We easily communicate and share roadmaps by utilizing Aha!

Devin DePoint

Product Manager

We had a problem

Before we started using Aha! at CaterTrax, our product roadmap was driven by what we could accomplish within a quarterly time frame. We bucketed together a collection of unrelated features and tried to complete as many as we could. Consequently, our feature delivery was sporadic and our go-to-market process was disjointed. Frankly, it was challenging to communicate the value of what we delivered to our clients.

We realized that we needed to improve our product management processes. Information was spread across multiple systems and documents, often making it difficult to reconcile. For example, requests were gathered via a Sharepoint form and tracked in a spreadsheet. We spent a lot of time cleaning up duplicate data, ranking features in priority order, and assigning delivery dates. Our plans were always tentative as we could not commit to them with confidence, leaving the rest of the organization with limited visibility into what to expect.It became increasingly apparent that this approach was not scalable. We were spending far too much time manually updating documents and not enough time setting product strategy and direction.

Aha! as a solution

Aha! has transformed the way we work. Now that we have a consolidated system for managing our products, we have been able to adopt a more strategic approach and streamline our processes.

New product requests are captured in an ideas portal. They flow seamlessly into our product backlog where we use a custom Aha! scorecard to rank features based on impact and effort. We meet with key stakeholders every week to review new requests and gain alignment around priority. Once we commit to developing a new feature, we scope it out in Aha! and add detailed requirements.

Aha! keeps us focused on what we are doing, who we are doing it for, and why. We are now able to make more intelligent, data-based decisions that deliver greater value to our clients.

Now that we have clearly defined goals and initiatives, we plan our releases around themes. We work as a cross-functional team to think through the entire go-to-market experience and only commit to a date when everyone is on board. This has increased confidence internally around what to expect and when, and it enables us to communicate the value of each release to our clients more effectively.

We have also integrated Aha! with Microsoft Visual Studio. This makes collaboration with the development team a lot smoother, and it ensures that we all have access to the information we need without having to worry about keeping both systems in sync.

Life is good

Aha! is entrenched in the way we work. Our product management processes are now more scalable and consistent, which is enabling our team to build a strong track record across the business. Now that we can easily communicate and share our roadmap plans, there is a much higher level of transparency.

Our productivity has increased significantly since using Aha! We spend less time updating documents and more time focusing on high-value work.

The consulting services we received as part of the Enterprise+ plan were exceptional. Not only are we getting more value out of the Aha! application, but we have also shifted the way we think to become more goal oriented. This has changed the conversation internally. Everything we do is now focused on delivering value and keeping our clients happy.