Lauren Dixon
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Toptal member since March 31, 2022
Lauren has worked across global corporates, governmental projects, and startups in roles ranging from business process improvement to lead product owner. She also has experience as a product manager for enterprise software solutions and SaaS startups. Working closely with business stakeholders and teams, Lauren can build excellent products and develop high-performing product teams.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile
- Design Sprints
- Facilitation
- Miro
- Product Management
- Product Strategy
- Service Design
- Workshops
Work Experience
Product Strategist
Freelance
- Completed initial user research to validate a gap in the market for the product.
- Developed a product strategy together with the founder.
- Supported the development team to deliver the minimum viable product.
Senior Project Lead
Innovation Unit
- Re-designed a community service to deliver value with a significantly reduced budget.
- Enabled a team-delivered community service to rebuild their team culture around a renewed service design.
- Facilitated a co-design workshop involving senior community service executives and government representatives.
Senior Manager
PwC Australia
- Delivered product management services as a consultant on a shipping industry contract automation.
- Managed projects with multi-million dollar budgets.
- Trained team members in design thinking and product management.
Manager
PwC Australia
- Presented to senior executives on highly sensitive topics and risks.
- Coached and developed junior team members, providing training and career support.
- Delivered a variety of financial statements and control audits for different industries.
Project History
Legal Technology Design Sprint
Delivered a design sprint, including a clickable prototype and user testing, on an adapted timeframe to meet the client's schedule.
I facilitated a design sprint over one week to develop and validate a founder’s product idea running three evening workshops to fit the founder’s schedule.
In collaboration with a UX designer, we delivered a clickable prototype of the designed solution. We tested this with potential customers to validate the need for the product and gather insights on pain points and needs. Based on this prototype, the founder was able to enter an accelerator program and scope out development costs for their platform.
I also delivered strategic product management advice, resulting in the founder avoiding lost investment in a product direction that lacked market fit.
This project is ongoing, and the underlying product concept is being designed to achieve product-market fit.
Legal Automation Product Strategy
Delivered a documented product strategy for an early stage legal tech startup, enabling the founder to gain traction with pilot firms and potential investors.
I conducted a significant round of initial user research and collaborated with the founder and a UX designer to develop the initial product strategy for a legal tech startup.
The strategy included a product vision, clear problem statement, product user flow, market analysis, competitor analysis, and go-to-market strategy. This strategy was supported by user research insights, including personas and user journeys.
Leveraging the documented strategy, the founder was able to secure interest from law firms to be involved in piloting the software and successfully gain interest from potential investors.
Besides being a fundamental part of a successful grant application, the document was also used to onboard and align the development and design team members.
Agile Process Redesign for a Fintech Scale-up
Re-designed the Agile development process for a fintech business in the scale-up phase.
I facilitated two process design workshops developed using behavioral science concepts and leading Agile methodologies.
During these two workshops, I co-designed a new Agile development process with the team, drawing from Scrum and the Shape Up methodology from Basecamp.
I also supported the founder in analyzing some team dynamics issues surfacing on the team and highlighting the following steps to manage them.
Certifications
Workshopper Master
AJ&Smart
Design Sprint Masterclass
AJ&Smart
Professional Scrum Master Level I (PSM I)
Scrum.org
Skills
Tools
Slack, Google Workspace, Jira, MURAL, Figma
Paradigms
Scrum, Agile, Azure DevOps
Other
Miro, Workshops, Product Management, Conceptualization, Product Strategy, Business Process Improvement (BPI), Behavioral Science, Service Design, Product Owner, Stakeholder Management, Product Roadmaps, Product Design, New Product Development, Roadmaps, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Microsoft Teams, Design Sprints, Facilitation, Organizational Behavior (OB), Shape Up, Microsoft, Backlog Management, User Research, User Flows, Team Building, Wireframing
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