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Learnings from developing a new SaaS Product
Suryaveer Lodha (Sunny)Senior Eng. Manager, Product Development Utilities Global Business Unit October 1, 2016
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Our Mission
We aim to provide the industry with the most complete cloud platform
for the entire utility value chain, from meter to grid to end-customers.
Network Meter-to-cash End consumer
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over
50%of US residential
energy data
600+
billionmeter reads
nearly
2/3of US residentialsmart meter data
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Opower’s customer engagement platform combines insightful analytics, behavioral science, and cutting-edge UX to help utilities
elevate the customer experience
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● 20-60% boost to
cross-sell
● 4x email open rates
vs. industry average
Marketing
DSM● 11 TWh saved to date
● 3-18% peak reduction
savings
Customer Experience● 4x more web registrations
● 5% boost to J.D. Power
scores
Contact Center
● 19% fewer high bill calls
● 40 seconds task time saved
● 7% more digital users
AMI● 40% of AMI customers
online
● 15% higher customer
sentiment
Opower has evolved with our utility clients to provide more value from customer engagement
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Customer Service Interface
Customer Information System
Demand-Side Management
Digital Customer Experience
SaaS customer engagement product for utilities
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CSR Billing Advisor
• New cloud based Customer Care Solution
• Developed on Opower’s new NextWeb
Platform
• Helps CSRs answer High Bill Calls
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Ideation → Launch (9 months)
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#1 : Pre-mortem
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#1 : Pre-mortem
● Premortem is the hypothetical opposite of a postmortem
● Imagine that the project failed spectacularly○ Team members generate plausible reasons for the
project’s failure.
Additional reading: https://hbr.org/2007/09/performing-a-project-premortem
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#1 : Pre-mortem
● Benefits:○ facilitates a positive discussion on critical failures○ increases the likelihood that main issues are
identified○ analyze the magnitude and likelihood of each
failure○ Plan for preventative actions to protect against
project failure.
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#1 : Pre-mortem (in practice)
● Very useful to identify potential blind-spots● Discuss various points of failure and responses● Involve individuals outside the product team:
○ UX○ Sales○ Marketing○ Business Development○ Customer Success○ Delivery Teams
● Active team involvement essential.
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#1 : Pre-mortem (Example)
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#2 : Ideation & Validation
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#2 : Ideation & Validation
● Build vaporware, with inputs from Engineering.○ Led by Product & UX ○ Multiple client visits○ Use Paid Online portals to get more feedback
■ Mechanical Turk■ Ads on online portals for paid user research
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#2 : Ideation & Validation
● Verify feature parity with Market Requirement Docs (MRDs)
● Focus on easier interactions○ Iterate quickly during prototyping
● Use Alpha Clients to fine tune the product to hit key metrics (equivalent to soft launch)
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#2 : Ideation & Validation Go where the customer is! (conferences, workshops etc)
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#2 : Ideation & Validation (Comparative Analysis)
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#2 : Ideation & Validation Try different mocks & get user feedback ...
Agent profile
Case form Main screen Customer profile
Customer history
Filters List
Agent profile
Nav
igat
ion
Nav
igat
ion
Tabs
Tabs
Module 1 Module 2 Module 3
Nav
igat
ion
1
Navigation 2
Module 4 Module 5
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#2 : Ideation & Validation (final design)
Customer Insights
Home energy analysis
Feature A
Feature B ...
Customer InsightsData Browser
4. What can I do in the future?
● Focus on specific categories● Learn tips to save● Get proactive communications
2. What caused the discrepancy?● Impact of weather, bill length, and usage
3. Can you give me more detail?● Details on costs, usage, and weather
1. Was this bill higher than usual?● Last year, last month comparison
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#3 : Be Agile, define your own Scrum
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#3 : Be Agile, define your own Scrum
● Fixed length iterations (1~3 weeks)● Active team involvement in Sprint planning● Daily Stand-ups● Sprint Demo● Sprint Retrospectives● Well Groomed & prioritized backlog● Track Work In Progress (< # of devs)● Bias towards increasing velocity● Iterate & be flexible! (Individuals over processes!)
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#3 : Be Agile, define your own Scrum
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#4 : Research Spikes
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#4 : Research Spikes
● Every feature preceded by a research spike 1 iteration ahead.○ Useful for ramping up new developers○ Strong participation from Product, UX ○ Include Core team member if needed
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#4 : Research Spikes
● Verify assumptions/reduced scope with core team - avoid blindspots. Add these to a FAQ list.○ Avoid isolated decision making○ Minimizes scope creep
● Underestimated importance of recording discussion - record videos and upload them on the shared space.
● Spend time to document decisions!
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#4 : Research Spikes
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Benefit of Research Spikes & Pre-mortem
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#5 : Track & Measure everything!
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#5 : Track & Measure everything!● Use Data/ metrics to decide:
○ Feature prioritization○ Bugfixes○ Client comms/rollouts etc.
● Spend time upfront to think about metrics collection○ Specially, if client reporting needed○ Set up a Data Curation Advisory Board for
consistency across the org.
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#5 : Track & Measure everything!● Metrics (Web) help us understand exactly how the
product is being used. ○ Use it to iterate on a FTUE○ Use data to take advantage of scale!
■ Specially for Cloud B2B products● Put an effort to make the metrics easily accessible to
the internal stakeholders.
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#5 : Track & Measure everything! (Example)
RUEL (Reach Usage Effectiveness Love) Dashboards
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#6: Maintain Launchbooks & Runbooks
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#6: Maintain Launchbooks & Runbooks
● Focus on documentation from the very beginning○ Add acceptance criteria on tickets to update the
docs as you deliver features● Have the new/Junior engineers feel comfortable with
Launching the product on lower tiers: QA and Stage○ Let them figure out how to launch○ Ask them to suggest updates to make these
more streamlined.
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#6: Maintain Launchbooks & Runbooks (Benefits)
● After first 3 launches, we got delivery teams to lead Alpha launches to big clients, with minimal support from dev team.
● Devs could focus more on feature development, and not client launches.
● Easier path to GA
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#7: How to run a successful UAT (specially for B-B)
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#7: How to run a successful UAT (specially for B-B)
● Engineering Manager, along with Product should attend (drive?) first few UATs
● Work with System Integration Testers (SITs) and QA to identify different data scenarios we support○ Also clearly state the edge cases not supported○ Dedicate resources to Anonymize PII & Dog-food
the product internally○ Bug bashing parties for devs!
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#7: How to run a successful UAT (specially for B-B)
● Account for Delivery Team time for the following:○ Find actual customers on Production data with
various data scenarios.○ Load latest production data on Stage tier○ Test these customers internally leading to UAT
● Work with Customer Success - to develop a training story around these customers and guide Business buyers during UAT and on-site training.
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#7: How to run a successful UAT (specially for B-B)
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Celebrate Successes & Failures!
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Thank you!
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