Signal 01 · Product analytics
Users frequently edited the cost field by hand, often right after changing scheduled times, and most visibly on U.S. accounts — a clear automation gap where recalculation didn't match real overtime structures.
← All work
Case study 01 · Rentman · 2022–2023
Custom Pay Rates
A flexible rate engine that unlocked U.S. market entry — eliminating manual overtime calculation and turning a recurring sales blocker into a competitive advantage.
- Role
- Senior Product Owner
- Timeline
- 2022–2023
- Scope
- Strategy · Discovery · Execution
- Team
- 1 PM · 6 eng · 1 design
80%
Reduction in manual overtime recalculations
95%
Reduction in payment and invoicing errors
85%+
Active adoption among eligible accounts
25%
Increase in license upgrades
01
Strategic context
Rentman's strategic priority was unambiguous: enter and win the U.S. market. The U.S. is the largest addressable market in event production, and while strong equipment-management tools existed, there was no flexible, state-aware crew planning solution able to handle U.S. labour structures.
Our entry strategy was deliberate: lead with a best-in-class Crew Scheduling product tuned to U.S. operational complexity, onboard companies through planning workflows, then expand into Equipment Management and position Rentman as the all-in-one solution.
“Solving Custom Pay Rates was not just a feature enhancement — it was a strategic enabler for U.S. market penetration.”
One blocker surfaced in nearly every U.S. sales conversation: pay-rate complexity. Overtime rules differ per state, double time and minimum call rules vary, union and non-union setups coexist, and cost — what you pay crew — often differs from price, what you charge customers. Similar complexity exists in Germany and Norway; the U.S. amplified it.
02
Problem identification
Three converging signals, each reinforcing the others.
Signal 02 · Customer interviews
10 discovery interviews across several countries: project managers recalculating overtime in spreadsheets, keeping internal rate cheat sheets, and correcting costs by hand after every schedule change.
Signal 03 · Public board
Custom Pay Rates ranked consistently among the top-voted Productboard requests, describing regional rules, union multipliers, minimum call times and day-rate versus hourly conflicts.
The triangulation gave us high confidence: product data showed the behaviour, interviews explained why, and public votes confirmed scale and urgency.
03
What I did
As PM for Crew Scheduling I owned this from problem identification through rollout.
- 01Analysed 350+ Productboard feedback notes to identify patterns and segment requests by market and account size.
- 02Conducted 10 discovery interviews focused on U.S. customers to validate the behavioural data.
- 03Led a design sprint generating three solution approaches, then ran 10 solution validation interviews.
- 04Ran technical feasibility assessments with Engineering to scope the rate engine architecture.
- 05Structured a milestone-based development plan with feature flags for controlled rollout.
- 06Designed the migration and testing strategy, and the new licensing model around it.
The hardest trade-off
Configurability versus usability. The goal was a rate engine supporting 90%+ of real-world variations without overwhelming the roughly 60% of users who need none of it. The principle we landed on: configurability with sensible defaults.
04
The solution
A flexible rate engine built around five core capabilities.
0–8H
8–10H
10–12H
12H+
01
Tier-based time brackets
Configurable thresholds — 0–8h, 8–10h, 10–12h, 12h+ — with a distinct rate per tier, covering overtime, double time and minimum call rules.
COSTPRICE
02
Cost / price separation
Distinct cost rates (what you pay crew) and price rates (what you charge customers), closing the structural gap that had forced manual reconciliation.
RE-RUN
SHIFT CHANGE → RATES SETTLED
03
Automatic recalculation on time changes
When a schedule is modified the overtime logic re-runs instantly — directly addressing the manual-edit behaviour we saw in the analytics.
ONE ACTION · WHOLE CREW
04
Bulk rate assignment
Assign rate structures to many crew members in one action, cutting per-project setup dramatically for large teams.
BASE → PRO → ADD-ON
05
Licensing integration
Launched under Crew Scheduling Pro and the Quoting & Invoicing add-on, supporting migration to the new licensing model and creating a clear upsell path.
05
Outcome & impact
80%
less manual overtime work
95%
fewer invoicing errors
90%
of rate variations supported
85%+
adoption among eligible accounts
20%
higher scheduling satisfaction
25%
more upgrades from legacy plans
Beyond the metrics, the feature removed a critical barrier from U.S. sales conversations, enabled the crew-first onboarding strategy and increased cross-sell into Equipment Management. Combining data-driven problem identification, qualitative validation and strategic market alignment turned a frequently edited cost field into a competitive advantage.
06
What I'd do differently
Ship the migration tooling with the first milestone, not the last. Legacy-plan accounts sat on manual workarounds a quarter longer than they needed to.
Instrument the configuration flow before launch. We learned which tiers people actually used from support conversations rather than from data.