StitcherX
Director Of Product Design (2019 - 2021)
In 2019 I was working at Stitcher as a Senior iOS Developer and grew frustrated with the product direction and company culture. It seemed we were spending a lot of effort putting out fires caused by technical debt but the product was not actually improving. Worse than that management seemed happy with this situation, even as we lost users and staff lost enthusiasm. It was time for change.
I developed a product vision and strategy for the organization focused on a re-platforming, product redesign, and company culture reset. I wanted to change the Why and How we worked, with the hope that users would eventually feel the benefits of this. The leadership of the broader company bought into the vision that I and a rag-tag group of supports pitched, dismissed existing management, and gave us the green light.
We set out to re-invigorate the product design and development process, taking great inspiration from Lean UX and AGILE methodologies. We sorted out our JIRA flow, implemented short sharp processes and ceremonies, and began to work on “StitcherX”. We rapidly designed and user-tested various prototypes, while developing a new backend and API. It was hard work but highly invigorating!
A few months later we had a functional iOS beta and took it on an internal roadshow. Over this same period there was deep cultural changes and staff turn-over, through which we were able to build a team of energized, fast-paced, and innovative individuals. We emphasized extreme ownership and the importance of living my values.
In early 2020 we released our new apps on Web, iOS and Android which we continue to iterate and improve upon. We are able to design, test and deploy features at an exceptionally rapid pace. We also learnt a lot about user migrations and the pitfalls of hubristically redoing “everything at once”. If I had to do it over I would make many different decisions, and approach the rollout in a much more subtle fashion, but it was a formative and empowering experience that has led me to become who I am today.
Through this cultural transformation I have learnt a few key lessons:
Have A Vision - Without a clear vision of success there is no path forward, and all of the Lean process and roadmap planning sessions won’t help. You never arrive without a destination.
Plan - To work towards a vision you need coherent roadmaps and plans. Plans may change as you develop and grow, but without a plan everyone gets lost.
Iterate - Rapid iteration and feedback is the key to design and development. Bake failure and wrong turns into the process, and allow this learning to affect (2) and ultimately (1).
Values - Everyone on a team needs to be aligned in their values and sense of integrity. Without this alignment it is very easy to get lost, distracted, and fall into excuse-making.
Having the experience and scars from this process I now have a deeper understanding and respect for companies that are working well, able to continually innovate, and I understand the tremendous effort it can take to achieve this.
I suspect that there are many many companies ripe for cultural transformation, and this will be necessary for them to maintain their relevance.