MGM — One Release Plan, Three Decision Views.
MGM needed a strategic release-planning system to coordinate theatrical release decisions across market timing, competitive pressure, financial impact, and operational dependencies. I led the design of a role-based release calendar that gave each stakeholder the view they needed — without fragmenting the system underneath.
Release planning is not only a calendar problem. For a studio, the release date is where many business questions converge — audience timing, competitive films, marketing windows, theater availability, financial forecasting, regional differences, and executive judgment.
The team didn’t need another static calendar. They needed a decision environment for people who plan releases from different angles.
The problem
The same release object meant different things to each group.
Stakeholders used release information in fundamentally different ways. The challenge was one product model that could support multiple mental models.
Strategic view
Slate timing and competitive exposure across the whole release calendar.
Operational control
Dates, changes, dependencies, and conflicts — the moving parts of delivery.
Market context
Campaign timing, competitor noise, and audience signals behind each date.
principle
Don’t force every role into the same calendar. Preserve one underlying release system, then shape views around decision context.One release. Different lenses.
Object model
One release system, made of shared objects.
The experience had to make these objects visible in different combinations depending on role and task — while the release itself stayed the spine.
relationships on this object.
The three views
Designed around the decision each role had to make.
The product worked because it didn't assume every stakeholder needed the same view. The underlying object was the same release; the interface changed the lens.
Confidence at the slate level
Slate, timing, exposure, and competitive risk — the strategic read.
Control at the operational level
Operational calendar, dependencies, release movement, and status.
Context to explain the date
Campaign timing, competitor noise, and audience signals per release.
Key decisions
Complexity doesn’t disappear when you simplify the screen.
The work is deciding which complexity belongs to the system, which to the workflow, and which to the moment of decision.
Role-based views, not one overloaded master calendar
A single dense calendar would have looked comprehensive but felt unusable. We split the experience by how users made decisions, keeping the same release data underneath.
Treat conflicts as first-class signals
Planners needed to see when dates became risky — competitive collisions, crowded windows, missing dependencies, unstable changes.
Support strategy, not just scheduling
The business value came from better timing decisions, not cleaner date entry — so the interface connected releases to market and competitive context.
Prototype fast enough to align senior stakeholders
On a compressed timeline, high-fidelity prototypes let stakeholders react to something concrete and helped the team converge on structure.
Design the handoff between role views
The roles differed, but the work was connected. A decision made in one view had to stay understandable in another.
Outcome
From fragmented planning to a shared strategic view.
The system improved coordination, reduced cycle time, increased stability, and helped stakeholders reason about competitive timing with more confidence.
Better visibility into slate, market, and conflict signals.
Stronger competitive market-share timing decisions.
Release information consolidated into a role-aware workflow.
A domain translated into reusable views, states, and decision objects.
Selected screens
Each lens, all the way down to the detail.
Every role view drills into a detail screen designed around that role's decision — the same release object, a different depth of read.
More of the system
A calendar was the surface. Underneath was a whole operating system.
Scenario planning, reporting, task management, alerts, a film catalog, and market-signal tracking — the supporting surfaces each role actually works in.
reflection
For MGM, the answer was not one perfect calendar. It was one release system with different decision lenses.Complexity you don't remove — you place it where it belongs.