Cohort 01 — Product Data

Status: Forming. Launches May 2026 at the Monterey Bay onsite. Sponsor: Claire Chun (exec), France Roy (technology) Core owners (confirmed by Claire Apr 14): Kate Hollywood, Mary Corrick

Product Data is Balsam's first COE cohort. The workflow is central to merchandising, retailer onboarding, international expansion, and eCommerce — and today it runs on Excel, tribal knowledge, and manual transformations.

Balsam decided not to move forward with a PLM this year. The Product Data workflow now has to carry more weight than it was designed to carry. That is why this is the first cohort.

Package contents

• pitch.md — the one-pager. Why this cohort, what it will work on, what success looks like.
• roster.md — who's in, what role, why each person.
• scope.md — coming in week 1 of the cycle. What's in, what's out, what we're testing.
• readouts/ — weekly notes, monthly readout. Populated during the cycle.
• artifacts/ — prototypes, skills, playbooks produced. Populated during the cycle.

The mission

Understand the full product data lifecycle at Balsam — producers, consumers, hand-offs, constraints. Produce:

• A working map of how product data moves today.
• At least one prototype that removes a manual step and is in use by the end of the cycle.
• Skills and playbooks the broader team keeps.
• A readout and handoff package for whatever follow-on work the Operating Council should fund.

Principle

Upstream before downstream. We fix the source of product data before accelerating what happens with it. Moving bad data into ten retailer formats faster does not help. Fixing the source does.

Key dates

• April 29 – May 1, 2026 — Monterey Bay onsite. COE announced. Cohort 1 scope confirmed with roster present.
• Week 1 (May 4–8) — Framing and scope. Cohort meets, agrees what's in and out.
• Weeks 2–3 — Workflow mapping. Interviews, trace an actual SKU through the full lifecycle.
• Weeks 3–5 — Build and test. Prototype and ship something.
• Week 6 — Readout and handoff.