The resident’s ordinary task behind my product brief

I began residential research at the fictional Torvellan Living in February 1992, after completing a built-environment degree at Belvarne Institute in December 1991. I joined a nine-person research group as an individual contributor. The work took me beyond the room names on a floor plan into the routines residents expected those rooms to support. I had no spending delegation or line-management authority. I helped organise observations and questions for more experienced colleagues, learning that an appealing feature description could conceal very different expectations about how it would be used.

Product management followed in July 1999. By 2006 I led twenty-two colleagues through three direct reports with A$2.9 million annual product expense. Torvellan then owned residential assets valued at A$620 million across 1800 homes and employed 260 people. Those figures described the employer rather than my individual investment authority. A 2005 wardrobe trial challenged a detail I had approved: the external opening was 600 mm, but the clear opening was 550 mm. Twelve of twenty-four residents brought 560 mm cases that could not fit through it. I had allowed the larger external dimension to stand for the task the resident needed to perform.

Fiona Marvellan asked us to change the module rather than explain the dimension more carefully. We funded A$380000 design work for a 650 mm external opening and 590 mm clear opening, allocating another 50 mm to the module. A different twenty-person prototype exercise produced seventeen fits and three larger-item exceptions. That did not establish that the wardrobe would accommodate every possession or satisfy a separate accessibility assessment. It changed the product brief around the usable opening, while retaining the people whose requirements still fell outside it. I keep the original approval in the story because it was mine.

I joined the fictional Mervellen Places as product director in April 2007. By 2013 my function had thirty-seven colleagues through four direct reports and A$6.8 million annual expense. The company then held A$1.15 billion residential assets across 2600 homes with 420 employees. A 2011 parcel review showed why a feature count could be a poor account of usefulness. A proposed 120 standard-locker installation was examined against 400 parcels observed over a fortnight: 310 fitted the standard size and ninety did not. We chose eighty standard and twenty larger compartments, with a separately handled oversized route, accepting fewer total slots for a more differentiated product.

The resident-proposition vice-president role began in July 2014. In 2018 a six-guest-suite proposal met a different everyday requirement. Among seventy-two participating households, forty-two raised overnight visitors while thirty focused on resident storage. We chose four guest suites and two equivalent rooms for storage, with A$2.6 million development. The decision did not turn those expressed needs into actual stays, rent uplift or a universal preference. It made both uses part of the limited-space discussion. By 2019 I led fifty-six colleagues through four direct reports with A$15 million expense, within A$2.4 billion company-owned assets and 5100 homes.

I became CPO in July 2020 and began executive presentations to Mervellen’s board. The remit now covers 78 colleagues through five direct reports with A$23 million in FY 2026–27 function expense. A 2023 shared-workroom brief for a 280-home community separated private calls from quiet focus, leading to two 30 sqm rooms instead of one 60 sqm room. A 2025 booking prototype added assisted and telephone routes after twenty-one of ninety-six residents could not complete the app-only task. Architects, planners, engineers, safety and tenancy specialists retain the responsibilities appropriate to their work; my product choices do not supply their approvals.

Since July 2022 I have also served as an executive nominee director of the wholly owned fictional Rovellen Resident Services. That is one current group-company statutory seat alongside my CPO employment, not an independent outside appointment. The role has made the continuing service account more immediate, including the need to separate a resident request from a commitment the subsidiary is equipped to fulfil. I would bring that experience to an outside-board discussion while recognising the different relationships and preparation it would require. Across thirty-four years, I have come to judge the residential product by the ordinary task it supports after the attractive first impression has passed.