How to set up an end-to-end and seamless process for transitioning tasks from discovery to delivery

Nikita Lebedev, RH Product Streams Director at inDrive 

About Me 

I studied at the Faculty of Economics. After graduation, I worked for a year as a financial analyst at an investment company, handling deals with companies in the technology, media, and telecommunications sectors. There, I saw how people pour their hearts into their work, and I realized that I wanted to do the same.

After that, I joined Avito as a corporate finance and strategy analyst. I worked there for a while, got involved with the product, and realized that this was my calling. Then I worked at Qlean and Yandex. Now, I hold a position at inDrive, responsible for ride-hailing.

About My Role 

The role of a product director can vary significantly depending on the company. For example, inDrive is actively growing and developing in the mobility-as-a-service sector. In addition to rides, inDrive offers an expanding range of urban services, including intercity and freight transportation, on-demand technician services, courier, and B2B delivery. My main focus and the product I am responsible for is user transportation.

Currently, we operate in 46 countries, in more than 750 cities, and execute millions of rides daily. For us, it is important to focus on three key areas:

1. Entering new countries and markets where we are not yet present.

2. Maintaining leadership positions in countries where we already hold a significant share.

3. Gaining new ground in countries where we are not yet leading.

My task, as the person responsible for ride-hailing, is to ensure that user problems are effectively solved by the teams. Depending on the team and their level of domain understanding, the approach to tasks may vary. Our structure has a multi-level system: there are leads, who in turn have product managers and development teams. In some cases, I discuss issues at a strategic level with leads, defining the product development direction. In others, I dive into the details to understand why solutions are not always effective or of high quality. I spend a lot of time in meetings and communicating with people.

The task of any product director is to remove obstacles that prevent teams from achieving desired results. If solutions do not meet expectations, I analyze the causes and help teams improve their work quality.

My performance is evaluated based on the effectiveness of teams in achieving goals, which impacts the company's business metrics.

About Discovery and Delivery 

The terms discovery and delivery have long been known and are used in various fields.

Discovery is the process of understanding business and user problems and determining the necessary actions to achieve results. The outcome can be expressed in various metrics, whether financial or product-related.

Delivery is the implementation of the found solution, delivering it to users with maximum quality and on time. This includes turning the idea into reality and ensuring its availability in production.

It is important that the link between discovery and delivery is clear, and the process is completed on time. If a solution found during discovery does not reach implementation in delivery, the entire process loses its meaning.

Why a fast and efficient transition of tasks between stages is important

The essence of a seamless transition is not just a concept, but a real process. It is important that the transition from idea to development is effective and completed, rather than just recorded in the backlog and forgotten. This is important because if the team understands and implements the problems identified during the discovery phase, real value appears in production. 

Besides progress, it is important that your solutions bring economic value to the company. Solving problems should affect revenue, cost reduction, or profit increase. This shows that the product team influences business results and makes their work meaningful.

If solutions do not transition into tasks or features in production, it may mean that your work is meaningless. Therefore, it is important to avoid such an approach and strive for effective integration of discovery and delivery. It is necessary to quickly test and validate hypotheses to minimize risks and ensure that your ideas truly have value.

For example, our team needs to assess the impact of the app's overall performance on the level of ride safety. We create solutions based on these problems and causes. 

Problems are identified through qualitative interviews, research, requests, and heuristic approaches. Sometimes expert analysis is sufficient if the problem is obvious.

Solutions are developed based on identified problems. It is important that they do not get lost in tools like Miro or mind maps, but end up in the development team's backlog with a clear explanation of their origin.

Thus, over the course of a year, we have become a team that understands its impact on improving the quality and safety of rides. 

The process takes time and may vary depending on the company, but it is important to recognize the need to define problems and solve them effectively.

Transition from Discovery to Delivery at inDrive

Five steps I recommend to improve interaction between Discovery and Delivery:

1. Define the Discovery topic.

2. Formalize the process. 

3. Involve Discovery and Delivery participants.

4. Conduct Greenlight sessions, integrate Discovery results into planning and Agile processes.

5. Document and record milestones, pass them to the Delivery team in a clear format so that engineers know what to do.

The approach is gradual: do not try to implement everything at once. Break it down into parts, identify problem areas, and start with them. Discuss with colleagues, consult, and fix specific issues, whether it is the absence of Discovery or improving task descriptions in Delivery.

Advice and Recommendations

At inDrive, we place great importance on the justification of a product manager's actions. It is unacceptable when a product manager cannot explain why they are doing a particular task, responding only with, "Because they said so."

I advise you to understand why you are doing this specific task. Understanding the reasons and values of your work is important, even if you are a beginner. Find an experienced mentor who can help you figure it out.

Sometimes you need to say "stop" and act, even if everything is not perfect. It is important to return to questions later when it is really necessary. Perhaps you should stop if the branch is not that important. Ask yourself questions about your work, and everything will be fine.