Building a Better Product Team
We’ve recently restructured how we work together as a team to build our product at Kalo.
Due to our rapid growth in team-size and customer numbers, our previous approach was falling apart and we needed to re-think our strategy. The business was scaling and so too were our teams, so we needed to find a model that could grow with our team. We decided to adopt a structure we call “crews”, inspired by the “squads” approach popularised by Spotify back in 2012, where the product organisation is broken into smaller multidisciplinary “crews”. This product structure has various dimensions such as our cohorts which pull together people from each of their crews to discuss their particular discipline. An example of this is the front-end cohort that meet regularly to discuss higher level front-end considerations that run across all crews and areas of the product.
Changing — and in some ways, restricting — your product approach and teams can be a daunting process, and if done poorly can lead to substandard innovation and product development. We’ve been thrilled with the outcome of using our crews structure so far, so let’s take a look at why we chose to adopt this approach and what we’ve learnt in the transition.
Why did we restructure?
Previously Kalo worked in a setup which is not uncommon for many companies to start-out with, and something I’ve seen a lot of throughout my career. Work would get passed down a chain from person to person, team to team until — voila! — you end up with an amazing feature at the end of it… sometimes. From spending time studying our previous setup, we quickly identified why our product development wasn’t fulfilling the needs of the company or individuals.
Why was our old approach failing us? First and foremost we realised that value and ownership was getting diluted at each step in the ‘chain’. Developers would get handed a static design unclear on the decision making behind it. Designers would get frustrated when the feature wasn’t built as they intended. And ultimately no one was taking clear ownership for the end product. We weren’t harnessing each other’s talents. We are a product focussed company but our previous setup simply wasn’t optimising for this. There are various proven models for scaling teams but we needed an approach that would align with our business model and allow for a strong product focus.
Everyone was working on every part of the platform — people were jumping from one small product update to another without stopping to consider the wider implications to the whole platform. We were working reactively and adding a significant number of people into the mix. Things had to change if we wanted to stay ahead of the game and deliver innovative features quickly and reliably every time.
We started by holding a series of meetings, chats and presentations to the team to explain why we were going to adopt the “crew” mentality and way of working. Everyone was onboard — we all agreed that things had to change.
How do crews work?
Crews are made up of multidisciplinary teams of Designers, Product Managers and Engineers. We work on specific areas of the platform and are given a goal which ties closely into the product roadmap.
Crews are kept small — normally made up of about 6–8 people — allowing us to quickly iterate with a tighter feedback loop as we go through feature development.
Each crew has full autonomy on how they want to solve high level goals, and the goals can vary in length. Since adopting the crews approach we’ve started to ship more frequently with better quality product features, and each crew takes full ownership and responsibility over what they ship.
Working as a crew, not as an individual
As the great innovator Henry Ford once quoted; “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”
Something I learnt early on in my career was knowing where my strengths and weaknesses lie, and this is integral to how we work as a crew. All crew members help us form the solution right from the beginning — we all pull on each others strengths. New product features never come from just one individual.
“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”- Henry Ford
Close collaboration with Engineers is fundamentally important to how we deliver new features. Gone are the days of designing something in our own design team, passing the Sketch file to the Engineers and hoping they are good at guessing all the design decisions and intentions of the feature. The only way to avoid endless back-and-forth between design and engineering to design and build collaboratively from that start — otherwise engineers will constantly question things because they weren’t involved in the process that got us to that point.
Our process
At the start of each new goal the Product Manager, Product Designer and Technical Lead will get together to discuss the project at a high level and define the scope. This session will involve us working together on a brief, pulling from user feedback, establishing workflows and feeding into our business needs. At this stage we gain insight and knowledge from other areas of the business such as our Customer Success team and Sales to make sure we’re aligned as a company.
We agree on the approach we want to take, and share all documentation with the crew members. These sessions need to get held in advance of the crew starting their goal. Once we have this setup in place the Designer will lead a brainstorming session with the crew to flesh out how we want to tackle the feature from a user perspective.
Engineers should also use this session to not only contribute to the design approach but also to discuss how they want to tackle the feature from an engineering perspective. Having the Engineers included in the product development at this early stage means we’re all realistic about what is achievable within the timescale from all sides.
It can be easy to dismiss these meetings, or not give enough time for these sessions, but they’ve proven invaluable to every project we’ve tackled to date, and will form the base of all the crew work. So iterating on the ideas and getting the feature right at this time will avoid failings and delays later.
Iterating on ideas and getting the feature right as a crew early on will avoid failings and delays later.
We’ll work through wireframing and prototyping as a crew continually iterating as we strive for excellence. At this stage in the development we will start to do user testing and conduct design reviews with the wider company such as Sales and Customer Success. Throughout this time the Engineers will research the best approach, work with the Designer to prototype solutions and start building the feature foundations.
Hiring the right people
At Kalo our design and user experience is at the heart of everything we do. Everyone we hire has an interest in product and empathy for our users.
Whether you’re an Engineer, Designer, Product Manager, Customer Success Manager, or Sales Executive, we all share an ambition to build the best product for our customers. We all bring our areas of expertise to the table.
Aligning your hiring to your company’s ethos is what will ultimately help you build a better product and help your product team succeed. We all support each other in getting there. Sales casually chat to us over a coffee about conversations they’ve had with customers, and engineers ask to hear talks from our designers to get a better understanding of UX; it’s in our company’s DNA.
Building a beautiful and intuitive product for our users is ingrained in our day-to-day culture.
Celebrating the milestones
When we’ve released a new feature or improvement, each crew takes ownership of the release and will present back to the company. The presentation can come from our Engineers, Designers or Product Managers, but ultimately it doesn’t matter — we’ve worked collaboratively as a crew to get the release out the door!
The process in this post is just the tip of the iceberg, though. As with all new processes, we’re continuing to fine tune our approach and striving to build the best product along the way.
I’d love to know what you think about our new Product structure, you can tweet me @laurenmplews.
We’re looking for talented people to join our Crews and help us build an amazing product, if this interests you check out our job board.
