I created this about 6 months into my role at Webflow. I was the first product operations person. They had tried mapping out this process before me, but the previous iterations were really wordy and complex. The beauty of ops people is that we can make things clearer and more concise.

When I first rolled out the four phases, there was a lot of confusion because we used agile at Webflow, and the initial reaction to these phases was, "Hey, is this waterfall? Are there handoff points?" And I had to clarify that no, it's iterative throughout. It's just that a different person is driving in each phase. You can loop back through phases, and there aren't clear boundaries between each one. If anything, it's unclear when one phase begins and ends, and we optimize for being agile and being okay with that lack of clarity.

There wasn't a shared understanding amongst EPD — and definitely not across the company — about how features are developed, so we ran into problems with when and how to bring in cross-functional stakeholders and leadership for alignment and decisions. Each core working group developed a slightly different way of doing things, so if they ever had to align on dependencies or work in concert with another team, it felt like each group was at its own company with its own way of working. This process allowed teams to work better together, both within EPD and with our external stakeholders.

Each function has a monthly meeting where updates are announced, and I also reinforce things and link back to this doc in my internal comms. Design is the phase that's gotten the most updates, because they have a really rigorous review process that we've been able to iterate on.

One of the huge benefits of documenting these activities is that it helps us become more descriptive and accurate in talking about the work. It makes it a lot easier to speak with each other and explain what's being worked on because we have this shared language.

We anchor on these artifacts to create clarity around which phase you're in. All of these artifacts go through review, so it's up to the team when they feel ready to produce them.

Product Ops runs a weekly meeting called a Pillar Review, and when teams are ready with these artifacts, they can sign up for a review and get signoff to move into the next phase or set of activities. Attendees vary depending on what's being presented, but typically it's the PM, the pillar lead, and any relevant cross-functional partners or stakeholders.

We've recently added a new touchpoint called a Solution Review, which signals the transition from the Design phase to Build phase. When we've aligned on all our designs, we'll bring in a more cross-functional and customer-facing set of stakeholders (marketing, education, customer support, etc.) to get their feedback and ensure we're providing the best solution to our customers.

Jiaona Zhang

Nora Danskey

I developed this process soon after joining Webflow. It allowed us to create a shared understanding about how features were developed which opened communication between teams, cross-functional stakeholders, and leadership aiding in stronger alignment and quicker decision making. 

The Four Phases of the Feature Development Process

 to the feature development process: evaluate the opportunity, design, build and launch & iterate.

 playing an important role in each phase. Nevertheless, each phase does have a clear intended outcome and driver of the work done within that phase.

The below sections outline the objectives, activities, tools and artifacts for each phase. 

 as we build out the processes for each section.

The starting point of any feature creation process is identifying the opportunity. Product Managers take the lead in this phase by validating if an opportunity will create value for both the users and the business.

One of the huge benefits of documenting these activities

We anchor on these artifacts to create clarity

The purpose of the Design phase is to define how we want to solve the validated user problem. The Design phase is lead by Product Design.

The bulk of our work that requires a high level of visibility, and a significant amount of coordination happens during the Design phase. The table below outlines the objectives, activities, partners and artifacts within the Design phase. The objectives are how we communicate the design progress of work as it moves through the design phase. Context on the current objective of your work not only allows Designers and cross-functional partners to better support design efforts, but also enables teams to plan out their work relative to design progress. Examples could include engineering surfacing technical conversation at necessary times, breaking down engineering tasks as design become higher fidelity, ensuring product is reviewing and aligning work to larger product goals, and involving education and brand stakeholders for user experience feedback.

We've recently added a new touchpoint called a Solution Review

The build phase executes on a vision or opportunity that is pre-defined in the previous phases.

Launching is just the beginning of delivering a product our customers love and having the business impact you hope to have. This stage is where we position a feature to a target audience, deliver the feature, ensure that users adopt the feature and then determine the next steps for the feature.

Feature Development Process at Webflow

Feature Development Process

The Four Phases of the Feature Development Process

Identify

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