For a short time, I was a lead designer and researcher on an incubation team for a food delivery startup called Swiggy. At Swiggy Labs we ran 0-1 experiments to spawn new business verticals for the company. These experiments were run by cross-functional PODs or Squads (Squads = PODs but for lower conviction, earlier stage ideas). There were usually around 5-6 initiatives at different stages of the life cycle running simultaneously.

The cross functional teams included members from different "centers of excellence"–
1. Engineering
2. Product & Design
3. Business
4. Operations
5. Market Insights

Our Product and Design CoE team consisted of 5 people across these two domains, eventually growing to 6 within the year.

The diversity of our initiatives started to increase, as did our speed of execution, in part due to how Covid was changing our business. There was a need to solve three people level problems within Labs–

All members of a POD/ Squad, irrespective of their expertise, had to build a generalized understanding of all other functions to enable quick movement.

Product designers and managers had to be dispersed across several PODs instead of being restricted to one initiative to ensure an initiative could be taken off ground in a user centric way.

Cross-functional teammates who hadn't worked with a product and design team before needed to know when and why to reach out to the product & design CoE as it related to their POD's work.

Lab's leadership team wanted to understand how Product & Design could grow within Labs and how it would contribute to the success of others (a key company value).

To solve for this, I put together a plan of action to articulate this vision and create action points for our CoE.

I also created an allocation framework that would help cross-functional partners understand how we could get involved with their initiatives.

To introduce this framework our product managers and I gave individual presentations to the Labs team on product thinking, design thinking, and process and product analytics to socialize our knowledge with those new to our domain.

This document was focussed on an incubation team that had several kinds of projects that were disparate from each other. It might not work the same way for more seasoned teams or products.

If I were to recreate this document I would make it shorter. The most important takeaway for the team was the framework at the end. The beginning of the document was more relevant for the leadership team as we continued to grow Labs.

Using this framework allowed cross-functional partners to communicate with us about specific executions that related to the kind (operation vs product) and stage (squad or POD) of their initiative. This also streamlined people allocations within Labs.

Kanika Tibrewala

When our business had to make quick changes due to lockdowns, I created this charter to strengthen communication and cross-functional collaboration. 

The founding mission is to effectively build 

of potential business lines (PODs and Squads).

We came into being so that Labs can move beyond the abstract and intangible, towards a more  structured and tangible approach to sensing viability. Our goal is to build experiences that focus  on the value ideas bring to users. We will also extract and analyze behavior patterns that  influence and/or are a result of the experiences we build.

of decision making at Labs. We do this by 

the next wave of innovation via iterative design thinking processes.

on all ideas  that we eventually take to Bundl. We will help define the direction of a POD by driving  processes from ideation through data analysis in an interactive and problem focussed manner.

We will enable PODs and squads from ‘ideation to analysis’ (detailed out later in this doc) based  on a set of principles, which dictate our ways of working. It will also guide any new practices we  bring into the CoE.

| What value do we bring to the customer?

| Bring people together to solve for a common goal 

| Explore product/ tech ideas to unlock potential for PoDs/Squads

📕 What Lab specific mental-models help us live these values?

This CoE will champion the following mental models and use it to drive POD and squad activity  from a 

created that  detail out how one or many of these mental models have helped guide and/or alter the  direction of a POD or squad. We may also expand these case studies to products outside of Labs  and Swiggy itself (TBD).

At labs, where all members are encouraged to generate impactful ideas, how can the expertise  of this CoE be more active (than reactive) in helping ideate better and enable stronger business  intelligence? We found our answer in the product building process:

We will be hypothesis focussed & iterative. Our process will also be deeply rooted in data and  feedback from customers. The broad steps are highlighted below with a plan of action for how  we bring this to Labs. Just like any product, this list will be iteratively built over time :)  

| Grouping insights from various streams of thought and processes 

| Generating multiple solutions for a problem space

| Bring together functions in the process

| Based on secondary research to drive product innovation and PoCs 

Enables you to convert problem statements  to innovative ideas via different permutation combinations of these three 

Enables brainstorm along 2 parameters (Eg. Time for  impact Against Delivery/Non delivery)

Enables user research insights to be converted to guiding  principles for a product/solution

Enables quick and dirty ideation within a set time to churn  maximum ideas out

| Align products to the goal of the PoD/Squad 

| Focus primarily on ease of use and align with users’ mental  models/behavior patterns

| Engage customers consistently through prototypes and  experiments, minimizing risk

| Build foundations that can be used across  PODs/Squads

5 day process to take solution from brainstorm to  testing with real users

Define consumer experience across all touchpoints 

Define what a 11 star experience would be and work backwards. Ambitious thinking

There will be a repository created with best practices for these tools, which will include  what they are and when best to use them.

Quantitative data on size of price and TG sensing

| Gather relevant performance metrics from  primary experiments

| Data should drive prioritization and inspire strong  decision making

| Build frameworks that can be repurposed over  time

| Document data (raw and trends) so that it can be referenced by  others and help map trends over time

Enables measuring happiness, engagement, adoption, retention &  task success (Experience oriented)

Measure Acquisition, activation, retention, referral,  revenue

Measure all touchpoints of experience and gauge customer loyalty and  effects on revenue

Product & Design Center of Excellence Charter at Swiggy

Product & Design COE charter

✏️ What’s the founding mission?

💡 What’s the vision?

Sign up to see more