How we launched new subscription in WhimApp
In case you were living under the rock, Whim is an award winning app to manage all your travel in the city. It is part of the new Mobility as a service movement and also called “Netflix of transportation”.
Below is my experience of creating, designing, building and launching new subscription in the WhimApp.
With this monthly subscription, Helsinki students can enjoy benefits of Whim combined with public transport and use scooters, city bikes, taxi and rental cars all within one app.
It was a wild-ride journey through the COVID-19 and I would like to share with you my findings as a Product Owner, responsible for this product.
When delivery in the software organization grows beyond a “two-pizza” team size, usually 6–10 people, it takes a considerable company effort to make sure everyone stays productive and focused on delivering the product to the market.
As part of improving this, I proposed a concept of inversion of control — give ownership to the teams. Split delivery (engineering, design and service design) into the cross-functional teams capable of designing, building and validating a product.
Giving ownership and, essentially, autonomy and authority is a difficult but important step in the organization growth which confirms trust, build upon high skill and motivation and essentially creates a “Startup of startups” culture were ideas flow freely and people engaged and empowered to create the best product.
Autonomy without structure is chaos so it is great to build upon existing proven agile approaches, such as SCRUM which gives teams cadence, evaluation and improvement framework.
Transparency is a key to succeeding in scaling — it is not only having clear feedback on performance and open communication but also constantly giving company-wide credit to team members for their contribution, approach and excellence.
And it would be a lifeless feature without product management — constantly ask why we are building something? Prototype, iterate, receive feedback and improve in a shared learning journey to understand and build product customers will love.
