Change Management
Problem
The student assessment product at Watermark started losing renewals at a high rate, and the number of demos had slowed way down.
After joining this product, some immediate team dynamics emerged:
Tendency to explode scope
Ineffective communication
General distrust toward Design
Research
To figure out what issues were the most critical, I started asking the teams some simple questions:
What’s (not) working?
What would you like to change?
How can I help the most?
I didn’t want to take up too much space in these conversations, but instead wanted them to tell me their stories.
Feedback
Design
Lack of team culture
Lack of leading by example
Strained relationship with Product
Product
Designs take too long
Backlog grooming is ineffective
Lack of trust in design + engineering
Engineering
UX Reviews are late
Not enough time to groom designs
Designs don’t match AC
Goals
My hypothesis was that solving the team’s interpersonal issues would also help improve the product.
Direction | Give designers a path toward solving the right problems.
Relationships | Build trust in Design across Product + Engineering.
Culture | Foster enthusiasm and forward momentum in the teams.
Uncovering the Problem
Actions
Tactical Adjustments
Solving a few small issues first helped mend the relationship between Product, Design, and Engineering:
Sharing low-fi work first and educating teams how to refine it reduced the need for changes to the AC.
Shared understanding happened faster.
A new sense of trust developed.
Started delegating all UX reviews.
Engineering stopped fearing UX review time.
Designers had clarity on what/when to review.
Strategic Adjustments
Direction | Define a true product strategy to help teams prioritize which problems to solve.
Relationships | Keep communication lines open and transparent. We’re all on the same team and share similar problems!
Culture | Use direction to solve valuable problems. Use relationships to lower anxiety with cross-team collabs and build enthusiasm.
Outcome
Implementing the Tactical Adjustments almost immediately helped to build back trust between team members. Deadlines were no longer being missed, and we heard positive feedback on the new process during our retrospectives.
Though the Strategic Adjustments will take more time to measure, we have started implementing a few things. As a leadership team, we defined a true strategy that will kick off in 2025, part of which includes more cross-product integrations that will rely heavily on collaboration and knowledge sharing across teams.