Product Development and Management vs Implementation and Adoption

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND MANAGEMENT VERSUS PRODUCT IMPLEMENTATION AND ADOPTION?

BY JAY ARNEJA

To answer this question, we must first understand the players in the landscape:

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The Service Provider(s): The technology companies that permit white labeling to meet a brand’s needs, vendors that provide industry utilities, and third-party service providers, such as IT support companies and departments, flood certification companies, etc., The Client: the Mortgage broker/lender, and The End Client: the borrower.

Who conducts product development and management? The service providers do.

Who performs implementation and adoption activities? The client must do these activities by strengthening and enabling processes like vendor management and release management. Additional activities include:

Understand the roadmap of your service providers: Get in front of the changes and discuss them with all stakeholders in your organization. • Create a library of release notes from your service provider(s): Ensure these notes are well circulated and discussed in your organization through set forums like monthly steering council meetings. • Conduct training and self-assessment tests on new products you introduce to staff: Assessments do not have to be lengthy; they can be 2 - 4 questions. You will have a visual of how departments are understanding and using the technology you bring into the organization.

Establish access management and access review processes for systems: Many times, companies buy licenses to find out staff members were never logging in.This brings us to how many different places in your organization does the same data reside. Do you need as many licenses/access points?

Conduct current state versus future state analysis: Ensure your leadership teams are aligned on long-term versus short-term goals so you can quickly assess the ROI of new products. Be a part of the action: Participate in requirements that gather and test activities for releases with your technology partners.

Understand the environments where the mortgage data resides.

The size of your vendor management and release management teams should vary based on how many service providers you have and the size of your organization. These strategic teams provide the oversight/governance for your implementation and adoption processes and optimize dollars spent on purchasing any type of technology.

Overall, understand your service provider’s Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) process and align it with your implementation and adoption processes. This will provide the best experience to the end client, your borrower.

Jay Arneja is an industry veteran specializing in product management, operations and compliance within the primary and secondary mortgage markets. She has held senior management positions at various organizations where she established and advanced departments, vendor relationships and cross functional teams. She has been recognized for aligning teams with corporate goals and optimizing organizational success.