From observing a task to owning its product promise

Mandate

Make the product's scheduling commitments understandable to the people preparing, using and returning a space.

Outcomes

• Sponsored explicit preparation and clearing windows after eighteen observed conflicts
• Funded keyboard interaction improvements while retaining three unresolved participant cases
• Introduced an occurrence preview before recurring-series edits
• Clarified expiry and staff responsibility for tentative reservations

Decisions in context

The CPO role made me responsible for connecting the evidence from venue work with company priorities. I lead forty-six colleagues through four leads and manage ₹12.6 crore annual function expense. Engineering remains under Gurmeet's leadership, so a product commitment requires a shared delivery decision rather than a unilateral promise from my team. I have had to explain why apparently small interactions can affect the customer's account of a booking. A preparation interval, a series exception or an expired hold can change what another colleague believes has been agreed. I present those choices and their evidence to Anita and, when required, directors. I hold no directorship and do not treat presenting a product case as authority to make a board decision. The responsibility is to give the decision-makers a clear account of what we know and what the proposed work can change.

Reason for the move

Current appointment; exploring a first external board contribution.

Mandate

Build a coherent product account of customer commitments while preserving local operating choices.

Outcomes

• Connected venue research with prioritisation across product teams
• Distinguished common scheduling problems from customer-specific operating arrangements
• Developed managers able to explain the evidence behind proposed changes

Decisions in context

Managing through two product managers changed the questions I asked. I could no longer inspect every interaction personally, and that would not have made the team stronger. I needed colleagues to explain which customer problem a proposed change addressed and what evidence would show whether it helped. Twenty-four people worked within a ₹6.1 crore annual budget. We served venues whose local arrangements differed even when they used similar rooms. I learned to distinguish a shared need for clearer commitments from a request to embed one customer's operating model in every installation. That distinction helped us discuss priorities with engineering and customer teams. The eventual move to CPO extended the same responsibility into company planning, where product promises needed a clearer connection to resources, commercial expectations and the limits of what software could decide.

Reason for the move

Appointed CPO as the product organisation and company responsibilities expanded.

Mandate

Translate observed venue work into usable booking and scheduling behaviour.

Outcomes

• Studied the people affected after a booking was first entered
• Connected preparation work with the product's account of a reservation
• Developed clearer explanations for proposed scheduling changes

Decisions in context

Oshveri introduced me to software whose consequences were visible in a physical room. I led eight product and design colleagues with a ₹1.6 crore annual expense budget, working alongside a separate engineering manager. We visited rehearsal and event spaces to understand what happened after a reservation appeared on screen. Staff knew details about equipment, preparation and local practice that the product did not always make visible. My job was to identify which omissions should change the shared product and which decisions belonged to the operator. I learned to explain the practical consequence of an interface choice without claiming expertise in venue safety or staffing. The head-of-product appointment followed work that brought customer observation into a more consistent planning discussion across the company, rather than leaving it with the individual manager who had visited a site.

Reason for the move

Promoted to lead the wider product function.

Mandate

Make appointment changes and shared-resource commitments understandable across staff roles.

Outcomes

• Observed how later colleagues interpreted another person's scheduling change
• Developed interaction proposals for inspecting an action before confirmation
• Progressed into design-team leadership with explicit budget responsibility

Decisions in context

At Trelshavi I moved from varied client assignments into a product that people used repeatedly. I could see how a small ambiguity became a familiar workaround rather than disappear after a project ended. I began as a product designer and became design lead in 2010, with seven colleagues and ₹85 lakh annual team expense. Our work involved appointments and shared resources, where one person's edit could alter another person's day. I became interested in the explanation a product left for the next colleague, not only the speed of the original action. Leading the team required me to connect observations with choices that engineering could implement. Oshveri offered a product-management role in which I could take responsibility for priorities as well as design proposals, while continuing to study the consequences of scheduling decisions.

Reason for the move

Moved into product management with a specialist venue-software company.

Mandate

Observe users and turn task difficulties into clear interface proposals.

Outcomes

• Learned to distinguish observed behaviour from a broad market claim
• Presented design reasoning to client and engineering colleagues
• Built a practice of watching the task before proposing a screen

Decisions in context

I joined the studio a month after completing my design degree. In a six-person team I observed users, developed proposals and explained why a screen might be difficult to understand. I had no hiring or spending authority. The early lesson was to separate what I had actually seen from what I imagined the wider market would do. A few interviews could reveal a significant problem without telling us how common it was. I also learned that a polished presentation could conceal an unresolved question about the task itself. Working with the studio director and client engineers taught me to make that question explicit. I moved to Trelshavi because I wanted to follow a product over time and see whether a design decision remained useful after users had encountered it repeatedly in ordinary work.

Reason for the move

Joined a product company to follow how design decisions worked over repeated use.