Relationships Australia, a leading provider of relationship support services, needed a digital communication tool for separated parents. The need for the tool is to support positive and respectful co-parenting, addressing the emotional and practical challenges faced by families undergoing separation.
The challenge
The challenge was to create a cohesive vision and roadmap for the communications tool amidst diverse ideas and stakeholder perspectives. The goal was to define a differentiated feature set that meets both user needs and business objectives, while centering the human experience at the heart of it all. The project required navigating complex landscapes and ensuring ongoing support for families.
Our approach
We began with a product discovery phase to understand user needs and align stakeholders. Key workshops, including an alignment and vision workshop and a prioritisation workshop, were instrumental in defining a clear product vision and prioritising features. We utilised the vision as a guiding principle to shape a comprehensive product backlog and roadmap.
Alignment and vision workshop
We engaged stakeholders to uncover and align on four things: the why behind the product, user needs, cost factors and business objectives. We turned this research into a product vision. The vision outlines the product's purpose and direction and plays a crucial role in guiding future decisions — ensuring alignment with business goals.
Prioritisation workshop
A wealth of ideas came out of the initial workshopping, which is as overwhelming for clients as it is promising. We took into consideration ideas from stakeholders, researchers and practitioners to help Relationships Australia prioritise.
The vision serves as our guide, with research and technical feasibility used to define the feature set. We created a product backlog containing a list of features to support the product vision, indicating which should be prioritised for the future minimum viable product or later iterations.
The Product Roadmap
We applied best practice approaches to validate possible solutions. Along with design and technical research to support, we create a product roadmap providing a strategic communication tool showing the direction of where the product is headed.
We agreed to priority features that will meet initial needs and allow us to learn and test further. We recommended starting with a design prototype to iterate and refine these ideas prior to moving into a development phase. We’ll tackle some of the riskiest areas and assumptions first and gather insight from users and stakeholders. The later stages of the roadmap include additional features for exploration and enhancement.
Outcomes
Many products fail in the market because there is no need, so we focus our efforts on defining and testing the idea, iterating through design and ensuring what we're going to build is fit for purpose. This minimises cost and allows us to pivot more easily.
Making sure the end user is centred in a project right from the start is essential in the way Portable delivers work. And doing so in a way that respects the clients’ resourcing means we are setting everyone up for a successful outcome. As a result of our approach, there is now a clear path forward as such:
- Alignment and vision: Relationships Australia stakeholders are now aligned on a shared vision for the communication tool.
- Prioritisation and features: Key opportunities and features have been prioritised, ensuring focus on essential functionalities to support separated parents effectively.
- Product roadmap: a detailed roadmap provides a strategic direction for future development phases, facilitating cost estimation and funding planning.
This structured approach has empowered Relationships Australia with a shared direction for a tool that will support separated parents nationwide, reinforcing their commitment to positive family relationships and community support.
Reflections
"The team from Relationships Australia were engaged and excited throughout the process and contributed really strong ideas. They have a dedication to creating an inclusive, accessible and non-judgemental digital tool that is thoroughly researched, safe and secure. We enjoyed working with them to set the strategic direction and are hopeful we’ll collaborate on bringing it to life."
Allison Snow, Product Delivery Lead
Project team
- Allison Snow, Product Delivery Lead
- Luke Thomas, Principal Product Strategist
- Andrew Fulton, Technical Lead
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