Introducing the OMVP Strategy Roundtable: Our First Episode Is Live

One of our biggest priorities this year was strengthening the strategic voice within the OMVP community. While the group has always been rich with engineering excellence, we saw an opportunity to elevate the practitioners who guide the organisational, operational, and human side of digital transformation. So we reached out to OMVPs interested in shaping this space, and with nearly 50 members putting their hands up, we spun up a dedicated Slack channel where daily discussions quickly began to form the backbone of what would become a new initiative: the OMVP Strategy Working Group. 

This community-led group was created to support digital leaders by exploring Optimizely’s impact through the lens of strategy, operations, and change, not code. Our mission is simple: highlight strategy-focused OMVPs and amplify their insights, business cases, and perspectives on how Optimizely creates value beyond the build. The leadership group driving this work for the year includes Dom Graveson (Netcel), Janaka Fernando (Altudo), Lori McDonald (Brilliance), Kashif Hasan (First Three Things), and Paul de Metter (Independent Consultant). 
 
Why This Group Exists 

Through months of conversations with partners, practitioners, and OMVPs, one thing became clear: 
There was no dedicated space in the community for high-level strategic conversations. 

So an extended working group was formed, community-led, product-agnostic, and focused on exploring the Digital GTM landscape: 

Core Purpose: 
Support digital leaders by exploring digital strategy, operations, and change. 

We emphasise: 
✔ Business cases 
✔ Outcomes 
✔ How Optimizely enables real strategic impact 

We avoid: 
✘ Deep technical build talk (other groups already do this brilliantly) 

Today, we’re excited to release the first piece of content out of those Slack discussions: Episode 1 of the Optimizely Strategy Roundtable, a two-part conversation exploring Post-Implementation & Adoption Strategy. The panel dives into the realities that shape long-term success but rarely get talked about openly, from why adoption fails even when the build “succeeds” to how buyer maturity, editor experience, project framing, and organisational culture influence platform ROI. Their discussion also surfaces the importance of continuous discovery and the role agencies must play much earlier in the process. 

What the episode covers: 
• Why adoption often breaks down after go-live 
• The overlooked importance of editor experience 
• What agencies can influence before a line of code is written 
• How buyer maturity shapes outcomes 
• Why continuous discovery beats “big bang” projects 

Featuring Dom Graveson, Lori McDonald, Janaka Fernando, and Kashif Hasan, with special thanks to the OMVPs whose Slack insights shaped this discussion: Jacob Pretorius, Paul de Metter, Johan Kronberg, Scott Reed, Ronil Rangaiya, Kevin Schofield, and Lorna Foott
 
🎥 Watch Part 1: [Academy Link] 
🎥 Watch Part 2: [Academy Link] 
🎧 Full audio on Spotify: [Link] 

If you have feedback or topics you’d like us to explore next, reach out anytime, this series is built with the community and for the community, and we’d love to hear from you.