Product People Delivered White Label Product to Meet EU Regulatory Requirements (DSA)

The Client: AVIV

AVIV Group is one of the world’s largest digital real estate tech companies, headquartered in Berlin, Germany.

The company operates a portfolio of digital real estate marketplaces and brands across Europe, providing a wide range of services to help connect buyers and sellers and make the process of buying, selling, and renting properties as easy as possible. The brands constituting AVIV Group’s family are Meilleurs Agents, Group Seloger (🇫🇷), Immoweb, Immowelt (🇧🇪),  Housell (🇪🇸), and Yad2 (🇮🇱).

In addition to its core operations, AVIV is also a leading investor in innovative real estate tech companies such as 🇬🇧 PurpleBricks, 🇩🇪 Homeday, 🇺🇸 Zumper, and 🇺🇸 Parcel.

The company’s ambition is to become the leading employer in prop-tech in Europe, shaping the industry's future through new business models by providing funding, resources, and expertise to these companies.

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The Mission: Interim Product Manager

Our champion was Florent Guiocheau, the Sr. Director of Product for the Marketplace Design organization within AVIV. Key stakeholders included Brent Mclean, Group CTO, and Benoit Jolin, CPO at AVIV. The team faced challenges implementing a White Label solution for the Digital Service Act (DSA) while managing cross-domain collaboration and backlog prioritization.

The PM role was vacant for a crucial period, necessitating our involvement in steering the project and meeting regulatory compliance deadlines. The absence of a dedicated Product Manager created gaps in strategic direction and product discovery, which we aimed to fill.

AVIV expected us to lead the implementation of the DSA-compliant White Label solution, ensuring product requirements were met and integrated seamlessly across all brands. Our actual goal extended to establishing robust QA processes, aligning with legal requirements, and ensuring the product's scalability and security.

Our champion, Florent Guiocheau expected us to:

• Lead workstreams and foster close collaboration with the legal team to guarantee compliance with the Digital Service Act (DSA).
• Drive product discovery and development with a focus on compliance.
• Facilitate cross-domain collaboration and communication.
• Implement a secure and quality-assured solution.
• Ensure timely delivery and smooth deployment across multiple brands.

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Our Main Quest: Implementing a DSA-Compliant White Label Solution

Launch: Onboarded Very Fast

We had a tight timeline of only three months to fully understand the requirements of the Digital Services Act, assess its implications for our product, ensure scalability, and ultimately deliver a compliant solution. Despite these constraints, our team quickly integrated into the existing structure and provided the necessary direction and leadership for the product team and the different workstreams.

First 4 Weeks: Deliverables and Results Achieved

1. Defined Product Requirements and Secured Legal Compliance: Our initial focus was on comprehensively understanding the Digital Services Act. We worked closely with legal experts to ensure all product requirements were meticulously defined, ensuring that our solution met all regulatory standards. This involved a thorough analysis of the legislation, identifying key areas that impacted our product, and implementing necessary changes to ensure full compliance.
2. Established Work Streams and Assigned Responsibilities Across 15 Brands: Recognizing the complexity of managing multiple product development teams without a dedicated Product Manager, we took immediate action to streamline operations. We established clear work streams and assigned responsibilities across 15 different brands. This involved delineating specific tasks, setting timelines, and ensuring that each team had a clear understanding of their roles and objectives. Our structured approach facilitated better coordination and efficient workflow, enabling us to meet our tight deadlines effectively.

Through rapid integration and strategic planning, we were able to set a strong foundation for the project, ensuring both legal compliance and operational efficiency from the outset.

📚 DSA (Digital Service Act): A regulation by the European Union aimed at creating a safer digital space and establishing a level playing field to foster innovation, growth, and competitiveness. Very Large Online Platforms ("VLOP") had to comply by August 25, 2023, while all other platforms had a deadline of February 17, 2024 (Aviv). Non-compliance could have resulted in fines of up to 6% of the platform's annual turnover. More about DSA and its implications can be found here. More about DSA and its implications can be found here.

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Initiative 1 - DSA Report Form White Label Solution

Problem:

During our initial internal exploration, we identified a Reporting API developed by one product team within the fraud domain, which had no dedicated product manager. Recognizing its potential significance, we undertook efforts to expand its functionality to cater to the needs of all teams and align with the DSA requirements. We assumed the role of interim product manager for this team while continuing to lead the various workstreams comprising other product managers.

Solutions Implemented

To advance the DSA project, we've commenced multiple meetings and workshops to align teams, share updates, identify risks, comprehend dependencies, and progress toward a unified goal.

1. Negotiated product requirements with the Legal domain:

We created a single source of truth document, outlining all the must-haves, nice-to-haves, and post-launch requirements. This document ensured clarity and consensus on what needed to be achieved. Concurrently, we managed our day-to-day product team to advance the API, transforming it into a white-label solution that could be utilized across the company in the future. Additionally, we crafted a release plan, garnering buy-in from senior stakeholders, thus ensuring alignment and support across the organization.

2. Coordinated cross-functional teams for seamless implementation with the help of Jira Roadmaps:

Using Jira Roadmaps, we effectively coordinated various cross-functional teams. This tool helped us visualize progress, manage timelines, and ensure that all teams were aligned with the project objectives and deadlines.

3. Developed and documented end-to-end security and QA processes:

We established comprehensive security and quality assurance (QA) processes, documenting each step to ensure robustness and reliability. This included defining security protocols, conducting thorough testing, and setting up procedures to maintain high standards throughout the development and deployment phases.

4. Held bi-weekly meetings with the CPO and CTO:

To keep senior leadership up to date on the project's progress, we organized bi-weekly meetings with the CPO and CTO. These sessions provided a platform to discuss milestones, address any challenges, and ensure alignment with strategic objectives.

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Initiative 2 - Reporting Obligations API Integration & Transparency Report

Problem:

Following the successful completion of our initial deadline and achieving compliance with the DSA, we shifted our attention to the post-launch requirements for the subsequent three months. Our primary objectives during this phase were:

1. Integrating reporting obligations in accordance with EU Commission requirements.
2. Establishing a standardized Transparency Report format to be published annually.

What has been done:

We conducted product discovery on both focus areas with the intention of preparing for development in H2. Our goal was to ensure that the discovery phase was concluded in a robust state. As a result, we successfully delivered the following:

• Negotiation of requirements with the Legal domain was successfully conducted.
• Comprehensive product requirements were documented, and potential risks were identified and flagged.
• The requirements were formally presented to the Engineering Team for their review and consideration.
• Essential artifacts have been handed over to facilitate the transition for the upcoming Product Manager, ensuring they have the necessary resources to assess and continue development efforts.

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Discovery Mini-Missions: Our Side Quests

In addition to our main focus areas, as Interim Product Managers, we also undertook several smaller side quests to support AVIV’s Teams with their specific challenges:

Problem 1: Lack of coordinated product discovery.Solution 1.1: To address this issue, we established regular discovery sessions where team members could collaborate and explore product ideas together. These sessions helped in aligning everyone's understanding and vision regarding the product.

Solution 1.2: Additionally, recognizing the importance of having a centralized repository of information, we created a shared Single Source of Truth (SSOT). This document served as a comprehensive reference point for all product-related information, ensuring clarity and consistency across the teams.

Problem 2: Insufficient cross-domain communication.Solution 2: To improve communication and collaboration across different teams, we implemented bi-weekly updates, documentation standards, and workshops. These updates provided teams with regular insights into the progress of various projects and encouraged transparency and accountability. Similarly, establishing documentation standards ensured that important information was documented and easily accessible to all relevant stakeholders. Workshops were also organized to facilitate deeper understanding and collaboration among team members from different domains, fostering better cross-domain communication and alignment.

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Mission Achievements: Delivered Outcomes

💡 Successfully deployed the DSA White Label solution across 12 brands in 3 countries.

💡 Created a scalable framework for future regulatory compliance initiatives.

💡 Laid down the foundations of work-stream-based project implementation.