In this episode of The Product Experience, host Randy Silver talks with Cristina Bustos, Product Manager and team lead at Swiss AviationSoftware, about her experience launching a native mobile application in one of the most regulated and high‑stakes industries in the world: commercial aviation.
Cristina recounts how she moved from business analysis into product leadership and then navigated a gruelling product development process during the pandemic. Her team faced the dual challenge of winning over both paying customers and aviation regulators to replace paper‑based cockpit workflows with a real‑time digital solution.
Chapters
Key Takeaways
Customers and regulators are equally critical stakeholders. Unlike typical B2B products, regulated environments require early and sustained alignment with external authorities to ensure approval and adoption.
Early financial commitment transforms uncertainty. Securing paying founding customers before any code was written provided the team with focus, legitimacy and accountability.
Structured decision facilitation works across complex stakeholder sets. Splitting stakeholders into streams and using integrative decision‑making supported consensus without endless compromise.
Involve real end users — not proxies — in design and validation. Contractual obligations for pilot participation ensured the product was shaped by those who actually use it.
Digitisation is more than translation — it requires process reinvention. New technology often exposes mismatches in legacy workflows; product teams must help stakeholders rethink how work actually gets done.
Scope discipline is essential when risks are high. Strictly defining "must‑have" versus "nice‑to‑have" features kept the team focused on regulatory and operational essentials.
Validate in the real world, multiple times. Lab or office validation is insufficient; the team learned to test in realistic environments (including offline and extreme scenarios) to uncover real issues.
Document everything early and clearly. In regulated contexts, conversations are not enough — business processes, use cases and quality gates must be written, versioned and approved.
Agile practices can coexist with compliance requirements. By defining a clear framework for when and how to be flexible, the team balanced iteration with discipline.
Success isn't just product launch, it's business impact. Measurable outcomes such as increased efficiency, real‑time data flow and predictive maintenance underscore the value beyond simply replacing paper.
