Leading Engineering @ Spothero – product

Product May 2019

1. We are a two sided marketplace – Consumers on one side (Parkers) and Operators (Owners/management of Parking facilities) on the other
2. We were not Product led as a company
3. Product Design was its own team
4. We were something between trying to really scale whilst still being a Feature Factory.
5. Most projects that were cross Tribe and Squad took much longer than predicted.
6. Product did Roadmap estimations without Engineering involvement

Product May 2020

My Approaches/Perspectives – Be Strong partners with Product. Be OK with real MVP. Iterate and evolve. Know what you are talking about before estimating.

1. We found a VP of Product and supported them in building out their team
2. Created regular meetings with Engineering and Product for collaboration between Leadership and team
3. Educated internally when Product role is not understood and created space to let them do their job
4. Planned the 2020 budget plan with Product
5. Grew to have better shared understanding in stories, with clear acceptance criteria. Established better Agile practices
6. Upgrading Product technical knowledge
7. Built out multiple new products, which are being piloted with Operators (one is an iOT project and the other is a collection of Data Products)