The Detected Way: Lessons learnt along the journey

Buried within the journey of a scaling tech business like Detected, amongst the twists and turns, the experiments and the growth are valuable lessons. Navigating through multiple challenges that test our resolve, creativity, and strategic thinking can be a taxing affair. When you also consider the limited resources, the pressure to scale and the constant fight against existing competition it’s safe to say that there are plenty of barriers and hurdles to overcome.  Building a growth start up is brilliant, but not for the faint hearted.

Thriving in a startup requires a specific set of traits; adaptability, curiosity and a willingness to learn are critical. Arguably the most important though is resilience; remaining focused and motivated, even when faced with setbacks.

At Detected, when these setbacks appear, we believe that learning from them has helped our team be more successful. In this article we talk to two of the product team: Naomi O’Sullivan, Product Owner and Paul Wallas, Lead Product Designer who recount two very different stories and the lessons they’ve learned from them.

‍

Moving fast is achieved by taking a step back

Naomi has been at Detected for over two years now and she has worked on almost every feature in our rapidly developing product. Building a competitive and highly sophisticated product requires speed, but Naomi looks back at the times where a different approach has helped:

“I have always found life at Detected to be very fast paced - as you would expect at any scaling startup. I’ve often believed that our ability to move fast is one of our key strengths. As part of the product team, we’ve shipped out features that could normally take months to develop and build but our agility , teamwork and a desire to get things done have helped make these quick turnarounds achievable.”

“However, I’ve come to realise that moving fast isn’t always the smart option. Luckily, there hasn’t been a regretful moment due to quick decision making but I have noticed a difference in the quality and robustness of features that haven’t had as much time pressure when developing them. Take the configuration options for our onboarding flow. Initially, it was based on the country a company was from. We were keen to get it live because our clients needed the ability to send their customers down different flows. However, we knew it could be improved and when we had more time we were able to develop what we call ‘multi-configuration’. Multi-configuration allows our clients to create onboarding flows based on any distinction such as product type and size of company resulting in fully personalised and completely relevant onboarding - a massive improvement for user experience!”

“Another problem I’ve noticed when moving fast is less about work and more about the people you’re working with. When you’re busy you can also forget to check in with your team and see how everyone is doing. Sometimes things are so busy that you don’t even check in with yourself!”

“I’ve found that taking regular reflections, even to the point of diarising them in my calendar, has helped hugely. Whether it’s an informal check-in with myself or a more formal team retrospective it’s a great way to take a step back, communicate any concerns and evaluate. The funny thing is that this small pause actually allows you to move faster! It gives you more visibility and understanding of the pressures on your team and in terms of product development it can help you identify barriers and blockers that probably would have tripped you up later.”

“Additionally, one part of my job that I’ve noticed is never helped by moving fast is talking to clients. If a customer submits some product feedback or a request, there’s no point rushing through it and missing the reason behind why they’ve made it. Understanding their true pain is essential to providing an appropriate fix and solution. When talking to clients I like to take my time and listen carefully - collecting as much information so that, when we do need to move fast, we are prepared to do so.”

‍

Making changes requires determination‍

Since joining, Paul has overhauled the look and feel of the Detected platform. One of his first initiatives was to improve the accessibility level of the platform. It wasn’t an assigned project, but something he believed in and managed to conduct while still fully settling into Detected:

‍“When I joined, I noticed that improvements could be made to the accessibility standards of the product. Trying to integrate these changes into an already expansive product was an exciting challenge: Our platform is a large, feature-rich application with multiple user scenarios. I felt that our accessibility level did not match our platform’s quality and so I was determined to raise it to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines conformance level AA.”

‍"I started by determining the current level and any shortcomings through an accessibility audit. It was important to appreciate what these shortcomings were to truly understand where improvements could be made, rather than just adding additional measures on top. During this audit we tested the product using the POUR (Perceivable, operable, understandable, robust) principle; to be honest, it was a nice change to use a framework and methodical approach when so much of our work is so creative.”

‍“From here, I began to identify some quick-wins such as determining and setting minimum font sizes, weights and creating an extensive colour palette to achieve correct contrast ratios while also working on building accessibility standards into existing components. For future features, my teammates Naomi and Steve, helped me re-create our process so that accessibility standards could be measured and tested throughout development. This ensures that it’s no longer an afterthought and becomes an integral part of our workflow.”

‍

The Detected Way

These two personal team stories highlight some key lessons that can be learned from working in a growth stage startup, but more importantly highlight the importance of perseverance, adaptability, and a strong customer & end-user focus. 

Naomi’s story highlights that in achieving the competitive advantage of speed and agility you do need to find time to prepare yourself properly. There’s no point moving fast if you are unequipped to do so. Meanwhile, especially relevant in a startup environment, Paul’s reflection shows that if you want to make change, then sometimes you just need to do it. 

Of course, every company will experience challenges and setbacks along their journey but we truly appreciate the ability of our team to approach them in such a confident and determined fashion.