Two separate problems existed within Checkr, and neither team knew the other’s problem.
Engineering had built a development environment for running quick tests and experiments. It sat largely unused outside dev workflows.
Meanwhile, Sales was conducting prospect demos in Checkr’s production environment, polluting the database with fake records and creating data integrity issues. Their demo workflow required roughly two hours of preparation per prospect — combining time in production with Google Sheets to simulate the full customer journey.
I recognized that Engineering’s dev environment and Sales’ demo needs were two sides of the same problem. Neither team had visibility into the other.
I brokered a partnership between them and worked with Sales to define the specific demo use cases that would make the portable environment compelling for prospects — including the ability to customize it with prospect logos and branding.
From there I led the engineering team to adapt their dev environment into a portable Checkr that Sales could spin up for any prospect, pre-loaded with relevant use cases and ready to go.