Jon Jensen, Senior Vice President of Product Management at Examity, gives us an inside look into Examity’s products and the product process. He discusses the reasoning behind renaming our proctoring solutions, product updates, and what’s next for his team. Ultimately, what’s most important to Jon and the product team are meeting the needs of Examity’s customers. 

As the SVP of Product Management, what does your day look like at Examity? 
The one consistent part of my schedule is that I always start my day with coffee! I’m a remote employee, and our teams span the globe, so caffeination is key! 

On a serious note, my role is focused on making sure that our platform is constantly improving. This comes with new features, improvements to existing features based on usage data and feedback, fixing bugs, and ensuring that the platform is reliable and scalable. Our product managers, user experience designers, and engineering teams work closely with the broader business and our customers to ensure that each update we make is impactful.

I connect regularly with clients and internal teams, and I always take some quiet time to work on long-term projects, like our product vision and strategy. On any given day, I may have to shift focus many times to help our teams move forward. 

Why did Examity change the names of its proctoring solutions?
We’re renaming our products to address confusions that some clients and prospects have expressed about what is included in each package. We strive to improve our business, processes, and products in an iterative fashion. This was a great next step to help reflect the key values that each of our packages has to offer. Product naming is always a challenging activity, but once the confusion about the names became clear to us, we knew we needed to take action.

How did your team, along with other Examity employees, work together to facilitate this?
The conversations started with Sales, Marketing, and Product. Sometimes, picking new names can be tough, but our teams came together to solve the problem well. And, after a few iterations, we felt like we had an option that resonated with our internal teams. After that, it was a matter of executing the changes and updating our website, sales assets, and product.

What are some product updates that have been released recently, and how have they helped improve the experiences of Examity’s users?
One of the most exciting updates we’ve released recently is our ambient system check. Instead of waiting for a test-taker to test their system capabilities, we automatically test everything we can when they land on the test-taker dashboard. This can help them know if they are ready to start an exam without having to perform a system check. We’re constantly looking for ways to make it faster and easier for a test-taker to begin an exam.

How does Examity prioritize our customers’ needs?
This is a great question! There are always many nuances when it comes to prioritization. At the most basic level, we consider how significant the business problem is, how common the problem is, and how clients are handling it today. Next, we look at how critical the problem is to solve, and its urgency. We then evaluate if Examity can solve the problem well, as well as a rough estimate on the size of the effort. Once we know those things, we work to design a potential solution.

How does your team manage a product roadmap?
Our roadmaps blend priorities from a few key sources. The first is strategic projects that we know will solve important problems for our customers. The second is projects that will help enable additional testing programs for our clients, or expand our capabilities to make current programs easier to manage. The third consideration is projects to help keep our platform scalable, performant, and secure. 

What are your team’s next objectives?
We’re really excited about an upcoming project which will make accommodations easier to manage. We’re also making improvements to streamline the exam launch process for clients who are doing registration and scheduling via API. 

Thinking about using our proctoring solutions for your online exams? Want to learn more about our products’ name changes, and what’s happening at Examity? Fill out the contact form, and make sure to continue reading our blog for the latest updates.