The Challenge Ahead
At autoTrader.ca, the internal product delivery process had become a source of ongoing frustration and dysfunction. Despite being a national automotive marketplace leader, the company was underperforming when it came to delivering on customer expectations—and it was taking a toll on both revenue and morale.
Four key business challenges stood out:
- Poor Quality and Tech Debt: Teams operated in silos, each focused narrowly on their own roles. This specialist mentality meant little understanding of the broader system, resulting in tech debt and poor product quality.
- Unpredictable Delivery: No single team had all the skills required to complete an initiative independently. which is fine. However, the dependencies amongst teams were not accounted for during planning. This created bottlenecks and unpredictable delivery timelines.
- Slow Time-to-Market: Due to frequent context-switching, unclear priorities, and cross-department misalignment, projects were frequently delayed. The time from customer promise to product delivery was too long to stay competitive.
- High Stress and Low Morale: Chaos at the operational level led to executive overreach. Constant pressure, late nights, and broken trust across teams created a toxic feedback loop that impacted productivity and retention.
How I Helped
Brought in to restore delivery performance and organizational trust, I focused on turning chaos into control—and reactive scrambling into confident execution.
My interventions included:
- Company-Wide Visibility and Prioritization
I created a centralized board to visualize ALL ongoing initiatives. This forced leadership to confront the reality of overcommitment. I facilitated decision-making sessions to identify the top 3 priorities across the business—and implemented a policy of saying “no” to new work outside of these priorities. - Weekly Risk Reviews with Leadership
I introduced weekly deep-dives into key initiatives with senior stakeholders to surface potential risks early and adjust accordingly. These sessions also became a powerful tool for stakeholder alignment and setting more realistic expectations with customers. - End-to-End Systems Thinking Workshops
I designed and ran workshops to help all departments understand the full delivery system, not just their slice of it. This removed the “not my job” attitude, addressed architectural and process silos, and eliminated the tendency to throw problems over the wall. - Reliable Roadmapping and Forecasting
Once delivery became more predictable, I implemented quarterly product roadmaps and capacity planning. This allowed the company to make credible promises to customers, boosting close rates and revenue growth.
Business Impact
- Delivery Predictability Improved by 61%: Initiatives finished when promised, restoring customer confidence.
- Time-to-Market Shortened by 37%: Less churn, fewer handoffs, and clearer priorities meant work got done faster.
- Revenue Growth Reignited: ARR grew 145% year-over-year, supported by more reliable forecasting and delivery execution.
- Culture Shifted Toward Stability and Trust: Team morale increased, stress dropped, and departments began collaborating instead of conflicting.
- Lean, Resilient Operations: The same principles helped the company remain efficient and focused, even during a 60% workforce reduction during COVID.
Testimonies
Shuman impressed me immensely during the hiring process, and I was not disappointed once he started. He has the expert knowledge required, the hands-on experience to truly understand the problems that can be encountered, and the necessary soft skills. He is highly personable, confident, assured, and highly collaborative. He made an immediate impact, with all the teams growing in confidence once he had spent a little time with them
VP of Business Transformation & Ops @ autoTrader.ca
I feel extremely fortunate to have gotten the opportunity to work with Shuman. Apart from being amazing at his job of managing the several aspects of Software delivery, be it managing stakeholder expectations, scope of project or ensuring timely delivery of project; his leadership style has been beyond inspiring to say the least.
I’ve clearly seen his impact on some of the most crucial projects that I have had the chance to work on alongside him. For me, he exemplifies a true leader- one whose selfless, genuine, humble, motivates and guides in the right direction; something very rare to come across.
I’ve clearly seen his impact on some of the most crucial projects that I have had the chance to work on alongside him. For me, he exemplifies a true leader- one whose selfless, genuine, humble, motivates and guides in the right direction; something very rare to come across.
Engineering Leader @ autoTrader.ca
Undoubtedly, Shuman is one of the finest leaders that I have worked with so far. The best thing about working with Shuman is his humility with the ability to stand up for the right cause. He is a true servant leader practitioner who uses empathy to lead and guide the team towards the business objectives.
He is a true mentor who can help you see through the tough ambiguous situations. He has the willpower to stand by you in making the right but tough decisions.
He is a true mentor who can help you see through the tough ambiguous situations. He has the willpower to stand by you in making the right but tough decisions.
Product Delivery Manager @ autoTrader.ca