Establishing an Effective Communication and Process Routine

Problem

The problem I encountered in my previous two companies was actually a common challenge you see in technical organizations that deal with fast moving product development and have multiple, cross functional engineering teams. I saw that product backlogs were not inline, the team activities and communication were not clear and uniform and their progress was not connected to the bigger company goals. The challenge was how to keep the different teams aligned to the company's larger goal and how to institute effective communication tools that will bring all teams on the same page.

Actions taken

My first step was to conduct a strategy workshop with my company's founders to develop and articulate the company's mission, the businesses to build, the products to put to market, and the different strategies we would use to translate these goals into results. Our leadership team then developed a strategy presentation and presented this to their teams to ensure they understood what the company wanted to achieve.

My second step was to develop a product roadmap with the help of Trello as a project management tool. The strategies were translated into a goal-oriented roadmap with the focus areas and products each team needed to work on, the process and equipment support required, and how these aligned to specific team-level objectives. We regularly held product development workshops to map what was a given and to connect these back to our strategies, to identify milestones for the next six months, and to define metrics and key results. Town halls were also conducted to cascade this information to the larger group. My third step was to establish a routine for our product roadmap and strategy check-in sessions. The strategy check-in was held monthly and quarterly to review our strategies and our progress relating to the product roadmap. Our weekly product roadmap check-in reviewed the details and progress of the teams against their roadmap. These activities instilled the necessary discipline and cadence to ensure alignment and proper execution of the strategy and project roadmap.

Lessons learned

In tech companies, it is important to have effective communication channels and processes for regular check-ins to ensure teams are aligned to your company's goals and are marching towards the same objective. Conducting weekly and monthly progress reviews are critical to ensuring that tasks are on track and progressing according to plan.