline got closer and we weren’t able to get the Slack integration fully functional, we shifted our demo approach. Instead of a live demo, we used walkthroughs and supporting materials to help the judges understand how the tool was intended to work.
the big reveal of KickstartIQ, in the pitch deck. gives the key features and a screenshot of the work in action

Documenting our Proposal

How-To Documentation

We documented our work in detail for the hackathon handoff, aiming to make it easy for others to pick up where we left off. We also made use of AI to generate some of the supporting documentation, which sped up the process and provided us with another perspective on how the team could use the work in future iterations.
some of the steps from setting up the sandbox
What were the outcomes?

Here's What We Accomplished

Our team tied for third in the hackathon! However, placement means nothing beyond a monetary prize. It's time to build this thing for real! We want to complete our Slack integration and set up more workflows than just the "ask a question" workflow.

See More Work

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See More Work

Let's Get Started

Send us a message to let us know how we can help. We look forward to hearing from you!

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