KW Roundtable: Engineering Strategy & Business Alignment

KW Roundtable: Engineering Strategy & Business Alignment

Getting engineering strategy and business priorities to actually align? It's one of those challenges that sounds straightforward in theory but gets messy fast in practice. This is an opportunity to network with engineering leaders in Kitchener-Waterloo and dive into the real strategies for translating competing business demands into engineering roadmaps that actually work.

No slides, no pitches - just genuine peer-to-peer learning in a roundtable format where local leaders share what they've learned in the trenches. We'll discuss our agenda topic and then roundtable a challenge from each person, so come prepared with a specific challenge or question you're facing right now that you'd like help solving. Come join a fantastic group of local leaders who can offer practical insights and share their experiences to help you tackle whatever you're working through.

Topics for the Engineering Strategy & Business Alignment theme will include:

1. Translating Business Vision into Technical Roadmaps How to break down high-level business goals into concrete technical initiatives and prioritize engineering work that directly supports company objectives.
2. Making the Business Case for Technical Investments Communicating the value of infrastructure, refactoring, platform work, and other technical initiatives to non-technical stakeholders and securing buy-in for long-term investments.
3. Engineering's Role in Product Strategy How engineering leaders should influence product decisions, contribute to market timing discussions, and ensure technical feasibility shapes product strategy.
4. Resource Allocation & Strategic Prioritization Balancing feature development, technical debt, innovation time, and platform work while aligning with business priorities and timelines.
5. Stakeholder Communication & Executive Reporting Creating effective communication channels with leadership, translating technical progress into business metrics, and managing expectations around delivery timelines.

Organized by local leader:

1. Sasha Hall, Engineering Manager @ Planitar, Makers of iGUIDE

We hope to see you at this event hosted by Communitech as we continue to grow the KW Chapter!