Seeing The System Beneath The Solution
Context
RLTY was an opportunity to support Rick Edler and the Vista Sotheby’s organization as they explored ways to improve transparency and communication throughout the real estate transaction lifecycle.
The initial request appeared straightforward:
Build a notification system that would provide buyer agents and seller agents greater visibility into the progress of transactions and the activities of the various parties involved.
The goal was to help agents better serve their clients by improving awareness, coordination, and responsiveness throughout the process.
At first glance, the challenge seemed like a feature request.
In reality, it was something much deeper.
My Role
As Fractional Chief Product Leader, I was brought in to evaluate the opportunity, conduct discovery, understand user needs, and define the scope required to build an MVP notification system.
This involved working closely with leadership, understanding existing workflows, reviewing the underlying platform architecture, and identifying what would actually be required to deliver the desired experience.
Outcomes
- Conducted product discovery and workflow analysis across the real estate transaction lifecycle.
- Evaluated the feasibility of creating a notification system that could provide meaningful transparency to agents.
- Identified significant architectural and infrastructure dependencies required before the notification system could be successfully implemented.
- Provided leadership with clarity around the true scope, investment, and organizational readiness required to pursue the initiative.
- Helped prevent premature investment into a solution that would have exceeded existing platform capabilities and internal capacity.
- Enabled more informed strategic decision-making regarding future product and infrastructure priorities.
What It Taught Me
One of the most valuable things a product leader can do is not build.
It is see clearly.
Organizations often arrive with a proposed solution already in mind.
A feature.
A product.
A system.
But solutions are frequently responses to symptoms rather than the underlying condition.
The notification system was never the real challenge.
The challenge was that the underlying foundation necessary to support that experience had not yet been built.
This experience reinforced a lesson that has followed me throughout my career:
Clarity creates more value than execution when it prevents an organization from investing in the wrong thing.
Sometimes the highest leverage contribution is not accelerating toward a solution. It is helping people understand the reality of the system they already have. Only then can they make conscious decisions about the future they want to build.