Insights from Building Cross-Functional Teams
Worlds collide in this detailed discussion between product management, UX, and Engineering heads at Schibsted Media, showing us how their teams coordinate and prioritise development. Jaqueline Dozier (PM), Atelach Alemu Argaw (Dev), and Axel Haugan (UX) guide us through these familiar but troubled waters.
Scope Ideas into Manageable Pieces
We’ve seen products move from a story to a prototype to a minimum viable product, but what’s next? Jacqueline Dozier introduces iterations beyond the minimum viable product to minimum lovable product, and all the way up to minimum scalable product. As products grow larger with more work needed from product teams to scope and manage development, technical requirements increase. Which in turn requires more resources allocated to automation, platforms, and infrastructure. This means a careful eye on issues which Atelach highlights, such as:
- Redundancy
- Logging
- Back ups
- On call rotation
- Documentation
- Monitoring
Aggregate, Validate, and Create
Understanding users and synthesising user data into actionable insights will help movement from one product state to another. Combining qualitative user research with user behaviour data from your product can not only find user pain points, but explain how users experience and think about those problems. Axel identifies some useful methods for gathering qualitative data:
- Surveys
- Usability testing
- A/B Testing
- Field observation
Field observation is perhaps an under-utilised methodology, but particularly useful for some products. Seeing people user your app in context can provide far greater insight than contrived, simulated environments. So go on and get out there!
Great Products, Great Cross-Functional Teams
Even with knowledge of product development process, scaling and research, execution is always contingent upon team collaboration. Jacqueline ties it all together and underscores the importance fostering a culture of ownership, accountability, trust, and openness cultivates motivated teams.
About the author
Lorian Leong
Lorian is a product professional and independent researcher immersed in Stockholm’s tech scene, with expertise spanning lifestyle and entertainment technology, internet and consumer tech, B2B/B2C hardware, and internal tools. This diverse experience allows her to bring a nuanced perspective to each project. As the cofounder and former organiser of ProductTank Oslo, she has also played a pivotal role in fostering a community of product professionals and driving conversations about innovation and best practices in product development. Passionate about the intersection of technology and society, she conducts research exploring how technology shapes everyday life, with a special focus on internet and mobile phone studies. Her published work highlights her commitment to understanding the broader impact of our digital interactions.
