NORTHWOODS

ABOUT NORTHWOODS

Northwoods makes software for human services agencies - child welfare, adult and aging, economic assistance, etc.

Primarily selling to county and state governments with customers across the United States, thousands of human services workers use Northwoods software every day to do their important work.

MY ROLE

As the Director of Product, I oversaw product strategy and design for all of Northwoods' products: desktop applications installed on premises, mobile apps, and Traverse, a web-based SaaS content management and discovery system.

I led a team of Product Managers and Product Designers in strategic and day-to-day problem solving and worked closely with other teams throughout Northwoods in the planning, development, and execution of the strategy and direction of the company.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Leading through design, I fostered relationships throughout Northwoods, growing Product Design into a vial part of the company. I built and led a Product Design team and over time took on Product Management as well.

A few highlights from my time at Northwoods:

  • We launched Traverse and began the process of transforming the company into a product-centric SaaS organization

  • Product Delivery and Product Management worked together to develop our own version of the Shape Up process:

      • Dev teams worked in 6-week segments

      • Created a pitch document format that worked for us that included: a problem statement, current solutions, key scenarios and constraints, and what a good solution should include

      • Designers and Product Managers were embedded with the Dev teams to help with everyday progress and problem solving

  • Onboarding for Traverse went from several months to weeks through user-centered, easy to use design and top-notch training, education, and support teams

  • Within the first year of the launch of Traverse Capture (a paid companion phone app to Traverse), 25% of Traverse customers purchased the add-on

  • Traverse Connect (client and 3rd-party provider portal) has been helping human services workers collect and process documents would normally take weeks...in hours! (Northwoods Case Study)


Products and product modules launched during my time at Northwoods: