LEAD TECHNICAL PRODUCT MANAGER
Rebuilding AdTech Delivery at Enterprise Scale
Creating Alignment, Capacity, and Execution for an Omnichannel Retail Media Platform
I was brought in as the Lead Technical Product Manager to stabilize and accelerate delivery of a new enterprise AdTech platform supporting Kroger’s retail media business. The program needed stronger product definition and execution structure: requirements were fragmented, ownership was unclear, design and engineering were operating in silos, and 12+ capability teams depended on a shared containerized platform and workflow-orchestration services to deliver a cohesive commercial experience.
Outcome: In 9 months, I rebuilt the product definition and operating model—converting an ambiguous BRD into a structured PRD, modularizing scope into executable slices, instituting delivery standards, aligning stakeholders across departments, and establishing a credible on-time launch path.
Multi Million
Annual Efficiency Opportunity
150+
Stories Clarified
ROLE
Lead Technical PM
TIMELINE
9 Months
TEAM & SCOPE
12+ capability teams
DOMAIN
Retail Media / AdTech
$MM
Investment
12+
Teams Integrated
80%
Standards Adoption
Role & Scope
ROLE TITLE
Lead Technical Product Manager / Product Owner – Commercial Team
ROLE SUMMARY
I led a team of 12 engineers, 2 designers, and an agilist, and coordinated delivery alignment across 12+ capability teams integrating into a shared cloud-hosted container platform and workflow orchestration services.
DIRECT RESPONSIBILITIES
✔ Solution discovery and requirements definition
✔ Delivery structure and capacity strategy
✔ Cross-team alignment for commercial channels
✔ Transforming BRDs into actionable PRDs
✔ Structuring epics, roadmap, and operating standards
✔ Resolving architectural and dependency risks
ACCOUNTABILITY
I was accountable for turning a fragmented, at-risk initiative into a coordinated, executable product plan that enabled an on-time launch path.
PROBLEM & CONTEXT
Aligning Delivery Across a High-Stakes Platform
Teams across engineering, design, and business lacked clear requirements, capacity alignment, and delivery structure—putting launch readiness and expected efficiency outcomes at risk.
Vision
Enable an owned, modular retail media platform that leverages first-party data to support scalable omnichannel advertising and reduce long-term dependence on external vendors.
Mission
Create a repeatable, execution-ready platform for listings and banner advertising by clarifying requirements, aligning ownership across teams, and establishing a delivery model that supports cross-team orchestration at enterprise scale.
1. The User Problem
Engineering teams lacked a consistent, shared understanding of what needed to be built. Work was underway, but teams were building in parallel with conflicting assumptions—creating rework, integration churn, and schedule risk.
2. The Business Problem
The business faced material delivery risk across a large enterprise program. Without clear requirements and ownership, the launch path was threatened—putting projected efficiency outcomes and strategic platform modernization at risk.
3. Constraints / Reality
• Siloed design processes
• Inconsistent documentation
• Missing or conflicting requirements
• Limited PM operating structure
• New team formation and scaling needs
• Legacy architectural complexity
Integration Complexity: 12+ Capability Teams
Our commercial platform coordinated integrations across 12+ capability teams, where ownership and integration handoffs were inconsistently defined.
Platform Ops
Pricing
Targeting
Data/APIs
Commercial Team
Azure Container
Reach
UX/Design
IAM
Reporting
12+
Capability Teams
Unclear
Integration Points
Fragmented
Ownership
4. Problem Definition
Teams across engineering, design, and business lacked clear requirements, capacity alignment, delivery structure, and cross-team ownership—placing launch readiness and projected efficiency outcomes at risk.
APPROACH
Decision-Making Framework: From Chaos to Clarity
How I transformed fragmented requirements and misaligned teams into a coordinated, executable product strategy.
Research / Discovery
I interviewed engineering, design, architecture, business leads, and platform partners to map gaps. Discovery revealed major inconsistencies: the BRD lacked actionable definition, UX prototypes were disconnected from build reality, and ownership assumptions across 12+ teams conflicted.
Decision
Convert the BRD into a structured PRD clarifying business needs, requirements, flows, integrations, dependencies, and owners.
Why
This was the only way to stay on track without undermining MVP integrity.
The Requirements Crisis: Before Your Intervention
Comparing a fragmented BRD to a structured PRD (completed in ~1.5 weeks)
Before: Fragmented BRD
-
Ambiguous business needs • No clear requirements
-
Disconnected UX prototypes • Inaccurate drafts
-
Undefined system flows • No integration clarity
-
Conflicting ownership • 12+ teams unclear
-
Missing dependencies • No coordination
After: Structured PRD
-
Clear business needs • Actionable requirements
-
Aligned system flows • Integration points mapped
-
Defined owners • Each team's role clear
-
Explicit dependencies • Cross-team coordination
-
Actionable design specs • UX aligned
Systems or Data Analysis
I evaluated how the container platform, workflow orchestration, and incoming services from other capability teams needed to integrate. This included mapping data flows for pricing, targeting, reach, identity/access, listings logic, and reporting.
KEY DECISION
Modularize requirements by system area and map each capability team’s integration points explicitly.
WHY
This reduced architectural ambiguity and prevented duplicated or misaligned service integrations.
Opportunity Mapping
Once clarity was established, I rebuilt the epics (from 10 → 13) and defined 50+ features and 150+ stories to reflect the true scope. I then identified conflicting or missing requirements, including incorrect UX assumptions and overlooked commercial inputs.
Decision
Identify the smallest viable cross-team slice that still delivered core campaign setup plus listing/banner workflows.
Why
To ensure a realistic, achievable MVP across 12+ teams.
Prioritization & Tradeoffs
T-shirt sizing revealed ~3–4× over capacity for MVP, forcing critical prioritization.
Available Capacity
100%
Initial Scope
After MVP Trim
~ 100%
350 - 400%
1
T-Shirt Size: 150+ stories
2
Model: Velocity + buffer
3
Prioritize: Cut non-MVP
Ripple Effect: Leadership asked 12 other teams to assess. Result: 9/12 over capacity—prevented program failure.
Decision
Prioritize functional enablers & integration over UX refinement.
Why
Without core orchestration, no campaigns could execute.
Path Selection / Strategy
I discovered that the roadmap had been unintentionally built in a waterfall pattern, creating dependency risk—if one feature slipped, entire flows would break.
Roadmap Transformation: Waterfall → Agile Modularity
Shifting from monolithic dependencies to incremental, modular campaign slices
Before: Waterfall
Feature A
Feature B (depends on A)
FULL RELEASE
Risk: If one feature slips, entire flow breaks. No incremental validation. High dependency bottleneck.
After: Hybrid Agile
Slice 1: ✔ Validate
Slice 2: ✔ Validate
Slice 3: ✔ Validate
↓ Incremental Integration ↓
Modular Campaign Platform
Benefits: Reduced dependencies. Incremental validation with 12+ teams. Quick pivots possible.
Leadership Alignment: Secured senior alignment on the modular delivery strategy and incremental integration plan, reducing dependency risk and enabling earlier cross-team validation.
Decision
Transition to a hybrid Agile sequence, delivering modular campaign slices instead of a monolithic release.
Why
It reduced dependency bottlenecks and enabled engineering to validate integrations incrementally.
Execution Structure / Roadmapping
When leadership uncovered missing late-stage requirements, I repeated capacity measurement and roadmap adjustments. There was no more non-essential scope to cut.
Decision
Pursue resource augmentation (reassignment, hiring, contractors) while updating sequencing to protect critical-path features.
Why
Only way to stay on track without undermining MVP integrity.
Alignment Decisions: I aligned engineering, design, business, and architecture on PRD requirements, ownership rules, roadmap changes, and integration patterns. I co-led a final PRD readout with 60+ stakeholders to ensure cross-department commitment.
60+ Stakeholder Alignment Matrix
How the PRD readout brought four departments onto the same page
ENGINEERING
✔ System flows mapped
✔ Integration points clear
✔ Dependencies explicit
DESIGN
✔ UX aligned to specs
✔ Design freeze process
✔ PM/Eng co-review
BUSINESS
✔ MVP scope agreed
✔ Business case validated
✔ Priority tradeoffs clear
ARCHITECTURE
✔ Azure/BPMN patterns
✔ Microservice standards
✔ Scalability validated
Outcome:
Unified understanding of requirements, capacity realities, and delivery path—replacing the prior fragmentation.
OUTCOMES
From Fragmentation to On-Time Launch
Measurable outcomes across user experience, business value, technical infrastructure, and team performance
Concrete Output
I produced the complete PRD in 1.5 weeks, defined 13 epics, 50+ features, 150+ user stories, and established operational standards covering sprint planning, refinement, demos, reviews, and documentation. I also built the capacity measurement model, roadmap restructuring, and 130+ UAT test cases.
13
Epics Defined
50+
Features
150+
User Stories
User Impact
Teams finally had a clear, accurate understanding of what to build, when to build it, and how integrations would function. UX, engineering, and business shifted from confusion to clarity, accelerating delivery and reducing churn.
60+ stakeholders aligned through PRD readout – replacing fragmentation with unified execution
Business Impact
The platform enabled Kroger to replace costly contractor-led systems, supporting avoided vendor spend and long-term efficiency outcomes. The alignment work reduced delivery risk that could have impacted the broader program.
Millions Saved
Avoided vendor spend & Efficiency Gains
Technical & System Impact
The work established scalable standards for container-based modularity and cross-team service integration—accelerating deployments, improving reliability, and creating a repeatable approach for future retail media initiatives.
Technical Architecture Standards Established
Scalable infrastructure across 12+ teams
Web/Mobile Clients
Microservices
Workflow Orchestration
Azure Containers
SQL/NoSQL/Cache
Faster Deployments | Improved Reliability | Repeatable Architecture
Validation Evidence
Validation came from:
80% of department teams adopted my operational standards
My commercial team achieved the lowest bug count across 12 teams
Commercial workstream delivered to the agreed launch timeline
Capacity models validated risk across all teams; 9 of 12 were also over capacity
Ownership
I led the requirements rebuild, roadmap restructuring, delivery standards, capacity strategy, and cross-functional alignment, and co-led the final PRD readout that established a credible on-time delivery path.
REFLECTION
Key Learnings
Insights from leading enterprise-scale discovery across global teams and complex systems
Early Structure is Critical
This project reinforced the importance of early structure in large-scale initiatives. Without clear requirements and ownership upfront, teams drift and dependencies multiply.
PRINCIPLE TO CARRY FORWARD
Invest in structural clarity before execution begins
Clarify Ownership & Expose Risk Early
Clarifying ownership, defining requirements at the right fidelity, and exposing capacity risk early prevents program drift. Waiting to surface these issues compounds delivery challenges.
PRINCIPLE TO CARRY FORWARD
Surface ownership gaps and capacity constraints immediately
Invest Earlier in Cross-Team Alignment
I would invest even earlier in cross-team PRD alignment and UX/engineering co-review to reduce rework. The upfront time investment in collaborative review prevents expensive downstream corrections.
PRINCIPLE TO CARRY FORWARD
Clarity scales; ambiguity multiplies