How to get everybody on the same page of digital product development

How to get everybody on the same page of digital product development

November 2021

4 business examples in successful alignment

The best innovation stories? Listen to the podcast info.nl/podcast 2

Content table 1 Introduction: Importance of alignment in digital product development

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2 Alignment is not an afterthought

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3 Alignment is all about the process

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Martijn Hazelaar - Head of Digital, VanMoof

Xenia Kuiper - Program Manager Social Robotics, Philadelphia Zorg

4 Getting and keeping stakeholders aligned

Bob Thomassen - Project Leader Quality Care System, NOC*NSF

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5 Transparency and communication are the key to alignment success

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6 Conclusion

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Duco Berghuis - Product Team Lead, Just Eat Takeaway.com

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INTRODUCTION

Importance of alignment in digital product development In the more than 25 years of experience we have in developing new digital products and services, we notice that there is so much more to it than just designing and implementing a new digital system. When you introduce a new digital product, it automatically triggers changes in many areas within the organization. But how do you ensure that change is guided in the right direction and everything is aligned so that the digital product becomes a success?

In this case we are not talking about, for example, just introducing a new app or a website, but about digitizing business-critical systems. These are often complex systems that you cannot simply switch off or rearrange, because a business is built on this. It affects many aspects of the organization.

The most important factor

We have noticed that one factor determines the success of a digital system. And that’s not how fast a product is finished or how good the UX of a system is. No, the most important thing is alignment. By alignment we mean all aspects of an organization that are aimed at realizing the digital strategy of the organization. We have come to the conclusion that the chance of a successful digital product or service is significantly increased when the following aspects are aligned with each other; - teams - dates - processes - software

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Especially when it comes to creating new sustainable propositions. We often see that the value of alignment is underestimated and that the focus is only on building and integrating technology.

But especially when you develop new propositions where silos have to be broken or an existing supply chain is up for discussion, it is just so important to align teams, data and processes accordingly.

We were curious about the vision of others on the importance of alignment in digital product development and how companies deal with it in real life. That’s why we talked to Just Eat Takeaway.com, VanMoof, NOC*NSF and Philadelphia Zorg. During online interviews we asked them, among other things, how they define alignment, what obstacles they encounter and what valuable tips they have in the field of alignment for others in their position.

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Alignment is not an afterthought

INTERVIEW

Martijn Hazelaar Head of Digital, VanMoof

When you think of The Netherlands, you think of bikes. With more bicycles than people, the Netherlands is a cycling country beyond any other. We were one of the first countries in the world that completely adapted our infrastructure and road network to accommodate cyclists. With its smart, city-proof and tough-asnails e-bikes, VanMoof targets a younger audience, breaking the stereotype of what an e-bike should look like and who should ride it. And they’re doing it well, because the company is growing fast.

“The sales have tripled in the last year,” says Martijn Hazelaar, Head of Digital at VanMoof, pride in his voice. Of course, this rapid growth requires alignment of processes, data and platforms, so we sat down with Hazelaar for a chat.

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A platform for everything

First of all, we’d like to know where VanMoof stands when it comes to digital development. Hazelaar explains: “We’re a young company, so we usually look for the digital solution right away. We started out with two digital platforms, but now there are seven or eight.” There’s a platform for B2C sales, one for B2B subscriptions, a planning tool for repairs and test rides, a platform that ensures that both bicycles and repairs can be paid for in-store, platforms for financing and accounting, and of course MyVanMoof where users can manage their own bicycle. Apart from these platforms this actually falls under R&D - there’s the Rider app, that controls the bike and makes sure that you can find it when it gets stolen. “For the Rider app we work together with Apple FindMy, which allows us to pinpoint the exact location of stolen bicycles,” says Hazelaar.

FixIt

The latest platform that Hazelaar and his team (together with INFO) are working on, is the FixIt platform. This FixIt platform was created to serve the certified workshops and their bike doctors, to get them up to speed quickly and to improve communication with the customer during repairs. FixIt is currently managed by INFO, but Hazelaar has already hired people who will take over its management in the coming year.

And this is where the topic of alignment first enters our conversation. Hazelaar: “I prefer to have the majority of my team working in-house, even though we have a good partner in INFO. It provides us with direct access to the certified workshops, to the Operations team and to the bike doctors. After all, they know best how the repair flow works. That has everything to do with alignment.”

Transparency is everything

And what is alignment, according to Hazelaar?

“Cooperation?” he wonders out loud at first. “Usually, the focus is on the Development team and what they’re building. But the real work is looking at what we need, what can be tested, checking with our users whether we’re building what they’re expecting, whether they know what’s coming and how this all aligns with our stakeholders’ expectations,” he explains. So, it’s really all about transparent communication. That everyone knows where they stand and based on that, up their support or develop extra functionalities.

“Transparency is everything!” he laughs. He adds that in order to keep everyone aligned, “you actually have to communicate more than feels natural. You need a fixed pattern, to instill some kind of rhythm”.

Alignment on the go

When it comes to aligning processes and people, Hazelaar kills two birds with one stone: “To align the processes, it’s important to involve all users, stakeholders and developers from the beginning.”

Hazelaar starts every project with the largest possible scope and even though “it always changes, it’s a good jumping-off point for alignment,” he feels.

For example, during the development of the FixIt platform, he (or a team member) visits the bike doctors every two weeks, since they’re the end users. He also has weekly meetings with the POs of the different teams involved. They discuss the development of the platform and also, for example, who will own what by the time it’s finished.

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Alignment of the teams (in this specific case) actually goes pretty smoothly: “First, we ensure that all internal stakeholders are present during the demo.

And when the demos and the releases that follow are presented to the certified workshops, we ensure that people from the Development and Operations teams are present to support where needed. To visit our certified workshops, we drive all across the Netherlands and the EU, so often upon return, we get out of the car fully aligned,” he laughs. After those visits, a lot of time is spent on relaying the feedback they’ve received from the workshops, so that the people who weren’t there also know what’s up.

Dedicated Data team

All the different platforms that VanMoof uses collect a considerable amount of data. But how do they ensure that all the data is aligned, transparent and available for the entire organization? First of all, they have one central, dedicated Data team. Each team has a data analyst with their own dashboard, who ensures that all new data coming in is easier to read. The Data team collects the data and comes up with ways to include the data in a system. Then the team feeds the data through a BI tool, so that it can be used by different teams. Hazelaar: “With data, it’s useful to have a companywide strategy and a dedicated team. This ensures the data can be managed, is used properly and is communicated to the people who need or want to use it.”

No MVPs

One of the most interesting things Hazelaar shared with us during our conversation, is the fact that he doesn’t believe in MVPs: “I stopped using MVPs. With MVPs you run the risk of building something that may not work or doesn’t meet the needs of the users. Depending on the complexity, it’s much better to come up with something within a week or two, that can be tested immediately by the users and then used as a basis for further development, like we did with the FixIt platform. We just want to deliver strong functionalities as quickly as possible, the so-called earliest testable product.”

“To keep everybody aligned you actually have to communicate more than feels natural. ” 8

Challenging growth

When asked about obstacles he experiences when working towards alignment, his answer is brief: “I don’t think we have many obstacles, we mainly have challenges.”

One of the challenges Hazelaar faces is the explosive growth of the workforce. To illustrate, seventy new people joined the team last month alone: “It’s a fulltime job to involve and align new people and departments. With so many people, it can be hard to figure out who the stakeholders are. Besides, it’s a challenge to ensure that your priorities remain the same as new people, departments and processes are added all the time. It can be difficult to guarantee the quality of alignment with so many people joining and moving through the organization.” Fortunately, Hazelaar can count on the support of the various program and project managers who are fully dedicated to creating alignment within the organization.

Alignment is not an afterthought

Finally, Hazelaar shares some useful tips for other fastgrowing companies and people in similar positions: “Alignment and processes aren’t an afterthought. They both need time and attention. That’s why there must be a dedicated team member who continuously monitors the process.” He emphasizes the importance of transparent communication once again (“Often people don’t catch on until the third time you say something.”). He also believes alignment should be integrated from the start, by involving all beneficiaries at the beginning of the project. “Make them part of the process and make it easy for them, so that even non-techies can understand and follow the process. That way, it’s more fun for everyone,” he concludes.

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Alignment is all about the process INTERVIEW

Xenia Kuiper

Program Manager Social Robotics, Philadelphia Zorg

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Innovation and digitization are constantly developing and thus becoming an increasingly important part of healthcare.

For example, innovations offer solutions for the enormous staff shortage that the healthcare sector has been dealing with. Another example is healthcare provider, Philadelphia, currently deploying six robots to be part of their healthcare team’s permanent staff. The robots are programmed to engage in social interactions and to support clients with learning disabilities in their daily lives. This is not only fun for the clients but the robots also take over a lot of the floor supervisors’ tasks. We spoke with Xenia Kuiper, Program Manager Social Robotics at Philadelphia, about the role of alignment in developing new digital innovations in the healthcare process.

Social robots

Since 2016, Kuiper and her team have been developing Social Robots in collaboration with The Innovation Playground. Kuiper’s robotics team and Social Robotics program focus on two things: research & observation and development & innovation. Based on this research and their observations, they develop the software together with a third partner. They used their conversations with clients to put together a personal interaction program, so that the robot arrives at the homes fully configured and ready to care. “In the future, the robot should really be able to take over part of the daily tasks of healthcare professionals,” Kuiper explains. This will help to increase their clients’ self-reliance and also offers a partial solution to future labor problems. The team works remotely and uses dashboards to monitor the robots’ field observations and data. This allows them to, for example, specifically monitor the robots as they’re completing their tasks and during their interactions with clients, and use this data to guide clients and healthcare professionals, and/or to identify and resolve any technical problems.

Off the beaten track

Innovation is part of Philadelphia’s DNA. They are always looking for new developments, but as a result are sometimes too focused on the start of a project, which takes attention away from making sure they’ll get where they need to go. This has pros and cons and even an element that is both a pro and a con: the lack of a fixed process. The downside to this is that everything you do is an experiment. On the other hand, Kuiper has the opportunity to carry out this project on the fringes of the existing organization: “We are exploring something that doesn’t exist yet, so we sometimes go off the beaten track.

”You can only succeed if all the slices of the pizza are accounted for.”

It helps that we got the mandate from the board, offering us a promising position for successful innovation.” Kuiper hopes that the Social Robotics project can serve as an example for tackling future innovation projects. Right now, Philadelphia is conducting multiple digital projects. “We’re now at a tipping point where we’re looking at how these projects, which are very successful in their own right, can be linked together strategically,” she explains. For example, there are “digital-human” projects, datadriven care projects and even smart incontinence materials that all collect interesting data that can be relevant to multiple departments.

It’s paramount that these different initiatives and projects are aligned with each other and with the organization as a whole, so that everything fits together well once the innovations are added to the suite of care services.

The whole pizza

When Kuiper thinks of alignment, it always fuels her inner businessadministration fire: “I always try to use the program to demonstrate which main themes within the organization we’re touching upon.

The program describes the most important themes that ensure that you can ultimately deploy a wellfunctioning robot as part of dayto-day care and suite of services.”

She uses the education thema as an example. An educational training should ensure that the staff knows how to work together with the robot.

Kuiper has a multi-year plan, in which she divided the alignment theme into seven slices.

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“Alignment should be a separate theme within your project plan.”

For each slice, she has created a roadmap on her goals in terms of what she wants to achieve on, for example, client level, organizational level and employee level. Kuiper calls this a pizza: ”You can only succeed if all the slices of the pizza are accounted for.” During the process, she tries to set clear priorities. For example, she made the conscious decision to not immediately start working on a business case at the start of the project, but to build it up as she goes. “Initially, building a business case was placed at the bottom of our list, so that we could first determine what a robot actually has to be able to do to add value to the existing healthcare programs. You can only investigate and experiment with a working robot, after all.” she states.

In order to test her program with the Board of Directors, she made an outline of the most important themes, based on the Past-Present12

Future maturity model. First, she checked with the board whether or not her plan was aligned with the company’s vision for the future.

From there, she can fine-tune her plan and then involve her team and, ultimately, the rest of the organization.

Try it out

With a plan in place and a functioning robot, it’s time for the implementation phase. But where do you start? As far as Kuiper is concerned, you just have to start somewhere and try it out.

“Philadelphia bought a robot and made sure it was able to recognize humans. Then, we invited a few parents, a behavioral expert, someone from the board and some people from direct care to experience and work with it,” she explains. Currently, there are six robots deployed 24/7. The feedback and experiences these robots collect provide an enormous collection of data that Kuiper and her team

use to improve the robot further.

Philadelphia doesn’t only use the robots to develop digital solutions, but also to create support within the organization. For example, the robot sometimes ‘sleeps over’ with one of its colleagues from care or management.

The Social Robotics program is a unique project, partly because of the scale at which data is collected.

Kuiper: “The entire Robotics program runs on continuous data analysis.” So how do you ensure that all this data is aligned?

According to Kuiper, this is a “new chapter” for this healthcare organization. It’s quite challenging to collect data in healthcare, because you have to take so many different factors into account, like privacy. At the moment, they are still processing all this data manually, but they won’t have to for much longer: “We now have to take the step towards AI. We figured out how to make a good interaction program and now we have to teach those rules to AI.”

Transparency

Of course, it’s the plan that the robots will soon be deployed on a large scale and actively participate in the primary care process. In order to bring these processes together, you have to look at how the Robotics program fits into Philadelpia’s complete care package. This piece of alignment is only now getting its well-deserved spotlight. Kuiper suspects that this has to do with the fact that “other parts of the organization are more open to this project and that the Social Robotics project has already proven itself.” It doesn’t matter how you look at it, these robots are here to stay, so, according to Kuiper, now is time to start working together integrally: “For now I strongly believe in the power of connections, the relationships between all moving parts and ensuring that you make clear decisions about that in the organization. Working together and communicating with other teams is an important part of this: we have used the word ‘transparency’ for years. The teams meet regularly to give each other a look behind the scenes. They then work together on connecting the projects to Philadelphia’s ‘why’ and how they relate to the other projects.”

In the thick of it

For Kuiper, the alignment theme is at the top of her list: “Alignment should be a separate theme within your project plan,” she states. As a result, she estimates that it takes up about 90% of her time, mostly within her own team. It takes one heck of a leader to align a team of twelve people that all work remotely. But Kuiper has a tip for other people in her position: “Don’t be afraid to really lead your team and to get in the thick of it. You’ll see the rest will follow suit.”

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Getting and keeping stakeholders aligned INTERVIEW

Bob Thomassen

Project Leader Quality Care System, NOC*NSF

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When discussing the Olympics in the Netherlands, people automatically think of NOC*NSF. What most people don’t know, however, is that NOC*NSF mostly facilitates the Netherlands’ ninety national sports organizations who, together, represent about 24,000 sports associations with a total of 5.2 million members. NOC*NSF consists of multiple departments that all have their own expertise and targets within the Dutch sports arena, but their overarching goal is simply put - to get as many Dutch people as possible to exercise.

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Bob Thomassen, Project Leader Quality Care System within the SportsParticipation department, is responsible for infrastructure, by which he means the facilities. “First and foremost, it all has to be safe and follow the rules of the sport. Every sports facility that is built in the Netherlands has to meet certain basic requirements. We want fair competition and to compete on a global level, like with World or European Championships” he explains. About forty years ago, NOC*NSF set up a certification system to guarantee safety and to assess whether or not a certain facility met the requirements. However, according to Thomassen, the work processes of the old certification system became outdated over the past few years. For this reason, NOC*NSF started building a new certification system - an IT platform that will automate the entire certification process and make it userfriendly. In addition, the certification system will be expanded with, among other things, an accomodation passport and a sustainability label that must ensure that the sport infrastructure in the Netherlands becomes more sustainable. We spoke with Thomassen about the role that alignment has in this process.

Certification system

To understand exactly how important alignment is, Thomassen first provides us with some background information. The original certification system is a collab of NOC*NSF with municipalities, sports center owners and suppliers; the “Triple Helix,” as Thomassen calls it. However, the system is NOC*NSF’s property since it’s a privately owned quality label, like Beter Leven for food. After completion by NOC*NSF, the new certification system will be handed over to the Sports Infrastructure Foundation, which has to be set up by the Triple Helix.

In addition, Thomassen’s department tripled in size over the last three years and with that growth the need for alignment grew, too. Last year, the agile way of working was introduced in the whole department. That’s why Thomassen and his team are now following the Scrum method and working agile. The most important critical factor for success of the new certification system is meeting the wishes and needs of all users of the current system. “The new platform should make the information for building sports accommodations easily available for everyone. We’re building for the municipalities and the sports unions that are involved in building sports accommodations.

We now only want to build things that they also see the added value of,” Thomassen explains their newly gained insight.

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Supportive caregiver

That’s why Thomassen’s department is now re-evaluating their role within both the organization and the Triple Helix. They want to become the “supportive caregiver”, by which he means that they will have a mostly supporting and facilitating role. Initially, Thomassen’s own role was more of a connector: “There were a lot of old grudges and frustrations that I wanted to tackle first, so that we could start fresh, with a clean slate.” He then moved on to “strategically low-hanging fruit,” as he likes to call it, in this case digitizing the sports facility handbook. Ever since he delivered the digital handbook, he noticed that people are more involved and show more interest during the task force meetings that he organizes.

Steering committees & common sense

“Task forces are only one of the ways to create alignment within the organization, the different teams and their processes.”

Those task forces are only one of the ways that Thomassen uses to create alignment within the organization, the different teams and their processes.

“The task forces are very important because you can talk to everyone and you have a place to align things.

Once a month, I sit down with the Triple Helix steering committee, which consists of the director of Sports & Municipalities, the director of Civil Engineering and sports sector association and the sports participation manager of NOC*NSF. In addition, once every quarter I have a meeting with the unions, branche associations and municipalities. They make sure that their colleagues also join in.” Therefore, to him, alignment means “involving stakeholders and keeping them involved.”

Besides working in sprints and being part of several task forces, Thomassen feels that alignment is “simply using your common sense. We’re operating with different interests, wishes and needs. So we always have to keep everybody happy and translate the wants and needs that we pick up [during meetings] into a process or product.

Additionally, during face-to-face meetings, I always try to be flexible and receptive.” Finally, he creates alignment by phasing everything out and thinking hard about what to deliver and when. This is more easily said than done, however: “Your jumping-off point is based on assumptions, so after the exploration of the market in track 0 (this is how INFO calls the discovery phase), we made a sketch of where we want to go and how we think we can get there, but it’s all a guessing game, since you haven’t tested anything yet. We’re going to do that now with the stakeholders that are actually going to use the platform.”

IT issues

Due to the complex context in which NOC*NSF operates, Thomassen has to navigate between different interests. And that isn’t his biggest issue. Soon there will be shared ownership of the certification system, which means that the internal organization of NOC*NSF will also have to deal with a different target group than the trusted unions. For example the IT-department. Currently the IT-department mainly provides internal support to colleagues, but will now have to change to a service-providing role of IT services for the benefit of the Sports Infrastructure platform and all its IT services and products. “We need security, privacy and incident management and are currently in the process of arranging this properly. We are still working on finding a solution for what should be done with all the data that is still with the various parties. Everyone has valuable data that they don’t want to share. Lucky for us, we don’t process any personal data,” he laughs, “or else it would’ve been even more complicated.” Thomassen also remarks that an institute such as NOC*NSF can quickly get bogged down by “inertia” and bureaucracy, and he feels that more time could be spent on optimizing and aligning processes, avoiding two people doing the same tasks in different departments.

Alignment is something that he practices “throughout the whole week” while working on this project: “One week it’s about eight hours, the next it’s three days. I found that a tight schedule and regular meetings are the way to go in these cases,” he states. “If you involve your stakeholders, you’ll make better products that people really want to use.”

A sympathetic ear

Thomassen also has some tips for other project leaders that are struggling with the same issues: “This is my own personal philosophy,” he laughs, “but I found that all people want is a sympathetic listener. It doesn’t matter whether what they’re telling you is relevant or not, a little understanding goes a long way. I also like to use humor to deflect possible tension and always try to operate from a place where nothing is impossible and where anyone can pitch anything, as long as it fits in with the system and the finances.

People like that,” he concludes our conversation.

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Transparency and communication are the key to alignment success INTERVIEW

Duco Berghuis Product Team Lead, Just Eat Takeaway.com

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With their super-speedy electric bicycles and bright orange jackets, the delivery guys and gals from Just Eat Takeaway.com (JET) have become a staple of the Dutch street scene. And their numbers are only going to increase, since JET (aka Thuisbezorgd, which is what us Dutchies like to call it) is taking over and merging with companies left and right. With all corporate action, the company is growing fast. Of course, this is good news, but with those take-overs you don’t only acquire the company, but its people, systems, data, processes and platforms as well. That’s why JET has a centralized approach in which the product and tech departments follow a one-platform strategy. We spoke about the role that alignment has in this strategy with Duco Berghuis, Product Team Lead with JET, even though he prefers to call himself a “contributing foreman”.

No techies

Berghuis’ team - who refers to themselves as Product Strategy & Operations is mainly focused on “cross-vertical initiatives within the product department” that, according to Berghuis, are “of strategic importance” to JET. In addition, they’re involved with facilitating and coordinating processes and projects, like with the quarterly planning sessions or platform migrations. What’s noteworthy is that Berghuis doesn’t have a single tech guy or girl in his team.

No developers, no designers, no researchers. “That’s why alignment is crucial, we’re highly dependent on other teams and departments,” says Berghuis.

Unambiguous definitions and interpretations

What Berghuis means by alignment? He laughs, “That’s a good question.

To me, alignment means coming to an agreement and providing clarity about the direction we’re going in and making choices.” However, he has an important addition: “To me, alignment also means realizing unambiguous definitions and interpretations of data, for example. It may seem that we’re talking about the same thing, but in reality it often turns out that we’re not.”

In Berghuis’ opinion, alignment is also crucial for assigning value to data sets and measuring results.

Determining what the data is about exactly is also an important part of integrating and migrating an, for example, acquired platform to their own central hub. Berghuis: “That’s our jumping-off point. What is the data about and do we all agree on what that is? We coordinate this from a very early stage and run tests throughout the process to see whether or not the number of records from the old platform matches the number of records from the new one.” To make sure that existing processes are aligned with the new ones and that everybody’s using the same definitions, Berghuis works closely together with researchers and POs from other teams.

For this, he likes to organize workshops that are focused on a central theme: “The workshops revolve around features, requirements, a feature gap analysis, etc.,” he explains.

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The initiative lifecycle process

JET encourages its employees to share their ideas on a digital ‘whiteboard’, called Jira. Although in practice it appears that it’s only management and other departments that are pitching ideas, each idea/request goes through the initiative lifecycle process, designed by his team. Berghuis: “It’s derived from the value engine model, but customized to our organization and specific projects.” The initiative lifecycle process always contains the same six steps, but how those steps are implemented exactly and how long each phase lasts depends on the bandwidth of the project. The steps that the initiative lifecycle process follows are: 1. idea intake phase - create a transparent list of all the ideas that might add value 2. selection - make a priority-based selection in this ‘backlog’ 3. drafting - gain insight into the viability of an idea using analysis 4. hacking - create a minimum measurable version 5. shipping - go live and rollout 7. tuning - make adjustments until an acceptable level of scalability is achieved After completing these steps, a digital solution is good to go and you can go back to the first step for a new initiative. And so the (initiative life)cycle goes round and round in Berghuis’ department.

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You can’t do it by yourself

So far, we’ve mainly discussed how to align processes, data and systems. What we haven’t discussed yet is how to align teams (i.e. people).

Berghuis has a clear vision on this topic as well. For him, in this context, alignment means “communication, plain and simple”. He continues: “I’m convinced that, with an organization like JET, you won’t or hardly get results without alignment. You can’t do it by yourself and if you don’t communicate, you won’t get anywhere in life,” he laughs. Besides transparent communication, Berghuis also highly values involving and informing stakeholders in a timely fashion: “They’re the ones who decide what they want, after all.”

Doing your homework

Berghuis also has a couple of helpful tips for his peers: “Do your homework. You’re a beacon of knowledge and should therefore have all the answers. Additionally, you must be transparent and communicative at all times. In my experience, substantiating your ‘why’ and committing your stakeholders early on, are a recipe for success,” he concludes.

To involve and inform those stakeholders, teams and other interested parties on time, JET organizes a quarterly planning session before each new quarter.

During these sessions, the kick-offs of (potential) new initiatives take place. Each team presents their why, how, what and when, but doesn’t come up with solutions just yet. That’s what those workshops are for, to collect input from all the different teams.

Prioritizing

Aligning all those people, teams, platforms, systems and data may seem like quite the challenge. Not to Berghuis, he only feels limited by one thing: “We’re growing fast. This means that the organization can’t always scale to the same extent, because we don’t always have sufficient resources. Which means having to prioritize or lowering your ambitions.”

And even though one would assume that JET has all its alignment-ducks in a row, Berghuis indicates: “There’s always room for improvement. It’s a continuous process, because with each project you learn something new. Which holds true for everything, each day you learn more as an organization, as a team, as a person. And don’t forget: you’ll learn most from your mistakes,” he reminds us.

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Conclusion As expected, all interviews showed that alignment plays an important role for everyone in digital product development.

One focuses more on aligning the stakeholders and the other focuses more on the processes and data. It is clear to say that it has a high priority, but what learnings can we get from the interviews with VanMoof, Just Eat Takeaway.com (JET), NOC*NSF en Philadelphia?

Involve your stakeholders

Aligning teams, data, processes and software is quite a challenge. Ideally, each project has a clear jumpingoff point and a fixed timetable about what you’ll deliver when. Bob Thomassen (NOC*NSF) and Xenia Kuijper (Philadelphia) both confirmed the added value of sectioning off different phases and including them in your plans. This way, everyone knows exactly what is expected from them and who’s responsible for what.

In order to align processes and teams, it’s important to involve all users, stakeholders and developers early on.

Then, people will become part of the process as they go along, which highly benefits alignment.

Prioritizing

In addition to a tight schedule and a clear jumping-off point, prioritizing should also be high on the list. Fastgrowing companies, such as JET and VanMoof, can’t always keep up with the pace and scale up due to their explosive growth. This means that they sometimes have to make (hard) choices. It can be hard, for example, to create alignment when you’re dealing with new people, departments and processes. In order to be able to coordinate a project or transformation properly during such hectic times, it helps to prioritize and plan structured meetings with all parties involved to keep them committed and in the loop.

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Transparency is key

All of our experts agree that alignment can only work if you communicate transparently.

During our conversation with Duco Berghuis, Product Lead with JET, it became clear that alignment is not something that you do by yourself, but rather together with other teams and stakeholders. To align all activity surrounding digital product development, you have to agree on and provide clarity about the route you want to take, the result that you wish to achieve and about the choices that you make. Continue to communicate, make sure everybody understands and implement a fixed communication style.

Alignment is number one

Each organization has a different definition of alignment. Some are more focused on aligning stakeholders, while others may focus on aligning processes. Either way, alignment should be high on every organization’s priority list, preferably at the top. Alignment needs dedicated time and effort.

You’ll have to appoint someone within your company to guard the alignment of your teams, data, processes and software. This person has to be a topnotch communicator, a great listener and, most of all, confident.

Start with a clear benchmark

However, it’s easier said than done to align all these different aspects.

We believe that this is something that all organizations are dealing with.

That’s why we advise to, before starting a digital project, create a sketch of how things are organized now, so that you have a clear benchmark.

Unfortunately, it is not a trick in advance, it is something you have to keep doing continuously. When we set up a product, we take all these things into account.

You have to ask the right questions in order to map the current situation and involve the right people. We can help you with this process. Together with you and your team, we ensure that we set up your new proposition in a sustainable way and that all stakeholders and processes within your organization are aligned around this, so that nothing stands in the way of a successful digital transformation.

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We are INFO. We translate your business challenge into digital products and services with impact, since 1994.

Together with our team, we devise, design and develop sustainable solutions that make our customers future-proof.

Helping organizations to innovate and create meaningful products that make a positive contribution to our daily lives is what we love most.

Want to learn more about how your digital product development can improve through alignment?

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Contact Hoite Polkamp Business Development Manager hoite@info.nl