Design a Way for an NGO to Record Which Volunteers Turn Up

You are a product manager. A non-governmental organization (NGO) that depends on volunteers needs a product for tracking volunteer attendance. Design it: decide what the attendance records should be used for and who the product mainly serves, propose and prioritize features, and explain how you would measure success. ```hint Start from the record's reader Ask who reads the attendance record afterwards and what decision or document it feeds; that tells you how accurate each check-in must be and how much effort you can ask of a volunteer at the door. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Who is the main user: the coordinators who run volunteer sessions, the volunteers themselves, or the NGO staff who report to donors and funders? - What does attendance mean for this NGO: recurring shifts at fixed sites, one-off events, or field work at changing locations? - What will the records be used for: planning staffing, recognizing volunteers, certifying hours, or reporting to funders? - What phones and connectivity can volunteers and coordinators be assumed to have where the work happens? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A stated purpose for the attendance records and a chosen primary user, with the reason - The journey around a volunteer session for both volunteers and coordinators, with pain points ranked - Check-in methods compared on accuracy, effort, cost and the devices and connectivity available - A prioritized first version and what is deliberately left for later - Success metrics with guardrails, plus risks such as false check-ins, low adoption and volunteer privacy ### Follow-up Questions - How would you stop people checking in a friend who did not come, without slowing down honest volunteers? - How would the design change if most volunteers worked in rural areas with no mobile signal? - A funder asks for audited volunteer hours. What would you add to the product?