Charles de Gaulle once said about France: “it is impossible to rule a country that makes 400 kinds of cheese”.
We have the same problem with product roadmaps. One of our biggest challenges is to manage hundreds of credit unions each with their own desired roadmap.
One of many examples is skip-a-pay. It seems every credit union has a different idea of how it should work.
Here are the major solutions our industry offers:
1. Just do it our way but you can pick the colors.
2. With our SDK your team of programmers can build whatever you want.
3. We can configure the product with switches and settings to make it behave the way you want.
Options 2 & 3 both have advantages and disadvantages, but the most important option is typically overlooked: building a community of credit unions to work together on the digital roadmap. People may start with very different ideas on what is important but agreement on the approach can emerge after discussion and debate.
Our role as the digital banking provider is to facilitate the conversation, listen, inform, debate and help form a consensus.
It’s not always possible and that’s why we also offer options 2 & 3 but we all benefit when we operate as a cooperating community focused on together defining the best and most innovative roadmap.
Author: Chris Doner, Founder and CEO, Access Softek