Summary
We’ll blend panel-style discussion, improvisation, business wargaming, and more to explore the dynamics of cross-functional enterprise implementation teams. Our panel of experts—each representing a different facet of the software development lifecycle, including UX, Product, Development, Operations and Sales & Marketing—will be put into situations not of their own choosing that they must resolve in a series of meetings played out before the audience. Each member has their organization’s goals in mind, and their company’s goals in mind, but they don’t always know everybody else’s goals or concerns. Just like back at the office! Participating in this session: - Nafisa Bhojawala, UX Team Lead for Compute, Google Cloud Platform - Kintan Brahmbhatt, Head of Product Management, Amazon Music - David Gatto, Strategic Account Executive, Smartsheet - Dave Sifry, CTO, MyVillage - Wendy Spies, Director of Business Development for Data and AI
Key Insights
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DBNDC is shifting from a B2D (business-to-dog) model to B2B to scale revenue through business customers like vets and dog service companies.
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A small, focused cross-functional team with limited resources (one product manager, one designer, one researcher, BI, and senior tech leader) is critical for quick market validation.
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Technical debt from integrating the legacy Boneyard platform with the newer E-Toy e-commerce system causes operational risk and outages impacting customer trust.
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Government contracts present large revenue opportunities but require custom development, compliance upgrades, and have high risk due to lengthy sales cycles.
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Leadership transition, including CEO departure and key architect loss, exacerbates organizational vulnerabilities but opens space to reconsider company strategy.
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Customer experience teams prioritize empathy and data-driven validation before pivoting product strategies to ensure alignment with customer needs.
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Single sign-on and identity management systems are complex legacy issues complicated further by cross-platform demands (iOS, Android) and must be balanced against customer impact.
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Prioritizing engineering bandwidth between crisis remediation and strategic innovation is essential to maintain stability while pursuing future growth.
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Partnerships or acquisitions in specialized areas (e.g., government-focused ISVs) can reduce risk and accelerate entry into new markets.
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Empathy, trust, respect, and transparent communication among executive teams are crucial for effective decision-making and managing change within large organizations.
Notable Quotes
"The CTO said he wants us not to be in the press because of a security incident—keeping the system running is priority one."
"We have 20% of revenue coming from the top 3% of customers who buy in bulk—why not expand that cohort with targeted features?"
"Engineering is still digesting the acquisition integration; we can’t just pivot without fixing existing technical debt first."
"Moving to government contracts is heads we win, tails we lose a little—we must timebox investments carefully."
"Customers don’t want to log in with two different systems forever; identity management must get solved but cautiously."
"We need to treat this B2B pivot as a skunkworks project to avoid distracting the company’s ongoing priorities."
"Sometimes the best leaders are like umbrellas, shielding their teams from chaos while keeping them informed."
"Empathy is real—each function understands the pressures others face, which is necessary for collaboration."
"The CEO’s unrealistic demands forced us to unify and clearly communicate risks and costs back to leadership."
"We can patent dogs ordering products by their barks—hard to copy, sustainable differentiation with machine learning."
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