It’s probably the most complex product I have worked on. It took over a year, and here we are—end-to-end product management at its finest. It’s not my best work, I admit, as it was the first time I was working on creating a whole new app over a new feature. It had so many different elements to it, and most of all, it highlighted the importance of streamlining teams—too many cooks spoil the broth, and all.
Sit tight this will be a LONG read.
Background – Partner with a specialist sustainability consultancy to create a reporting. Aimed at other businesses.
We would build an app based of this wonderous excel PoC that was in use. The excel sheet consisted of research and formulas that would calculate how many UN goals were “achieved” by how the event was organised and conducted. Personally, a great idea, but then again, I’m biased.
First things first, What exactly is the plan?
2 objectives here to be precise.
- Expand the current product offerings for the company (i.e a standalone app we can sell to clients)
- Expand the app features for our partners (and future users) to enhance what the app offers.
I wanted to keep it simple so the way I decided to measure these objectives was also simple.
1a – Get three new clients! (revenue
2a- User Feedback on how it currently work because we even think about new features.
We have to remember until now -it’s an “internal” app. We don’t even know IF there is a demand for it on the market yet.
— Discovery
With an objective in mind, we know had to understand where we stood (if we even stood) in the “market”. I.e is there a demand for this? and if there is a demand who wants it? How do they want it?
If there isnt, can we create one? What’s the app providing?
The team performed competitive and pricing analysis. I tried to understand from social listening tools what people where searching for and my own desktop research to understand who best to target.
Alas, user segments were born. A document that highlighted who would be interested in this app and what they want out of it provided us with enough assurance that going ahead with this idea and building would provide us with enough returns to warrant the build.
Next up – Define
What do we need to build to validate the idea with the least amount of investment possible? It’s not about an MVP; it’s also about creating something our clients want to use.
There were plenty of conversations that took place between me, Ux, and Tech lead before we had to make a decision that the best way to go to market ASAP was to provide the app with a makeover (a bit of a UX upgrade, too)change the architecture ready for it to scale up.
Ultimately we need to create an app that could create an account at a company level. Then, the company account will be provided to build a hierarchy of users. Each level has its own set of permissions. We also had to consider how to build it so that the data from company A wasn’t accessible to company B. and finally how to store this data to not breach any ISO 27001 or GDPR regulations.
The Must-haves ended up to be
A. Add the multi-tenancy package whereby each company account creates its own database.
B. Upgrade the branding and UI to make it more appealing
C. Sprinkle some onboarding on there to help users navigate the app because, as brilliant as the Excel sheet was. It was built for the sustainability academics and experts, not poor old Jane Doe from events.
As you would expect with any project – we had stakeholder calls to get this plan of action signed off. In the end they had to “invest” into the work needed. It wasn’t easy but the app had so much potential and we’d stripped so much work down to gain results from our launch that it made sense to invest now for a rather healthy future.
Deliver Deliver Deliver – build.
At this point, everyone and their cat knew what we were going to build and the plan of action for it. Communications emails were sent out every two weeks and adapted to the audience.
SLT had their version with risks and progress
User/clients – progress and what the work happening meant for them
Sales/ Accounts – Training materials and key milestone updates. (to help them guide conversations with clients)
and of course, product demos were given when we completed chunks of functionality.
The whole thing was set up in SCRUM format and went through rigorous testing. There were definitely hiccups on the way, but what will I talk to you about if I write it all here?
The future and beyond.
Outcome – What happened in the end.
- We launched! And successfully at that. Captured LOADS of leads.
- Made it with dreams and gaffer tape.
The plan for the future is to capture data and become data-led. We had captured the ideas for feature on the roadmap (things like translations for global launch, ability to send supplier forms IN-APP etc)
I left my role before I could see the official launch, but I have heard great things from the team that reached out. Why wouldn’t it? It was a great team to work with and man, I wish them all the best in the future!!
—
Other things I didnt delve into (it would get too long) but I did for this app :
- Go to market strategy
- Working with marketing and sales to create the materials needed to sell this
- Pricing – how we decide on the pricing
- Growth – Partnerships we could form, what we could build, who to onboard users to enable a feedback loop.
The adventures of a charming potato. 