đ 2024 Summer product launch â Run highly effective product teams at scale
Adevinta is a leading online classifieds group, operating digital marketplaces across Europe. Their marketplaces span consumer goods, mobility, real estate, and jobs, with a portfolio consisting of more than 25 digital brands. But with so many unique companies and brands, the product organization was experiencing several pain points, including too much time spent in meetings, a lack of trust and communication as teams worked in silos, and difficulty accessing information because everyone used separate tools. Productboard supported them in streamlining roadmapping, customer insights collection, and communication, so everyone now feels empowered to work toward the same strategic goals.
Need to buy or sell something in Europe? If so, thereâs a good chance youâve turned to one of Adevintaâs 25+ brands. Their portfolio â including brands like Leboncoin in France, Marktplaats in the Netherlands, and Kleinanzeigen in Germany â attracts 120 million users and over 1 million businesses every month.Â
Each brand has its own unique identity, provides a range of services, and plays an integral role in empowering buyers, sellers, renters, and job seekers to find exactly what theyâre looking for. As you can imagine, serving such a broad community through dozens of platforms leads to complexity within the product org. Needless to say, itâs easy for tools and communication to get a little tangled. This is why Product Operations Manager Jo-Shan Lee is committed to streamlining their product processes and toolkit.Â
âBack in the old days, our teams were using multiple tools to manage their roadmaps â Google Sheets, Google Slides, Confluence,â says Jo-Shan. It often took several rounds of back and forth meetings to communicate roadmaps. Some of their biggest challenges included:
These problems meant there was a lack of cohesiveness within the product team. âPeople didnât have visibility into what others were doing â teams worked in silos,â says Jo-Shan.
âThe flexibility and adaptability of Productboard and their team allow us to cater for and adapt to all our market needs.â
Fabrice Chupin
DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT, ADEVINTA
It was clear they couldnât continue to operate this way. Adevintaâs Director of Product, Fabrice Chupin saw a way forward with Productboard. âThe flexibility and adaptability of Productboard and their team allow us to cater for and adapt to all our market needs,â explains Fabrice.
âWe believe that Productboard has the features and functionality for us to optimize our product management processes from end to end, from discovery to delivery.â
Jo-shan Lee
PRODUCT OPERATIONS MANAGER, ADEVINTA
Jo-Shan says Productboard was the clear choice to address their pain points. âWe believe that Productboard has the features and functionality for us to optimize our product management processes from end to end, from discovery to delivery.â The Productboard features and benefits that appealed most to Fabrice and Jo-Shan (âAnd thereâs many,â she adds) included:
âThis will naturally increase transparency within our product org and improve our product culture,â says Jo-Shan.Â
Fabrice agrees, adding, âLinking the customerâs insights to the outcome allows us to close the loop and clearly communicate the rationale and the value of the product org to the stakeholder.â
Because Jo-Shan had worked with Productboard at a previous company, she led the initiative to launch Productboard at Adevinta. In order to design a process that would meet the diverse needs of her team, she began asking a few product managers to test the solution while she ran user interviews to understand the user problems and needs. Just like the PMs she supports, once sheâd identified the user problems, she set a structure to meet their needs. She then led a few alignment sessions to introduce the new roadmap process and define the product hierarchy. Through this process she was able to outline the communications and integrations requirements to ensure end-to-end transparency within the product life cycle. Next she worked with each of the initial tribes within Adevinta to create a strong foundation.Â
âImplementation is not the end of the journey,â says Jo-Shan. She continues to monitor progress and usage and iterate on the process whenever itâs needed. Jo-Shan also works closely with Adevintaâs research teams to facilitate continuous discovery and incorporate better customer insights flows in Productboard.
Because Jo-Shan is running a small but mighty product operations team of one, sheâs especially grateful for the partnership with Productboardâs professional services team to facilitate rollout and adoption. Sheâs developed a strong relationship with the sales and support teams and relies on their thought partnership and creative approach to solutions. âOur account executives and tech support agents are always patient and helpful with my feedback and requests. I think they are probably working on answering some of my requests right now,â laughs Jo-Shan.Â
Up until recently, Jo-Shan said her favorite feature of Productboard was the Jira integration because it helps keep roadmap statuses up-to-date and it makes it easy for PMs to manage things without going back and forth between different tools. But now Jo-Shan says everyone is excited about the possibilities of Productboardâs AI capabilities. âWe really look forward to being able to better organize customer insights and for the AI to help us aggregate data into different clusters.â She can already imagine the time and effort this will save PMs and UX people when analyzing insights and writing feature descriptions. This will give everyone greater confidence and eliminate any âI donât have timeâ excuses. Â
With Productboard in place, roadmaps are no longer a source of frustration at Adevinta and instead act as a tool for communication and collaboration. A few of the biggest changes so far include:Â
Everyone throughout the product org â from leaders and individual PMs to UX researchers â has shared positive feedback with Jo-Shan. One of her favorite comments? A product team in Spain collectively shared the following: âWe use Productboard to show everything on the table â we donât need Google Slides anymore!âÂ
Adevinta started their Productboard journey with 30 makers â mainly product managers and product owners â using the tool. There are now around 170 makers (and around 1,000 total users) from France, Germany, parts of Spain, and the Central Teams active on the platform today. They also plan to expand to cover all of Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy in 2024. âProduct operations is on a mission to evangelize Productboard across all of Adevinta,â says Jo-Shan.
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2015
Europe
Multiple tools, inconsistent processes, and too much time lost
Fabrice Chupin
DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT, ADEVINTA