behind the launch · to make it a success is for you to participate and share your stories too. we...

#BehindTheLaunch

Every year TomTom launches hundreds products. Some are innovative and take years to develop, while others are monthly, weekly or even daily technical updates to servicesand features already in the market.

Every one of these launches are important to TomTom.

We often celebrate, with great fanfare, the day our products or services launch in the markets. We call these product launch days. Now we want to focus on the actual people behind the scenes who help bring the product to market. We think that what happens behind the launch is just as important as the product launch itself.

So, we want to introduce our first Behind the Launch Initiative! It’s in infant stages and we are still developingstory lines, feature articles and interesting content. The only way to make it a success Is for you to participate and share your stories too. We hope you enjoy and learn more about your colleagues.

Welcome to our first Behind the Launch newsletter!

Behind the Launch is a new series where we celebrate the people and teams who work behind the scenes to design, develop and bring the product to market.

Behind the LaunchTomTom RIDER

What was a typical day like while working on the RIDER project? Benjamin, Asif, Xiang: Coding, testing and fixing

bugs.

Tetyana: I had to do a lot of cross-team and

cross-PU communication to align all the teams

in developing the best possible product

and the best architecture.

How did you collaborate with other team members – across other functions? Sven: As we had to implement the new

functionality in a short time quite a lot of colleagues

inside of our team were working closely together

on Wings. Collaboration went well and was fun -

in the end we delivered everything on time.

On top of that, one particular routing feature was

inner-sourced by another team which required an

intense and fruitful inter-team collaboration.

What was your favorite thing about working on this project? What are you most proud of? Arek: RIDER routes are going one step beyond. You

still can get best routes and reach your destination

within a good time, but you now you can add

some extra thrilling flavour to make the ride more

pleasant.

Robert, Xiang: We develop it and someone uses it.

We improve it and someone likes it.

Tetyana: I’m especially proud of A-A routing, which

unfortunately was not included in the first shipped

version, but should reach the clients with the next

update.

Who was the first person you showed the finished RIDER product to and why?

Arek: Felix, our TPO, brought to us a few devices

so we could test our development build and features

on it.

When you showed it to them, how did you explain your contribution to the product?

Xiang: We plan the route.

Tetyana: We do the thrilling.

Berlin teamNavKit Routing Team, NavPU

What was the biggest challenge for you/your team? How did you overcome this challenge? Arek: Testing multiple features is getting more

challenging for us. More variations of calculated

route requires more test coverage. And we are not

talking here only about unit or reflection tests, but

also about complex mass tests suites covering

various world regions and multiple routing edge

cases.

Robert, Xiang: Limited time and product stability.

Hugues: Getting a feeling for what good winding

routes mean for motorcycle drivers. Making

assumptions for what the customer would like.

Did you learn anything new while working on this project? Tetyana: I have learnt that a product can reach

the market in less than a year after the first

brainstorming discussions about possible start

of the project took place. It was incredible!

What’s your next dream project? Sven: Multi-modal routing.

Tetyana: Routing that considers weather conditions.

We also describe the improvement of user

experience against other PND products such as

menu paging control, zoom bar, control center,

bigger hit area, padding of menu items …etc.

What was a typical day like while working on the RIDER project? Excited to see the launch of the product and being

energetic to discuss with team mates

for implementation.

How did you collaborate with other team members – across other functions?

Frequently collaborate with PO/UX by prototyping

and refinement for best design closer to end user’s

need.

What was your favorite thing about working on this project? What are you most proud of?

We are proud of the features that we implemented,

as they are advertised as the key features of the

device. We imagine that users have a better

experience operating the system due to this

technology.

What was the biggest challenge for your team? How did you overcome this challenge?

We are located in Taipei collaborating with teams

overseas, time difference is the biggest gap.

We have good communication with peers in London,

Amsterdam and India via proactive and frequent

communication.


We are located in Taipei, and involved in glove

friendly features. Our accomplishments are regularly

demonstrated to PO/customer, but we also share to

all the other TomTom teams teams located in Taipei.

When you showed it to them, how did you explain what you did to make the product?

We explain the importance of “glove friendly”

for such a product for riders with gloves, and also

show them the evolution between the new design

and former model.

Taipei Mango teamNavigation UI Implementation

How did you interact with users - motorcycle riders?

Showed to friends the convenience of operating

the system while wearing a glove.

Did you learn anything new while working on this project?

The environment of riders is more difficult than

drivers in car; so a better and considerate design is

really important.

If you could do anything different what would you do?

Integrate into a helmet.

What’s your next dream project?

Autopilot.

How has being a user influenced the way you worked on the project?

As a motorcycle rider, it’s indeed necessary to wear

gloves during winter time, thus I have better feeling

about the importance of how easy to operate

the navigation system. It’s also important to have

better vision of the screen by high contrast

and vivid colors of the UI under sun light.

When you showed it to them, how did you explain what you did to make the product?

Barry T: They thought it was quite cool: Capacitive

touch panel, waterproofness, dual modes for car and

motorcycle use.

What was a typical day like while working on the RIDER project? Kidd Kuo: We work together with the EE engineer

to translate the schematics into a PCB layout.

Connie L: I perform test setup and driving for field

testing, and as an added perk, i get to always have

lunch at a convenience store or McDonalds.

Mark K: Very busy.

Leo C: Issue tracking/solving, design activities and

required communication drove most of my days.

We are part of a global project team.

How did you collaborate with other team members – across other functions? Mark K: Simple, I walked over to their desks,

discussed and made sure we got results.

Leo C: Ensure that information is transparent

to team members, sync up the pace of different

functions, drive issue solving and reduce

dependencies by making collaboration between

functions.

Who was the first person you showed the finished RIDER product to and why? Barry T: My friends and I are part of a motorcycle

club, and they find it is an amazing product.

Kidd K: To my family, I am proud to have contributed

to the product development.

Connie L: I showed it to my wife as it is kind of a

special product for motorcycles. It also has a cool

look, especially the metallic parts on the sides.

TaipeiteamUI Software, Supply Chain, Quality, EE & ME Development, Project Management and Productisation


Matt W: I think with this new RIDER project TomTom

has moved our motorcycle navigation to the next

level.

Leo C: It is a product with right definition. We are

glad to pay efforts to make it real.

What was the biggest challenge for your team? How did you overcome this challenge?

Leo C: New design to be implemented in a tight

schedule with lots of supplier troubles. We showed

great team-work in solving critical issues caused

by the new design & vendors.

John H: There are a lot of tough “new, unique

and difficult” items for the Wings mechanical

design. For instance: We had a “one meter concrete

drop test”, the IPX7 waterproof test and a TUV

vibration test that all needed to pass.

How did you interact with users - motorcycle riders? Matt W: I had one secret weapon – my father who

lives in Canada is a registered TomTom Beta Tester

and an avid motorcyclist. So along with posting his

reactions to the forums he also helped to give me

some direct feedback during the course

of the project.


Matt W: I was blown away with how talented,

dedicated, and hard working our Taipei team is.

Bill Breen: Actually I didn’t. I wanted him to see the

product for what it was (and wasn’t). His expert

opinion is one I truly value, esp. in this area and I

wanted the unvarnished truth about what we had and

where our opportunities were for improvement. Then,

maybe, afterwards, I pointed out that I was involved in

the GPX track routing, track management, winding/

thrilling routes and itinerary meta-data.

What was a typical day like while working on the RIDER project?

Bill Breen: Hectic. Always is when you’re making a

product that you know will be in front of customers

that really love to ride, 2 parts perspiration, 2 parts

inspiration, a dash of luck, shake well.


Charlie Bucklitsch: We had regular alignment and

code review sessions.

Bill Breen: Phone, email, person to person. In January,

as the requirements had started to solidify, we all sat

in the same room, members of routing and guidance,

map visualisation, locations, live services, project

management and UI.


Charlie Bucklitsch: The Spanish media event. The

feedback was very positive and great to read.

Sophie Yim: Seamless integration with new NavKit

APIs and high quality code.

Who was the first person you showed the finished RIDERproduct to and why?

Charlie Bucklitsch: I showed my father who is a keen

motor bike rider. He loved the Thrilling Ride screens.

Bill Breen: My cousin in Jersey (New Jersey for those

in the UK), is a big petrolhead, and makes a yearly

pilgrimage to Deal’s Gap, a.k.a. “The Dragon”.


Charlie Bucklitsch: We explained that we are working

on the new Thrilling rides, GPX import and export and

the Glove Friendly UI.

LondonteamNAV UI

Bill Breen: The excitement of a new product and a

new focus. Its a different way of thinking to produce a

product for someone for whom the A to B may not be

as important as being able to enjoy the bits between.

What was the biggest challenge for you/your team? How did you overcome this challenge?

Charlie Bucklitsch: Time. We had to do a great deal of

work in parallel to other teams who were delivering in

the same release.

Bill Breen: This was a big project with a lot of teams,

each delivering features and software at different

times and being able to join all the pieces together.

Darren Jones: Glove Friendly UI applied to a UI not

designed from the start.

How did you interact with users-motorcycle riders?

Charlie Bucklitsch: We work closely with the UX team

who conduct field trials with real users. We also take

input from Beta testers.

Sophie Yim: We went for a ride with a motorbike user

and saw the need for the glove friendly UI.

Bill Breen: Other than my cousin, mostly with the beta

testers via the tomtom forums.

Did you learn anything new while working on this project? Charlie Bucklitsch: We learned a lot of new techniques

for building a niche product out of our existing

designs.

Bill Breen: I know more about GPX files than is socially

acceptable to admit, probably.

Leonor Orban de Lengyelfalya TomTom Employee and BETA tester

I had to put my dad in a chair when I told him the news...

How did you become a BETA tester for TomTom? I got invited via a EHV based colleague to attend

a discussion on Wings early last year at ODE.

I met Marlies there and she was keen to get me

on the beta team as one of the few female bikers

at TomTom as well as one of the few people

experienced in designing motorbiking routes

for large groups of bikers.

What does a TomTom RIDER BETA tester do? Test the Rider and its features in various situations,

to try and cover all possible motorbiking

environments where you’d use a Rider.

We’re responsible to ensure all feedback

is uploaded to the BETA forum so the developers

can tackle all bugs and issues and further improve

the product, and actively participate in forum

discussions to help each other out and try and solve

issues and provide suggestions for further product

improvement.

When did you start riding a motorcycle? I started riding motorcycles about 12 years ago.

I had to put my dad in a chair when I told him the

news… he wasn’t very fond of the idea as his only

daughter was going to do something completely

crazy (in his eyes…) :-S. I guess my interest comes

from one of my teachers at primary school.

She rode a motorbike and that was so cool it just

kinda stuck with me!

What type of rides do you do the most?

I prefer to ride weekends and long travel.

Commuting in the NL with a motorbike is no fun.

Eindhoven-Amsterdam would take me 2 hours over

a traffic jammed highway. During weekends we tend

to travel to places in Luxemburg and Germany.

What is your favorite feature on the TomTom RIDER and why? My favorite feature is the winding roads option.

Í don’t always want to spend time on my laptop

preparing a route. Sometimes I just want to go and

have fun. Although the feature can still be improved

a do notice it works really well on the new rider.

Especially the option to add viapoints. It’s really

cool and takes me to nice places.

Tell us how you tested the winding roads and hills features? Where did you test them?

I tested the feature in the southern part of

the Netherlands around my home town Eindhoven

and abroad in Belgium, Germany and Luxemburg.

The real challenge for the feature is here in the NL

as we don’t tend to have that much winding roads,

so to make an interesting route is challenging for

the system. But it managed to find the only few

roads we have here in the NL and build a nice route

out of it. Sometimes it’s still not great, but I blame

the Dutch road network instead of the feature.

Abroad it does a really great job and provides good

routes. However: the most winding option in the

feature could be even more windy if it was up to me!

What is your ultimate road trip?

Next year we’re planning to ride from Turkey

to the NL via Greece, Macedonia, Serbia,

Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Slovenia,

Italy, Switzerland, France and Germany. The other

one’s are an offroad trip through Patagonia and an

offroad trip in Iceland.

Any trip that contains a motorbike, friends, meeting

new cultures and nature, sharing the passion

with same-minded people, nice winding roads

and a bit of adventure and a piece of healthy fear

will make my ultimate road trip.

Sytse Goverts Senior Interaction Designer

I’m most proud of how we were able to convince higher management to focus for a while on this project to make Rider happen.


My wife; I’m always very keen to hear her views

on new TomTom products.


I designed it… Well, the interface that is.

What was a typical day like while working on the RIDER project?

I don’t think there was a typical day while

working on the project; initially it involved a lot of

conversations with product managers and fellow

designers to get the concepts matured and later

on it was more production work (specifications,

marketing material) and aligning with the product

owners and developers.


Quite intensively, especially with product

management, product marketing management

and product owners. But also with the hardware

engineers and testers. I believe the collaboration

went quite well because there was a shared belief

in both the urgency and the feasibility

of the project.


I think the shared belief and enthusiasm throughout

the different teams. I’m most proud of how we were

able to convince higher management to focus

the company for a short while on this project

to make Rider happen.

What was the biggest challenge for you/your team? How did you overcome this challenge?

Making sure that once there was development

capacity allotted that all the different features were

specified sufficiently for the developers to start

building them. I overcame the challenge by dividing

the work with fellow designers and by actively

keeping track of the progress that was made by

the entire design team.

How did you interact with users/motorcycle riders?

Initially through focus groups, later on by getting

feedback from the beta testers. And throughout

the project by ad hoc conversations with riders

within the company.


I learned and experienced lot about the specific

needs that motorcyclists have for navigation

devices. And about delegating work to make sure

everything is finished in time.

If you could do anything different what would you do?

I would start the entire project just a couple

of months earlier; one extra software release would

have really helped make the product more mature.

On the other hand the time pressure did help

getting a lot of focus on this project.


That would be about navigation for (competitive)

cyclists.

How did you become a BETA tester for TomTom?

My sister-in-law who works at TomTom told me

about the beta-test program

What does a TomTom RIDER BETA tester do?

Ride your bike (and test the RIDER for defects,

enhancements and suggest new

features / functionality)

When did you start riding a motorcycle? When I was 18 after I got my car driver license.

What type of rides do you do the most?

Mostly Daytrips and long holidays.

What type of motorcycle do you ride?

Suzuki GSR-600 at home. Harley Davidson in

developped countries and local 125cc motorbikes in

Asia while on holidays.

What is your favorite feature on the TomTom RIDER and why?

Winding roads! Excellent feature if you want

to find an exciting road if your are at some place

you have never been before.

What feature would you like to see on the TomTom RIDER that we don’t have?

Altitude gauge.

Tell us how you tested the winding roads and hills features? Where did you test them?

In New-Zealand on a 4 week road trip on a Harley

Davidson.

What is your ultimate road trip?

Round the world trip on a Harley Davidson with

my dad!

Tell us about your longest ride?

4 weeks road trip in New Zealand with my dad.

About 8500 km. Best and longest trip ever.

Preplanned the route with Tyre. Uploaded selected

hotels and sightseeing POIs to RIDER and selected

Winding Roads. It really took us to the nicest

(hard-top and gravel roads) you can find!

Steven Helsdingen BETA tester

Longest ride - 4 weeks road trip in New Zealand with my dad - 8500km.

Carmen Maqueda van Duivenbooden Product Marketing Manager

The more you listen toyour target consumer, the more chances you have to succeed.

What was a typical day like while working on the RIDER project? In my role, I need to dive into the leisure riding

world and understand what it truly is about. This is

really fun. Generating consumer insights, developing

a compelling consumer story and executing

targeted marketing plans that support sales.

I really enjoyed working towards the launch of the

all-new TomTom Rider, and now look forward to

monitoring its progress in the market so we keep

growing.

How did you collaborate with other team members?

As a Product Marketing Manager you are the spider

in the web that liaises with all the different teams

to make sure your assigned product is successful

in the market. You are responsible for creating and

protecting the Value Proposition, briefing the

different Marketing teams to tell one consistent

story, and pushing the teams so we all work towards

the same goals and deadlines.

What was your favorite thing about working on this project?

Working on the Wings project is very special to

me. Wings derived from the success of the Rider 5,

where I was the responsible PMM.

At the time, we worked hard on redefining

the target audience to leisure bikers

in the Touring and Cruising segment, made

consumer-led improvements in the product,

changed the messaging accordingly, and redefined

our sales channel strategy. All of it with a Nav2

product.

As a result, the sales of the Rider category doubled

and TomTom decided to invest in the category again

with a Nav4 product. Now seeing the Rider category

grow over the years is extremely rewarding to me.

What was the biggest challenge for you/your team?

Launching on time for the biking season was

challenging but thanks to everyone’s dedication

we managed.

How did you interact with users - motorcycle riders? We are lucky to have a big motorcycle community

within TomTom. On a frequent basis we interact with

them in the form of focus groups, or sometimes just

informally to cross-check concepts or ideas to

ensure we are on the right path.


Like in every new project, the more you listen to

your target consumer, the more chances you have to

succeed.


I don’t think the Rider project is over. There are tons

of things we can still do to grow the market and

expand the Two-Wheel category.


Outside of my TomTom colleagues, the real first

people I showed the final product to was a group

of 45 motorcycle journalists from all over the world.

This was during the Rider Global Media Event in

Marbella, where the product was presented to the

outside world for the very first time. It was a very

special moment as I found myself presenting the

result of many months of hard work, (not only mine

but also my colleagues!) to our target audience.


I explained that I was responsible for understanding

what bikers really want in their touring adventures

and helping turn those biking dreams into realities.

What was a typical day like while working on the RIDER project? Talking. My biggest contribution is as an experience

expert with a good view on the software side and

lots of knowledge about the TomTom products.

Talking with UX and Product Management about

what bikers want, what is technically possible

or easy to do and of course how we can be

innovative and distinctive in the market.


Visit them. Have a beer. Together brainstorm

about the product.


Finally a next generation RIDER product, based

on the TomTom NavKit navigation engine!

This is the basis of innovations that are already

in the product, and it will enable us to take that

even further in the future.

What was the biggest challenge for you/your team? How did you overcome this challenge? The previous RIDER 5 product, was quite far behind

compared to what TomTom offered for car

navigation. The use cases for a RIDER are quite

different; you want to find the nice and quiet roads

instead of the fastest ones. As soon as it was

possible to plan winding routes and import GPX,

the foundation for a serious product was made.

How did you interact with users - motorcycle riders?

Before I graduated, I worked part-time in a big

motorcycle shop for about 10 years. I know quite

some motorcycle riders from that time so I could

exchange general thoughts with them.

Also we have a few colleagues within TomTom

Eindhoven office that ride a motorcycle. We

arranged that we all went to work early so we could

go and find some thrilling roads in the afternoon.


I learnt a lot about how to get from an idea to

a product. You can have lots of good ideas, but it is

quite a challenge to make them into a high-quality

and innovative product.

If you could do anything different what would you do? Show working prototypes to product management.

The best way to explain your idea and talk about it.


A way to find even better biker roads, with less user

interaction.

How has being a user/RIDER influenced the way you worked on the project?

Being a rider myself was a great help. I was able to

use my own experiences and put the new RIDER

through its paces myself. I rode with the very first

drivable RIDER prototype to Germany one weekend.

I could then share my feedback with the team and

create an in-depth product review.


My father. Most of the time we ride together.

He is a professional driver and always knows

to find the best roads out of his head. I am taking

the Software Developer approach and try to use

software to get to the same goal.


During the project, I kept him updated about the

progress we made as TomTom. It is nice to see this

great product end up in the stores, so anyone can

use it now. Even though there are enough ideas

to make it even better.

Joost van den Ouweland TomTom Employee and BETA tester

Finally a next generation RIDER product, based on the TomTom NavKit navigation engine!

Ready to #ACHIEVEMORE

AmsterdamPM: Marielke Nieuwerth-van den Akker,

Willem Janssen

UX: Bram van der Vlist, Cees van Dok, Claire Walker,

Gerry Harvey, Hayley Gaulton, Ivar Brouwer, Jan Hendrik

Hammink, Jason Hopkin, Jason Lipshin, Jasper Michiel

van Hemert, Jose Torre, Liesbeth van Driel, Mathieu

Doorduyn, Sonja Radenkovic, Sytse Goverts, Xinrong

Ding

NAVapp Wings team: Charlie Bucklitsch, James Janisse,

Khoi Ho, Nafiseh, Natasa Jovanovic, Rolf Dorland, Teresa

Silva

PND Platform SW: Arun Joseph, Jan-Evert Grootheest,

Johan van de Boom, Joost Pennings, Lucas Gomez

Jimenez, Manivannan Radhakannan, Menno Timmermans,

Oreste Salerno, Patrick Bijker, Rogier Mink, Sandor van

Rhijn, Stefano Petracca, Teresa Silva, Valerio Pilo

Navkit Program Team: Leon van Helvoort, Anna

Bednarczyk, Fabienne Kulakowski, Katherine Sheehy,

Andrew Leadbetter, Iker Veiga Perez

TaipeiDaniel Huang, Delta Chao, Gibson Tsao, Ian Huang, John

Huang, Lawrence Chang, Leo Chiou, Luke Hou, Mark Kao,

Mark Kao. Delta Chao, Matt Werbin, Nelly Wu, Ryan Sung,

Tim Liu, Will Lin, Yu-Ti Su

BerlinRouting: Arkadiuz Skalski, Asif Eqbal, Benjamin

Bahnsen, Carsten Gutwenger, Dmitry Bazhin, Ewgenij

Gawrilow, Felix Koenig, Hugues Mathis, Jan-Ole Sasse,

Kai Hoewelmeyer, Mirko Brodesser, Neil Sluman, Robert

Fischer, Serge Rogatch, Sven Grothklags, Tetyana

Dzyuba, Xiang Liu

NKW Engine: Alexander Bulovyatov, Andrei Ivantickii,

Javier Pérez Fernández, Jochen Eisner, Jürgen Werber,

Pieter Thysebaert, Simon Hill, Tetyana Dzyuba

Guidance: Aurelien Lourot, Calin Ciutu, Felice de Robertis,

Michael Hausen, Michael Wyrzykowski, Michal Vranek,

Pawel Pszona, Sara Brodin, Sergey Kabanov, Stefan

Gheorghe, Teppo Lehtonen, Tetyana Dzyuba, Matthias

Peinhardt

NavKit MapVis: Hendrik Ziezold, Anna Krzyzanowska,

Matteo Mecucci, James Tebbutt, Lulian Marinescu Ghetau,

Marcin Rogucki, Pawel Rusek, Shambhu Sharma, Adam

Kepinski, Artur Czajka, Jerzy Pabich, Przemyslaw Koska,

Rafal Wawrzyniak Operations:

Hanaa Adel, Guy Hepponstall, Edwin Velthuis, Arne

Kroon, Michael Werner, Luca Gentile, Eva Knoop, Isabelle

Bartolini, Salvatore Burtone, Francesco Viscomi, Joost

van der Laan, Rodolfo Takeshi Jimenez Kato, Mariana

Reynaud, Randy Vasilda, Saskia Albers

PND SW: Aqibuddin Khamruddins, Bart Kaspers,

Colin Ashruf, Darren Ledger, Dinesh Gurram, Edwin

Adriaansen, Erik Vermunt, Ernst Frederik Ochsendorf,

George Wentzel, Guadalupe Cebrian Rentero, Harpreet

Sethi, Holger Macht, James Montgomery, Jari Tolkkinen,

Jonathan Araujo, Jonathan Wheatman, Joost Pennings,

Joseph Pilling, Kamil Pierzchalski, Kirsten Trede, Kwok

Wong, Mahima Soni, Marlies van Roosmalen, Martin

Eijman, Matthew Agustin, Max Bogers, Nero Mali, Philip

Cork, Rajesh Chunduru, Rogier Stam,Sinan Demir, Sjaak

Schilperoort, Thomas Jongepier, Wouter Stukart

HW team: Allan Donneley, Brad Buike, Daniel Browning,

David cox, Mark Dempsey, Nicholas Evans, Richard

Mattra, Vince Wolfe

LondonAlastair Milne, Ben Roe, Bill Breen, Bruno Cicciarello,

Charlie Bucklitsch, Chee Yong Teh, Chris Trick, Daniele

Rossetti, Darren Jones, David Place, Hugo Abreu, James

Curry, Jeremy Green, Jose Torre, Keith Playford, Lina

Shepherd, Mayank Kedia, Sophie Yim

Eindhoven

Navkit Location team: Henk van der Molen, Bjorn

Martens, Patrick van den Berg, Paul Lieverse, Rob van

Seggelen, Stefan Marchal, Vadim Makarov

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