Product Operations Management: 73% Velocity Increase in 6 Months

Context: In 2022, Frumatic decided to restructure the company to focus on the largest yet least digitalized retail market in the world: automotive. Transforming a company that had been operating as a custom software provider across Europe for more than a decade into a SaaS company required strategic and operational changes.

Problem: Frumatic parted ways with the company’s head of development and external teams, opting to continue with a dedicated, passionate, and efficient core team who cared deeply about the company’s vision. However, without the development leadership and processes in place, the team’s motivation and productivity suffered.

Actions: As the Global Product Director, I took on additional responsibilities regarding people and project management in the engineering department, allowing the tech lead to focus on technical mentorship and system architecture.

1. Crafted a comprehensive product roadmap in Jira, breaking down work into Epics, Stories, Tasks, and sub-tasks for better organization
2. Devised a task definition template to ensure effective, standardized communication of desired outcomes for each task
3. Demonstrated desired functionality using high-fidelity prototypes and engaging, easy-to-understand logic diagrams
4. Established a collaborative Discord channel, encouraging the team to proactively discuss blockers and problem-solving with peers and management
5. Seamlessly integrated Jira, Github, and Discord via custom Webhooks, enabling automatic communication between platforms
6. Created a daily updates channel for team members to share their progress and plans, providing clear visibility to stakeholders in different time zones
7. Set up a separate GitHub channel in Discord where everyone’s commits, pull requests, and merges were sent as a notification automatically. Encouraging regular contributions and providing visibility into developer performance for non-tech upper management
8. Automated Jira processes to simplify project management, quickly identify mistakes, and enhance the visibility of everyone’s contributions
9. Implemented Discord notifications to flag tasks or stories moved without an assignee, story points, or an epic, ensuring accountability
10. Configured automatic task status updates in Jira based on reporter’s time zone, recording start and end times for tasks moved to “in progress” and “done”
11. Encouraged open discussions about improvement opportunities, transforming complaints into constructive criticism and fostering a growth mindset
12. Replaced consistently underperforming team members after clearly communicating expectations and providing a two-month improvement period

Timeline:

• Frumatic decided to become a SaaS company and began researching market and industry opportunities in the spring of 2022.
• Frumatic parted ways with its Head of Development at the end of June 2022.
• The tech lead of the company, an excellent engineer, faced challenges related to people and project management throughout the summer and early autumn.
• I gradually took over some of his responsibilities starting in October, allowing him to focus on technical mentorship and individual contributions as a developer.
• Over the course of six months, I introduced changes to the development process, listening to feedback and making adjustments as needed.

Results:

The story points the team was able to complete increased from 21 to 51, then to 122, and finally to 188 over the course of 4 sprints and 6 months.

Motivation, dedication, and reliability across the team also increased.