Simon Ursell, Founder and Managing Director at Tyler Grange, wanted a clear way to check how tired or happy his national team was. Particularly vital for ecologists, whose job can often be, “Drive to the middle of nowhere when everyone else is asleep and assess the wildlife.”

A data tracking app was built by a close contact. The app was in a good state when we got involved. It simply needed technical polish. But there’s more to this story, as we discovered when Simon asked for our help.

Simon introduced us to the computer scientist who developed the app. This close contact had collaborated with a British Airways pilot – an expert in sleep science. They had created the app using a NASA method (yes, of course, we love space ships) for tracking fatigue and happiness.

We ran several workshops with them to learn more about the app and its purpose. The aim was to evaluate the effects of changes, such as the 4-day week, at Tyler Grange. It was also about getting the app market-ready to share it with other businesses. This enables them to use it to positively impact their business and industry.

Critically, we discovered that the big issue wasn’t the app. It was dealing with the info after it was entered. All the data was dumped into a huge spreadsheet. The data needed to be organised for easy pattern spotting. Differences in fatigue and happiness needed to be clear across specialisms, offices, and months. Tyler Grange needed an easy way to sort and share this data, without spending lots of time on manual data entry.

We also needed to shield individual inputs while allowing the broader team data to emerge, ensuring Tyler Grange could discern team-based patterns. We suggested using a technique called “hashing”: think of it as giving a secret numerical alias to names. For instance, “Alex” might become “8472” – the number tells nothing about Alex, keeping their input anonymous. So, even a peek at the data reveals only emotions or information tied to a coded number, not the real person.

While each piece of data, like Alex’s, remains incognito, it’s cumulatively pooled, shedding light on the collective vibe of their team without individual attribution. This way, Tyler Grange gets a snapshot of various team moods without infringing on personal privacy, striking a balance between collective insight and individual anonymity.

We spruced up the app for its App Store debut to enhance downloads. We also made clever, yet easy tweaks for team members to log their fatigue and happiness daily, without adding to their workload. We aimed to ensure the app’s usability to encourage engagement. Did we mention we’re big fans of making things easy-peasy?

The dashboard was our primary focus. Again, created with ease of use in mind, especially for those less tech-savvy, it effortlessly translates data into straightforward language. It simplifies accessing specific data, like comparing team fatigue levels. Data turns into visuals that Tyler Grange can readily view and share.

Diving into security: we executed the “hashing” method to safeguard everyone’s responses while also allowing Tyler Grange to view the team’s collective data. The data tells its story, but the storyteller remains unknown, making sure everyone’s privacy is protected while still gathering meaningful insights.