How IATA Created a Shared Product Language to Power Its Next Era of Innovation
03/02/2026
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How IATA Created a Shared Product Language to Power Its Next Era of Innovation
Blog Author: Productside
Table of Contents
Company Snapshot
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is the global trade association for airlines, representing around 350 member airlines worldwide. IATA’s mission is to Represent, Lead and Serve the airline industry to shape the future growth of a safe, secure and sustainable air transport industry. When most people think of IATA, they think of safety, and global aviation standards.
But IATA also offers a a diverse portfolio of Products and Services (from financial settlement systems, data products, training, consulting to publications) used by airlines, airports, and aviation stakeholders worldwide.
By 2023, this portfolio had expanded significantly. Competition intensified. Customer expectations rose. And with more than 40 Product Managers spread across Europe and North America, IATA faced a moment of truth:
If it wanted to keep delivering high-value solutions in an increasingly complex market, it needed a unified, strategic Product Management discipline, not a collection of individual approaches.
“We needed a provider specialized in Product Management to help us introduce a standard methodology and baseline. And we needed a program that could be customized to speak the IATA language.”
That search led IATA to Productside.
Before State: Strong Execution, Weak Alignment
Before the engagement, IATA’s Product Managers were competent, committed, and well-versed in execution. But organizationally, several patterns kept resurfacing: patterns that slowed innovation, muddied launches, and held back adoption.
Product Management Meant Different Things to Different Teams
Product Managers operated with varying styles, tools, and philosophies. Some were trained elsewhere, some self-taught, some convinced they already knew everything.
“This was about establishing a framework and a baseline so we all have a common understanding of product management and can build upon that. We needed constant improvement and learning”
Without a shared approach, IATA was facing some talent challenges, not being able to easily mobilize PMs between portfolios or onboard new hires into a consistent method.
Launching Products Without a Repeatable Go-to-Market Model
Many launches followed a familiar pattern: build the product, write the press release, and hope adoption followed.
This wasn’t due to a lack of effort. It was a lack of structure. Marketing and Sales were often brought in too late, messaging varied, and sales enablement was inconsistent, resulting in slower adoption.
“We had a tendency to launch without significant preparation. Sometimes adoption never happened, or was very slow. We wanted to stop launching by chance.”
Solutions Were Defined Before Customer Problems Were Understood
Product development too often began in the solution space, rather than with a clear understanding of customer needs.
Ideas were formed internally first. Only afterward did teams attempt to infer or attach a problem those solutions might address. Market & Consumer Insights was brought in late, not to explore unmet needs, but to validate whether an already-formed idea made sense.
This led leadership to question the process itself: were teams discovering real customer problems, or retrofitting problems to justify solutions?
Kim explained the shift they wanted to make:
“We needed to stop developing a solution and then searching for a pain to attach to it. That was wasting time and resources.”
IATA needed to move from solution-led development to a problem-first approach, where customer needs, pains, and context drive what gets built.
Core and Commercial Teams Created Value (But Not Leverage)
IATA’s core activities (advocacy, standards, data initiatives) and its commercial products and services served important but largely separate purposes. Operating independently wasn’t inherently wrong.
The challenge was that the two sides weren’t consistently anchored to the same customer needs or outcomes. Each could create value in isolation, but insights and momentum weren’t compounding across the organization.
David Wall saw Product Management training as an opportunity to change that dynamic:
“We wanted to break the historic barriers between core and commercial. We needed a shared understanding of the customer, the pain points, and the value we’re creating.”
By introducing a unified Product Management framework, IATA created a shared language that allowed both sides to align around common priorities and reinforce each other’s impact.
Why Productside
IATA didn’t just need training. It needed a partner that could help the organization understand where product work was breaking down, establish a shared baseline, and support real, lasting behavior change across teams.
Raquel described the two defining criteria:
- “We needed a provider specialized in Product Management.”
- “We needed an off-the-shelf program that could be customized for IATA.”
Productside stood out not only because it offered a proven Product Management program, but because of how that program is designed to be applied. The engagement began with understanding IATA’s specific context and capability gaps, then shaping the Optimal Product Management course to reflect the realities of IATA’s products, teams, and markets.
Rather than stopping at theory, Productside focused on helping IATA turn best practices into day-to-day ways of working. Frameworks were tied directly to real decisions, real products, and real launches, and reinforced through skills assessments, checkpoints, and applied tools that teams could continue using long after the training ended.
For IATA, this meant Productside was helping the organization build a repeatable, scalable product management system: one that could align teams, support mobility across portfolios, and create a shared language for discovery, planning, and go-to-market execution.
That combination of specialization, customization, and implementation focus is what made Productside the right partner.
The Engagement: A Tailored Optimal Product Management Program
IATA and Productside co-designed a customized, 18-hour version of the Optimal Product Management course, focused on the capabilities IATA needed most urgently:
Key Areas Covered
- Defining the role of a Product Manager
- Outcome-based thinking (vs output-oriented)
- Customer discovery and personas
- Framing problems and validating opportunities
- Solution hypotheses and success metrics
- Outcome-based roadmapping
- Go-to-market planning and launch readiness
- Lifecycle management and End-of-Life
- Applying the Productside Blueprint & Playbook
Supporting Components
- Individual Skills Assessments
- Pre- and post-engagement capability baselining
- 3-month checkpoints with planned 6- and 12-month follow-ups
- Collaborative customization with NPD, Marketing, and Insights
“We wanted a real focus on new product development and lifecycle management, and Productside tailored the program exactly to those priorities.”
The Shift: From Training to Transformation
The engagement didn’t stop when the training sessions ended. In fact, that’s where the real work began.
For IATA, transformation came from applying the frameworks in real situations, reinforcing them through new ways of working, and using them to change how teams planned, collaborated, and launched products. Training provided the foundation. Implementation is what turned it into impact.
NPD Became the Glue of GTM
Before Productside, teams collaborated inconsistently.
Afterward, NPD emerged as the connective tissue between Product, Marketing, and Sales.
David called this a turning point:
“Seeing Sales, Marketing, and NPD working together as a true three-legged stool… That was the moment. If one leg is missing, the launch falls over.”
From Ad Hoc Launches to Cross-Functional GTM Task Forces
One of the most visible shifts was how IATA approached product launches.
Instead of relying on late-stage coordination (or hoping adoption would follow a press release) IATA began forming structured go-to-market task forces early in the product lifecycle. These teams now work together from the outset to align on personas, messaging, positioning, pilot strategy, and success metrics.
“The quality of content for product marketing improved instantly. With the teams aligned earlier, everything became more coherent.”
By embedding these practices into how launches were planned, go-to-market stopped being an afterthought and became a shared discipline.
A Real Use Case: A Product Launch Transformed
One of the clearest examples of this shift in action was the launch of LAR Verify, IATA’s digital solution for compliance with Live Animals Regulations.
In the past, a launch like this would likely have followed a familiar pattern: build first, announce later, and hope the market responds.
This time, Productside’s frameworks were applied from day one. Product, Marketing, Sales, and NPD collaborated early to align on customer pain points, personas, value propositions, and a coordinated pilot strategy.
The result was a fundamentally different launch experience:
- The product entered pilot with eight leading aviation organizations
- Customers understood the value quickly and clearly
- Internal confidence in the offering increased significantly
David described it as a genuine “lightbulb moment”:
“People who weren’t usually glued together became glued together. Customers got it more easily. That coherence wasn’t there before.”
The Playbook: Turning Learning Into a System
To ensure the changes would last, IATA focused on turning training into a repeatable system.
Using Productside’s frameworks as a foundation, the team created a comprehensive internal Product Management Playbook that blended Productside tools with IATA’s own processes, NPD insights, and governance mechanisms.
Kim sees the playbook as a cornerstone of the transformation:
“We now have the tools and guides to help product teams perform better. The playbook is becoming the handbook for how we work.”
The playbook has been shared broadly (not only with Product Managers, but across the entire Products & Services division) extending the impact beyond the original training cohort.
David added:
“We want a simplified, visual version as well. Something that helps people flow through the concepts naturally. It’s already a big step forward.”
Measurable Impact
Quantitative Results
Within three months:
- 14% improvement in Product Management skills
(based on Productside’s Individual Skills Assessment)
Uplift spanned all major competencies:
- Strategy
- Market Research
- Competitive Analysis
- Pricing
- Forecasting
- PM Process
- Customer Understanding
Behavioral & Cultural Shifts
Across teams, leaders observed:
- PMs spending more time in the problem space
- Healthier, earlier challenge of assumptions
- Consistent use of tools and shared vocabulary
- Clearer stakeholder communication
- Earlier involvement of Sales and Marketing
- Stronger confidence in defining outcomes and metrics
- New humility and openness to learning
Organizational Shifts
- A common framework now enables PMs to move between portfolios more easily
- GTM planning is structured, coordinated, and strategic
- Customer insights are used earlier and more deeply
- The transformation strengthens recruitment, especially for senior PM roles
- Internally, the case study helps anchor customer-first thinking
“We’re shifting from IATA-first thinking to customer-first thinking. That’s the journey we’re on.”
Sustaining the Momentum
IATA is committed to making the transformation stick:
- 6- and 12-month transformation checkpoints with Productside
- Continuous reinforcement of the playbook
- Embedding the framework into onboarding for new roles
- Leadership modeling the right questions and behaviors
- Exploring internal “ambassadors” to champion the methodology
David sees this as essential:
“We need to hold each other accountable to using the framework. It’s how we’ll sustain the gains we’ve made.”
Conclusion
IATA’s transformation illustrates what happens when a global organization shifts from fragmented practices to a unified, customer-centered product discipline.
With a shared framework, cross-functional GTM, and a growing internal playbook, IATA is not only building better products, but also reshaping how aviation solutions are conceived, launched, and adopted across an entire industry.
And as David put it:
“Let’s meet again in 6 and 12 months and see how far we’ve come. This is just the beginning.”
About The Author
Productside
We’re the team behind the headlines, webinars, and memes that make product management sound as fun as it actually is.
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