Member Journey Design & Activation Sequence

What it tests

Systems thinking about the member lifecycle, ability to design activation sequences that convert lurkers into contributors, and understanding of community as a retention and product feedback mechanism

Format

1. 1Candidate receives a member lifecycle brief: current state — community has 10,000 members but only 3% post more than once per month, median lurk-to-first-post time is 47 days, most active members cluster around 2 topics while 80% of content areas are underserved
2. 248-hour take-home: design a member journey from signup to 'super contributor' — including: welcome sequence (first 7 days), activation trigger (what nudges a lurker to post?), recognition system, and a program for surfacing underserved topic areas
3. 320-minute presentation to Community Lead and Head of Product
4. 410-minute Q&A focused on: 'How do you measure whether the activation trigger actually works?' and 'What's the first thing you'd cut if this takes twice as long as expected?'

What to look for

• Is the welcome sequence designed to create belonging and reduce anxiety — or is it a feature tutorial disguised as a welcome?
• Is the activation trigger specific and testable — a clear nudge tied to a concrete moment — or vague ('we'll encourage members to participate')?
• Does the recognition system avoid the trap of rewarding volume over quality (top poster badges that incentivize spam)?
• Do they understand that a community is a product — and their journey design should feed insights back into the product roadmap?

Adaptation guide

Replace the brief with your real community's current state metrics. For B2B communities, emphasize the product feedback loop — activation sequences should be designed to surface jobs-to-be-done, not just increase engagement stats. For consumer communities, weight the recognition and belonging design more heavily.

Full description