Craig Quilkey | Product & Experience
Role: Head of Experience, 2IC to the Director of Product
Duration: 18 months to Launch.
My team was tasked with creating a personalised sports streaming experience for 3.5 million Australian sports fans, enabling them to watch their favourite teams and sports on their preferred devices. I had to establish a product function and deliver features into the development pipeline within 12 weeks, while also supporting the business case track of work.
As the Product Experience Lead and second-in-command to the Director of Product, I was responsible for establishing the vision and roadmap for the "Minimum Lovable Product" (MLP) of Kayo Sports within 12 months. To achieve this, we implemented a continuous feedback loop of research and insights into the product lifecycle. Additionally, I was tasked with growing the product team, bringing in Product Managers, Business Analysts, UX Designers, and Visual Designers. The team needed to be small enough to move quickly but large enough to meet our deadline.
Launching a new business at this scale presented several challenges:
During the 12-week business case sprint, we conducted quantitative research with a wide range of Australians who were using streaming services. We aimed to understand their appetite for streaming sports, their preferred sports, and their willingness to pay.
We followed this with customer interviews to delve into the type of experience and features they expected from day one. This research allowed us to establish a list of critical path features. We developed five personas to represent our diverse customer cohorts and created customer journeys for using the product across various devices.
In the initial months, the Product team held brainstorming sessions with stakeholders and subject matter experts to debate the viability, feasibility, and desirability of features.
Core features were fed into initiative roadmaps and broken into sprints with monthly and quarterly milestones. Requirements for each feature initiative were defined and prioritized, ready to be fed into UX sprints.
We used the RICE framework to prioritize features for upcoming sprints, outlining a phased approach to implementation. Key stakeholders included senior leaders from content, marketing, sales, development, and customer support teams.
Managing these relationships required delicate diplomacy to gain alignment and endorsement. Once onboarded, stakeholders participated in quarterly planning sessions.
We used two-week sprints to set up initiatives with an Epic Brief and Requirements. Initially, documentation was done in PowerPoint files called Detailed Design Documents (DDD), which we later migrated to Confluence for better collaboration. UX designers transformed requirements into wireframes and prototypes.
We created core flows for stakeholder reviews and further detailed flows for customer testing. Depending on the feature, customers saw either wireframe or visual prototypes built in Principle. Using Sketch for both UX and Visual Design, we created a comprehensive atomic design system that became the backbone of subsequent products.
Features that passed customer testing were documented with user translations at every breakpoint and linked to the relevant tech tickets. Visual design components were added to the component library, and font variations were included in the Font Matrix.
Tech review sessions ensured close collaboration and alignment between Product (including BA, VD, and UX) and Tech teams. As tech completed tickets, the product team reviewed across the eight breakpoints, covering various devices from mobile to television. Once approved, features were deployed to staging.
Features required both frontend and backend (Platform) work. As tickets passed into QA review, we faced challenges in managing the volume while continuing to deliver ongoing sprints.
Product QA covered a wide range of devices and breakpoints, including iOS & Android mobile and tablet, Apple TV, Android TV, CTV, Roku, and desktop.
Operationally, the Product team supported various teams such as Product Copy, Content Posters, and Customer Help Documents. We worked with the operations team to define standard operating procedures, ensuring smooth product operation from launch.
As the product launched, we collaborated with CX to establish a clear process for ingesting customer data and surfacing relevant information for decision-making. Dashboards were designed to visually monitor product performance in real-time across all devices.
Key Released many first in market features, but overall the features are about each user finding features that feel it was designed for their sporting needs. the notable features include:
Project Martian and Kayo presented a unique startup opportunity, allowing me to grow from a UX and Design leader into a Product leader. Building a product from the ground up at this scale using best practice methodologies was a significant challenge. Seven years on, Kayo continues to thrive, with around two years of feature development still in the pipeline, laying a strong foundation for our next endeavour. Binge.
