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Overview
I designed workspace systems for social-impact entrepreneurships with highly neurodivergent teams working across 3 continents. I also built Notion LMS for growthshops and career accelerator programs at Growthosphere, a venture of Milan Global.
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Meet my first boss, Malini. In 2019, she founded Milan Global an interdisciplinary team of experts committed to supporting impactful startups, companies, non-profits, and leaders looking to create an impact. By 2020, we were a Harvard Innovation Lab incubated start-up. Then the pandemic hit.
Our team that had now grown to over 50+ members were strewn across three continents. We pushed through the year creatively juggling through resources. But by the end of the year, Malini decided her team shall not go through more Zoom fatigue than is necessary. She bestowed upon yours truly the honour of building a digital workspace.
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Malini Srikrishna
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https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQXnXVtpHJQnve_Xj9VyEeMvH4zHe3n_8voLqnxJw3LkQaUDi5T99qZ2KY&s=10
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And that is how a young Prarthana met a very young, clunky, glorified Google sheets tool called Notion in 2020. It does not have any of these fancy databases, sleek design, AI integration that you see now. With a humbling budget, I had to make this our solar system to house users who not signed up to become power users of project management software.
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We were usually happier. This was a serious lecture :’)
We were usually happier. This was a serious lecture :’)
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I started with our people. Every interview I had, I realised all of them work as differently as planets in the universe. That was also the semester where I was studying about neurodivergence and productivity. I started viewing each team as a system of its own, the people as planets. I also realised Malini and other leadership’s requirement was distinct from the rest of the team. They are looking at the bigger pictures, the roadmaps, and documenting confidential information. These needed to be housed too and made available on a need-to-know basis.
Emotionally, we all missed the feeling of working at an actual desk in an office. So, our work desks (”Planets”) also needed to be customisable so we all felt at home.
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The easiest place to start with was from the top. Malini’s strong vision became the blueprint for the Milan universe that would house all our departments and our roadmap to the future. This vision trickled down to what people did daily.
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Simultaneously I started with basic projects and task trackers so we can begin housing the work within Notion. My aim was to watch how people are using the basic templates so I can further design the systems around their nature workflows.
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*Due to IP and confidentiality, I cannot showcase images of the workspace.
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The smartest of designs is garbage if it doesn’t serve the people it intends to help. After personally onboarding teams to the platform, I remained available for immediate async and live support to help people acclimatise in the first 3 quarters. Once we asynchronised the Notion onboarding process, I scheduled personal Notion check-ins with every team member once a quarter to keep improving upon the design for productivity.
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Rooted in innovation, Milan Global built Growthosphere - an innovative ecosystem where young people learn by solving real-world problems alongside leaders and entrepreneurs. With every career accelerator program we rolled out, the need for an in-house learning management system that reflected our unique learning environment hurt deeper.
Guess what we did? We built it on Notion!
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Every student had their own planet that was accessible to their mentors. While their planets was razor focused on tasks at hand and feedback to keep them improving, their mentors and instructors needed a bird’s eye view of all the participants. The key challenge was to design it so they can access all that they need without information overwhelm.
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For years, Malini, Notion, and I have had a lot of fun being witnesses to each others’ growths. In July 2025, Milan sunset as the people it nurtured pursued callings that led them to fly out of the nest. We three still remain the thickest friends bound by our love for people-centered design.
By the end of our journey together, Milan had adapted to Notion so well that we had templatised our client handover packages on Notion. Here is an example of an artist’s Notion Handover package.
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