The Client: AVIV Group

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, 🇫🇷 SeLoger, 🇧🇪 Immoweb, as well as 🇩🇪 Immowelt and Homeday

The company’s ambition is to become the leading employer in PropTech 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 in the Intermediary Domain (B2B)

We were brought on by AVIV as Interim Product Managers to cover for a Senior Product Manager in the Intermediary domain who was on parental leave for three months. Our mission was to lead a critical initiative—the delivery of a backend service for booking listings as part of the white-label program. The successful delivery of this service was essential to enable timely white-label platform launches across multiple markets.

We quickly onboarded to maintain momentum and ensure that no disruption would be caused to the ongoing work. The backend service aimed to ensure that premium products purchased by B2B intermediaries were correctly applied to their listings, enhancing visibility and click-through rates. AVIV’s reliance on this service for future white-label platform launches made it a high-priority initiative.

We had several opportunities and challenges to support on:

• Backend Service Delivery: Ensuring that the booking backend service was delivered on time to meet the requirements for white-label platform launches, which involved coordinating with cross-functional teams and managing dependencies critical to launch readiness.
• QA Testing Coordination: Created a detailed QA testing plan, working with 4 cross-functional teams to ensure the backend service met quality standards before release.
• Ongoing Support & Bug Resolution: Provided continuous support in timely bug resolution by coordinating closely with customer support teams. Facilitated communication between engineering and customer support to address issues efficiently and maintain platform stability.

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Our Main Quest: White Label Booking Listing Service Delivery

Launch: Onboarded Very Fast

With the Product Manager on parental leave, the team comprising 8 engineers was left without a Product Manager. We rapidly filled this gap to maintain momentum and ensure service delivery continuity.

By quickly establishing roles, responsibilities, and priorities, we ensured that the team stayed on track and met delivery timelines. Our efforts focused on maintaining smooth coordination between cross-functional teams, which was essential to meeting launch deadlines and ensuring the success of future platform rollouts across multiple markets.

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Delivery of a White Label Backend Service

Problem:

• The team needed a PM to run it and ensure the timely delivery of backend service, avoiding delays in the rollout of a new white-label product.

What has been done:

• We facilitated Agile ceremonies (standups, refinements, backlog grooming, sprint planning) to maintain the team’s productivity and ensure regular progress tracking.
• We closely monitored dependencies, creating clear communication channels and facilitating regular check-ins with dependent teams.
• We identified, monitored and, where necessary, escalated risks to the service delivery, to avoid delays and disruptions.
• We provided regular updates to stakeholders, including progress reports, upcoming milestones, and potential blockers, ensuring transparency and alignment throughout the project.

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Testing Plan for Quality Assurance of a White Label Backend Service

Problem:

• The project lacked a detailed QA testing plan to coordinate between four different dependent teams and ensure the speedy identification of critical issues, to ensure optimal listing prioritization and correct front-end booking displays on Search Pages.

What has been done:

• We created a detailed QA testing strategy that outlined the specific responsibilities of each team, testing phases, and the expected deliverables at each stage.
• We facilitated dedicated communication channels for QA discussions across all four teams to facilitate real-time issue tracking and resolution.
• We aligned the QA timelines with development milestones, ensuring that all teams were prepared to carry out their respective testing activities in sync with the overall project schedule.
• We scheduled regular cross-team QA sync meetings to discuss progress, share critical findings, and address any roadblocks, keeping all teams aligned and informed.
• We established a clear escalation path for critical issues to enable quick decision-making and prioritization when high-priority bugs were identified.

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Our Side Quests

Gathering Requirements for Reporting Needs of a Flagship Product

Problem:

• Feedback from the Customer Support team indicated that customers were looking for more robust reporting capabilities within a premium product to better meet their expectations and business needs.

What has been done:

• We gathered requirements from various internal teams to learn about their needs for reporting on product performance, where this data should be available from and to whom, what systems this data should be integrated with, where data should be pulled from, etc.
• We created a Product Requirements Document with an outline of all functional and non-functional requirements to ensure visibility and alignment for all stakeholders.
• We prioritized requirements based on MoScOW framework, categorizing each requirement into Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won't have features. This approach ensured that critical "Must have" features were addressed first, directly contributing to the core functionality of the product.

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Enhancing Collaboration and Communication with Customer-Facing Stakeholders

Problem:

• Customer-facing teams, including Customer Support, Sales, and B2B Marketing, required more structured and timely communication regarding updates to the product’s reporting features and customer-facing statistics to better manage customer expectations and inquiries.

What has been done:

• We collaborated with Customer Support, Sales, and B2B Marketing to develop a consistent communication strategy that outlined key talking points, timelines for updates, and customer-facing messages, ensuring all teams were aligned and delivering the same information.
• We created and shared comprehensive documentation detailing the changes to customer-facing statistics, ensuring customer-facing teams had all the information needed to handle customer inquiries effectively.

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Mission Achievements: Delivered Outcomes

💡 Seamlessly covered a 3-month parental leave with fast onboarding an an effective handover

💡 Sustained progress toward the delivery of a new backend service, ensuring consistent development despite challenges.

💡 Enhanced cross-team collaboration and streamlined efficiency in QA testing, ensuring smoother coordination and faster issue resolution.