Chatmeter delivers data-driven, all-in-one reputation and local SEO management solutions designed to help multi-location brands optimize online visibility, reputation, and CX strategy at scale.
Since being the first Local Reputation platform in 2009, it now analyzes and improves over 1,900,000 storefronts for their reviews, rankings, listings, pages, and social media presence.
The Challenge
Connecting strategy, execution, & outcomes with simple visualization tools
After Chatmeter tried multiple tools and spreadsheets to manage their products, it became evident that its roadmapping process wasn’t working.
The simple roadmap visualization tools the team used were enough to help them visualize roadmaps and share updates with stakeholders, but couldn’t support their needs for:
- Connecting business goals, outcomes and product roadmaps
- Managing multiple product teams and offerings (without creating silos)
- Closing the loops amongst teams
- Planning resourcing and trade-offs
- Jira integration (1-way)
“We were using another roadmapping tool before, and it was very much a cosmetic tool to communicate the roadmap to key stakeholders.
After using it for some time, we finally realized that our real goal wasn’t just to have pretty Gantt charts. We wanted a better understanding of the inputs driving the Gantt charts with the ability to close the loop between all the different groups—product teams, dev leaders, operations, and executives.
We needed everyone to connect to the strategy, plan, and outcomes in real-time.”
With Chatmeter’s engineering team using Jira for tracking development progress and product managers using another visualization tool to share updates with internal stakeholders, there was still not enough visibility into resource planning, delivery, and execution. Its various teams were spread across too many places.
“No one really knew what would happen in terms of timeline if a project switched from one team to another. The visuals were quite decent, but we needed more flexibility and integration with Jira. Of course, we were also using Excel, deep in pivot tables and graphs, which were complex and hard to understand. We needed something to connect everything—projects, resources, and business outcomes.”
The Solution
Combining product roadmapping and portfolio management in one platform
Chatmeter made the switch from a simple pointed roadmap visualization tool to an all-in-one product roadmapping and portfolio management platform to drive outcomes, ultimately choosing Dragonboat as its single source of truth for product initiatives and singular tool for all teams.
The team evaluated several options from Jira and other Atlassian third-party tools, but they were either too complicated or had too much extra noise.
“Ultimately, we wanted to have a single source of truth for our product initiatives, and Dragonboat has helped bridge that gap. All of our tactical execution happens in Jira, and we do strategic planning in Dragonboat. The bi-directional integration between both tools is super helpful because we can transpose initiatives from Dragonboat into Jira to flow downstream into our sprint planning process.”
With Dragonboat, Chatmeter can now:
- Prioritize product features, manage their backlog, and visualize and share roadmaps with stakeholders in one place
- Align and manage product across multiple teams, and engage and plan cross functional roadmaps
- Manage resource allocation, what-if scenarios, and trade-offs
- Evaluate product success and adjust portfolio investments responsively to drive outcomes
“We have multiple product managers that use the tool not just for the portfolio and roadmapping aspect but also for product backlog management, prioritization, and reporting. We also have our engineering team planning the infrastructure roadmap in Dragonboat. They go in, add their ideas and estimates, and look at the resources.
Other groups use Dragonboat for visibility purposes, like the marketing, sales, and channel partner teams. They’re not constantly entering data, but they look at Dragonboat regularly for updates and documentation needs.” – Alex Diallo, Senior TPM at Chatmeter
The Result
An outcome-focused, collaborative culture with better alignment & visibility
Having the right tool in place makes all the difference for how a company collaborates and works together. For Chatmeter, Dragonboat enables them to build a culture of collaboration and provides visibility across the board.
"You need to choose tools that support your culture, not detract from it. A big part of alignment and visibility is how you collaborate cross-functionally. Simply put, Dragonboat enables our collaborative culture and makes us better.
It enables us to communicate across the board consistently. Not just internally but with customers, the executive team, and our development team. Now everyone is aligned and aware of what’s happening."
How Chatmeter uses Dragonboat today for collaboration and visibility:
- Sharing a view of the portfolio with initiatives grouped by quarter (product managers can easily filter by their own product area to ensure goals are on track for the quarter)
- Creating a summary view with the product matrix that’s used for the internal product blog
- Annual high-level planning (to identify areas of focus) and quarterly planning (to dive into what to build)
- Assigning work to pods and tracking estimates from the engineering team
- Roadmap check-ins to see how sprints will affect the rest of the month and quarter
- Product backlog management to tackle additional prioritization, estimations, etc.
“I now know which teams will be working on what and when. I also know when to pull the teams in without making it burdensome and saying, ‘you need to write this doc,’ or ‘you need to get it signed off and approved,’ and so on.
Everything is in Dragonboat, giving the team visibility and peace of mind. It enables us to communicate across the board consistently. Not just internally but with customers, the executive team, and our development team. Now everyone is aligned and aware of what’s happening and coming down the pipeline.”
Key Takeaway
Product roadmapping together with portfolio management enables a product-centric company & culture
Roadmaps alone simply weren’t enough for Chatmeter’s product team to connect the dots between strategy and execution. The team needed a strategic decision tool that drives outcomes. The team needed product portfolio management.
With Dragonboat, Chatmeter can link all the moving pieces of building products in one collaborative tool and the team is empowered with an outcome-driven product workflow. Cheers to Chatmeter!
Chatmeter is a local SEO platform that helps enterprise retail brands and agencies managing multiple locations increase their revenue. Since being the first Local Reputation platform in 2009, it now analyzes and improves over 1,900,000 storefronts for their reviews, rankings, listings, pages, and social media presence.
Marketing Technology
150
Product Portfolio Management, strategic planning, resource management, source of truth for product initiatives, bi-directional Jira integration, cross-functional visibility, alignment
Product management, engineering
