We set a systematic approach for strategic decisions

Wen Zhang

Product Manager

We had a problem

We provide quality products for our global customers, and we are always looking to improve the quality of our internal processes as well. When we took a closer look at our product development, we saw that we had some areas that could use improvement. Overall, we needed a better way to organize our communication and information. Specifically, we wanted to be able to communicate internally in a more cohesive fashion. We also needed a more systematic approach for making and rationalizing decisions.

We always seemed to struggle to synchronize project management timelines with product and business initiatives. Our issues with communication and organization also began to impact our work with vendors and contractors. We had to find a way to improve the quality of our product development roadmapping process so we went looking for help.

Aha! as a solution

We found Aha! and put it immediately to work for us. Our overall communication is greatly improved which impacts all aspects of the product development process. Using Aha! we are documenting our product definitions and strategy from the start. We can attach the most recent documents to the appropriate goal, initiative, release marker, or feature. We can breakdown product releases and features and give each product line a realistic expected time frame. We have a broad, updated view of our roadmap ready and available at any time, and we still have the ability to drill down to individual products as needed.

Aha! provides much-needed, but oft-neglected structure around the numerous facets that comprise successful product management.

The whole process is dynamic allowing us to work through the product development timeline and link features and documents to phases as appropriate. Communication is natural, dynamic and easily accessible on the Aha! platform. We feel confident that Aha! has greatly improved the quality of our product roadmapping.

Life is good

We love Aha! because it was easy to use from the very start, owing to its flexibility and responsiveness – but this belies the deep understanding its creators have in the art of product management. One quickly realizes that Aha! is designed to promote logical best practices, but in an entirely unimposing manner. The beauty of this approach is that in the course of using Aha!, product managers invariably become more proficient at product management by having a centralized platform that elegantly ties business, technology, market, and user needs to product features and releases.

In short, things that go into Aha! – strategy, ideas, features, and releases – come out improved. And so does the product that ultimately gets built based on that information.

With Aha! in place we already have realized improvements in our own product development process. Internally, we had immediate enthusiasm from business leads and senior management making implementation of Aha! a snap. We like it so much that we actually use Aha! during meetings to capture new ideas and check status of existing releases and features. This allows us to create and save the information live – jump-starting our ability to communicate in real-time and later. Using Aha! we can easily communicate with external resources without sending a mess of documents, nor scheduling multiple, lengthy meetings to describe product strategy and work to date. What a fantastic improvement!