Benchmark · Shahriar Sultan

Problem I faced

Three developers and a project manager inside a fintech company watched the same breakdown repeat across every bank partnership. Documents scattered across drives, status updates buried in Slack threads, internal legal reviews happening in channels where bank partners could see them. By month three, nobody knew which file was current.

Eleven calls, fourteen ranked violations

Before a single screen, I ran eleven customer calls and a heuristic audit of the existing workflow that produced fourteen ranked violations. The ranked audit is what unlocked the redesign: it set the priority order for everything that followed.

Information architecture

The task lifecycle and the internal/external boundary at every transition.

Benchmark information architecture, login branching into dashboard, user management, asset center, and data room

Solution I proposed

One secure workspace where every task carries its documents, change history, and compliance resources. A privacy toggle keeps internal conversation separate from partner-facing threads, private for internal teams and transparent for partners, and the audit trail builds itself as the work happens.

Annotated task detail view, data room link, change history, internal and external comment toggles, and attached document versions

What changed

The compliance team retired their parallel tracking sheet within the first month. Partnership reviews that previously required three tools now happen in one place. Support tickets dropped by 40%. The audit trail is already there when a regulator asks for it. The application prototype was delivered within the agreed two-week timeline; the full engagement ran seven weeks.

Two-context comments.

A simple privacy toggle keeps every conversation in the right place. Internal for teams, external for partners.

Task detail drawer over the kanban board with internal and external comment toggles

Portfolio kanban.

Every task includes the essentials: priority, assignee, due date, and partnership context.

Kanban board with the filter panel open on priority, status, category, and assignee

Kanban board grouped by assignee, with comment and file counts on each card

Flat task structure.

More than a checklist, every task connects documents, history, and compliance resources.

Filter options applied across the four status columns of the task board

Task board grouped into to do, in progress, completed, and cancelled columns

Inline user management.

Manage users directly from the table, with every change just a click away.

User management table with inline editing of roles, departments, and status

Change request form beside the filter panel for terms and condition updates

A unified experience across every workflow

Connected workflows, built-in compliance, and a unified design system that keeps the entire platform consistent.

Ticket creation modal beside a loan overdue email template from the asset center

Ticket creation modal, status columns, and a date-range filter side by side

Perspective collage of Benchmark screens, kanban, data room, ticket creation, and user management

Second time working with Shahriar, and once again he exceeded our expectations. He delivered our application prototype within the agreed two-week timeline. We will absolutely work with him again.

Brianna, CEO, Benchmark

I turned fragmented banking operations into one secure workspace