About Customer-Led Innovations Consulting
Customer-Led Innovations Consulting brings together over 40 years of experience in project, program, product management, and product development in the public and private sectors. We have built diverse global cross-functional teams that leverage the power of different skill sets, perspectives, and backgrounds. This also ensures we get an all-around view of what the customer needs.
We have certifications in Product Management, Scrum, Additive Manufacturing and Design, Sales, and Remote Teams with additional expertise in Lean, Six Sigma, process improvement, compliance, and systems integration. Between us, we have developed and launched dozens of products in manufacturing, software, logistics, and services. Using cross-functional teams, lean, agile, and project prioritization, we have streamlined product and project management programs to deliver greater value to the customer and more efficient product development, cutting development timelines by up to 75% while dramatically boosting sales.
We have successfully delivered value through agile methods by fostering a culture of customer focus, root cause analysis, continuous improvement, and adaptive planning. By utilizing iterative development in software and services, we ensured that projects remained flexible and responsive to changing requirements and market conditions. We have also brought agile development to manufactured products through cutting-edge manufacturing and development tools like 3D design and additive manufacturing. This has allowed for frequent reassessment of priorities and ongoing stakeholder engagement, ensuring that the final product aligns closely with user needs and expectations. Additionally, by promoting collaboration across cross-functional teams, I have facilitated efficient problem-solving and innovation, resulting in higher quality deliverables and increased customer satisfaction. My commitment to transparency and regular communication has also been instrumental in maintaining alignment and trust among all project participants, ultimately leading to successful project outcomes and sustained business value.
We have consistently delivered products on time, with a strong emphasis on security, quality, and scope, even when managing complex projects across international teams. For example, while leading the development of a global e-commerce platform, I coordinated efforts across teams in North America, Europe, and Asia. Through diligent planning and the use of agile methodologies, we maintained a tight schedule and ensured all security protocols were rigorously followed, safeguarding user data across different regions. Regular code reviews and automated testing were implemented to uphold the highest quality standards. Despite the challenges of coordinating across time zones and cultures, clear communication channels and regular sync-ups were established, ensuring everyone remained aligned with the project goals. This collaborative approach not only kept the project within scope but also fostered a unified vision, resulting in the successful and timely launch of a secure, high-quality product that met diverse market needs.
Our Expertise
See the Big Picture: Many entrepreneurs know what they want to build and why it’s a great idea but they don’t always know exactly who it is for and what problem it solves. Even established companies with numerous products often don’t understand how their product portfolio fits together, where their products are in the lifecycle, and where the gaps are in their offerings. We have years of experience bringing coherence to product portfolios, understanding what the customer needs, and how to fill that need. Getting there is the first step on the road to moving from selling products to selling real solutions.
Strategic Alignment: We have built programs that align corporate vision and strategy with customer needs and business capabilities to build strategies that motivate, inspire, and create devoted customers by being their solution partner.
Certifications: We hold certifications in Product Management, Scrum, Additive Manufacturing and Design, Sales, Remote Teams, global business, and others.
Product Development: Collectively, we’ve developed and launched dozens of products across manufacturing, software, logistics, and services into markets around the world.
Efficiency Boost: By leveraging diverse and cross-functional teams, lean methodologies, agile practices, and project prioritization, we’ve streamlined product and project management and expanded the pool of problem-solving expertise. Our approach has cut development timelines by up to 75% while significantly increasing sales with better-tailored solutions.
Our Agile Approach
Customer Focus: Our culture revolves around understanding customer needs deeply.
Iterative Development: We stay flexible to evolving customer needs and feedback on current products by using agile and iterative approaches.
Agile Manufacturing: We’ve extended agile to manufactured products using 3D design and additive manufacturing, allowing iterative design that creates a product in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional waterfall and injection molding approaches.
Stakeholder Engagement: Frequent reassessment keeps us aligned with user expectations.
Collaboration: Cross-functional teamwork and diversity drives efficient problem-solving and more innovative ideas. We help you bring your experts together to solve customer problems.
Our Track Record
On-Time Delivery: We consistently deliver products on schedule, emphasizing security, quality, and scope.
Global Coordination: With training and extensive experience in global business, we help you build global teams and understand global markets. We have developed products and led teams across North America, Europe, and Asia.
Quality Assurance: Our background in quality assurance of both software and manufactured goods will help you build robust programs that ensure you deliver not just the right product, but one that works as your customer expects it to.
Unified Vision: Expertise in global and remote teams means that despite time zones and cultural differences, clear communication will align everyone with project and corporate goals.
Product Launch: Our collaborative approach means that when launch time approaches, everyone is on board. Our experience in working with production, operations, sales, marketing, finance, and management to develop launch plans ensured everyone knew their role in a smooth and successful launch.
Our Banner & Logo
The Customer-Led Innovations Consulting (CLIC) logo helps us remember how the whole cross-functional team fits together. The customer comes first. They are the reason we are in business. Next is the Leader. The Leader represents the company’s culture, vision, and mission. This part of the equation gives us focus. They are the keeper of the “Why.” Third is the worker. They represent our capabilities and are the true innovators - what we are good at and have the skills to solve our customers’ problems. While like people, companies can learn new skills, doing what you are good at gives us a competitive advantage and daily focus makes it easier to see how we can get better. Finally, in blue is the consultant. This is where CLIC comes in. We help you understand your “Who” (customer), your “Why,” and your “What.” We then can bring all three together like a puzzle to create balance that provides real value that resonates with both your customers and your employees. This then translates to passionate service to the customer and in return, customer devotion to your mission.
Meet the Team
Brent Willson, MBA & Certified Product Manager
Brent, is a U.S. Air Force veteran with over 25 years leading teams and programs in aircraft maintenance and intelligence. Another formative part of his military career was leading systems integration projects for multi-million dollar systems and and organizational moves involving over a hundred people each with requirements for often up to four separate networks with increasing levels of security. The key lessons Brent learned from these projects were starting with the “customer” to understand what their core needs were and then crafting a solution for them and second, building a cross-functional team of experts and trusting their collective expertise to develop the best solutions.
Transitioning to the corporate world, Brent joined a small company leveraging his project management experience to develop new products in the construction tools industry. Brent’s team transformed the research and development department from a collection of project managers working on their own product development projects with little outside input from either the customer, sales, production, or customer support to a customer-focused team that brought other departments in on development teams and let everyone play to their strengths to develop better products faster and with more successful launches.
Brent’s team also used 3D CAD and additive manufacturing to bring agile product development to physical products. By foregoing or delaying the need for expensive tooling, they were able to start with a minimum viable product (MVP) and test both in house and with customer, identify improvements, and implement them with a simple change in the CAD file.
Other improvements to the process included product portfolio concept prioritization to ensure limited resources went to the products with the best prospects, customer feedback and better product defect tracking, an ideas portal, and knowledge-based articles on social media. These changes resulted in a 75% reduction in development times and a doubling in sales.
Brent was then brought on to another team to develop product management in the fine art logistics and services industry. There he worked on services product development projects that touched on cloud storage, 3D scanning, blockchain, and other technologies and services. His team organized and analyzed the product portfolio, created roadmaps, identified key market segments, developed product training, and helped sales enablement boost sales by focusing on customer needs and creating more comprehensive solutions that made the company a solution partner, and not just someone to buy something from.
Brent and his team have launched dozens of physical consumer, technology, and services products in the B2C, B2B, and public sector markets. His drive to solve customer needs and learn what it takes to do that has led him to become an expert in compliance and sustainability, having instituted a “sustainable by design” program to meet customer needs.
Brent is a Quartz Open Framework Certified Product Manager, holds an Executive Certificate of Global Business Management, a Certificate of Proficiency in Additive Manufacturing and 3D Design, is a Certified SolidWorks Associate, a Certified Tech Sales Professional, a Master Remote Leader, a Master Remote Work Professional, and a Certified Adjunct Instructor. He holds a Global MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management, a Bachelor of Arts in languages from Excelsior College, and Associates degrees from the Community College of the Air Force in aircraft maintenance and another in intelligence and communications technologies.
He has seen the benefits of strategic alignment, cross-functional and diverse teams, balanced product portfolios, and market insights can help transform companies and create solutions that people will come back for again and again.
Lance Wadman, MBA, CSM, Agile Coach, Project Manager
As a Senior Leader, Product Visionary, and Software Delivery Expert, Lance Wadman is passionate about driving seamless product delivery from ideation to market, ensuring every step resonates with excellence and customer satisfaction. In his role as a Senior Technical Program Manager, Lance managed security services and client expectations for a world organization, developing strong relationships with stakeholders, development teams, and leadership. He produced comprehensive weekly reports and status updates, introduced Portfolio Management with technical solutions tailored to business requirements, and drove over 20 projects across domestic and international teams. He managed scope, schedule, cost, and quality while coordinating execution across eight teams (three international and five domestic). Additionally, he supervised Product Owners and UX to streamline the Product Delivery Lifecycle, consolidated backlogs into a single Uber Backlog for effective feature-level management, and improved customer satisfaction by 30% through effective customer management and feedback integration. By mentoring and coaching teams, Lance enhanced delivery and quality by 50%, established program structures with detailed timelines based on KPIs and customer feedback, and served as an Agile Coach and Mentor for three Agile Development teams, facilitating planning, estimation, and retrospectives. He directed Agile ceremonies and managed daily challenges for four development teams, removed roadblocks and interdependencies with multi-discipline teams, conducted planning meetings, estimation, and requirement reviews, and produced status reports for senior leadership.
As an Agile Release Manager, Lance managed the Release Management lifecycle for multiple applications across various portfolios, improving software engineering processes and practices for continuous integration and deployment. He established IT metrics for cycle time, waste time, and rework, set goals and execution plans to shorten cycle times, and held retrospectives for continuous improvement in the release lifecycle. He planned and managed release windows and the overall release lifecycle, managed risks affecting release scope and project milestones, and communicated key project plans, commitments, and changes. Additionally, he conducted release readiness, milestone, and business go/no-go reviews, monitored progress through analytics, ensured releases met budget and requirements, and introduced daily meetings and weekly status reports to address blocking items and scope changes.
As an Agile Coach and Program Manager, Lance built a team of Agile Project Managers (Scrum Masters) and introduced Scaled Agile (SAFe) to a development group with 18 teams. He coached teams to maximum efficiency with Agile Best Practices, implemented Communities of Practice for continuous improvement in Agile concepts, and mentored small development teams to maximize efficiency. He drove quality initiatives during the transition from Waterfall to Scrum, reported on Agile Transformation using an Agile Maturity Matrix, and aligned efforts among Product, Development, and Executives. He identified waste using LEAN to improve speed to production, enhanced the SDLC for faster and higher-quality value delivery, and expanded Agile Practices from 8 to 18 teams. He oversaw Agile teams in Argentina, Costa Rica, India, and Ukraine, and orchestrated showcases, demos, and reviews for teams and executives.
In the role of Senior Leader, Lance has established teams for Product Management, Quality Assurance, Cyber Security, Technical Writing, and Change Control. He has developed test automation infrastructure, implemented security procedures and audits, and set up technical documentation and approval workflows. He managed several small teams and drove quality initiatives during the transition from Start-Up to Customer Focus, developed reporting systems and metrics for growth and outages, and aligned efforts for TDD, BDD, and ATDD. Lance improved speed to production and maintained environment integrity by promoting early and frequent testing, supporting continuous delivery and small releases, identifying and addressing issues within the SDLC, and meeting with leadership to continuously improve processes, products, and business relationships.