How Aha! empowers us to make better business decisions

Adam Mooney

Vice President of Technology

We had a problem

We deliver integrated technology solutions to support every stage of the blasting process. This includes pre-blast modelling through to post-blast analysis. We have hundreds of scientists, engineers, and technicians working together to develop products and services that deliver optimal results for customers.

Our product lifecycle management process is governed by a stage-gated process. As products progress from ideation through to commercialization, they move through a series of technology readiness levels. Approval by executive management is required at critical decision points in order for development to continue.

Previously, we relied on spreadsheets to manage this process. It was difficult to track the status of products and align priorities across the organization. We struggled to communicate what was coming and when with regional business units. With many development projects underway across the organization, making our global technology roadmap visible was important to maximize commercial readiness and execution.

Aha! as a solution

We use Aha! to define roadmaps for all products. This provides us with a centralized view of our plans so we can align on priorities and deliver on our strategy more efficiently. We also capture roadmap data such as budget and expenditure in Aha! so we can make better-informed business decisions.

Aha! helps us strategically plan for the future while addressing immediate customer needs and requests.

Aha! allows us to visualize every stage of our product lifecycle management process. This means we can track, monitor, and report on our development pipeline with accuracy. And we can quickly adjust priorities to align with key business objectives and deliver on our customers’ needs.

We appreciate the flexibility that Aha! offers while also providing underlying consistency. For example, we can customize workflows to meet the needs of teams. And we can build roadmaps based on planning horizons that range from short-term release management to several years into the future.

Life is good

Aha! empowers us to make better business decisions. We use real-time roadmap data to inform prioritization, resource allocation, and delivery times. We also actively monitor and report on status to executive management. For example, we use a stage-gate report to highlight critical decision points and ensure we are heading in the right direction.

We value the support, guidance, and training that the Customer Success team provides. From day one, they have been working with us to ensure Aha! successfully meets our needs.

It used to take many hours to manually create a high-level technology roadmap. And by the time we had collected the information, it was already out of date. Now that we use Aha!, our plans are always up to date and accessible. This provides enterprise-wide visibility and improves reporting consistency across teams.