Reinventing Established Products – and How to Shift the Organisation, Processes and Mindset Accordingly

Xing is a longtime successful product, most KPI growing since years, a well established product organisation is in place. But due to changes in user behaviour and a strong competition, fundamental reinventing was needed.

We thought we made it by the book. A new product strategy & guiding principles, new tech guardrails and design system, new responsibilities and planning in an initiative setup, a lot communication to align everyone – and delivering a real MVP as fast as possible after prototype tests with real users even before.
And then we had really tough times and struggled a lot.

What did we learn, what helped to get back on track and what would we have done better looking backwards in reinventing the product and its company? What were the tough decisions and what are the key learnings looking backwards, regarding change management, communication, process & role adaption within the product community as well as dealing with user voices in commercially tough times? All the insights honestly given to the full audience – from the product manager to the CPO.