Rethinking How Teams Plan, Make Decisions And Work Together
Eightpoint CEO Deniz Gezgin says the company spent the past two years restructuring to connect different functions, reduce duplicated effort and improve how decisions are made across the organization.
Eightpoint, a global technology company building consumer digital products, has spent the last two years overhauling its internal operations to connect engineering, product, analytics and marketing teams around shared priorities.
CEO Deniz Gezgin, who took the helm in July 2024, says the goal was to reduce the time lost when information stays within individual departments and to give teams a clearer understanding of the broader business.
Connecting Expertise Across Functions
Gezgin observed that capable teams often worked toward different priorities, leading to duplicated effort and decisions made without the full context of the business.
The company has moved shared capabilities—including data, platform and design—closer to its product teams to ensure everyone has access to the same expertise.
Deniz Gezgin believes leaders introducing AI should first understand where decisions slow down, as this reveals opportunities to improve how the organization works as a whole.
Shorter Learning Cycles
While annual and quarterly planning remains useful for establishing direction, Eightpoint is organizing execution around shorter learning cycles to evaluate specific assumptions.
Teams now use two-week sprints to test ideas and determine where to focus next, while keeping longer-term business priorities consistent.
The approach emphasizes defining a problem, testing an idea and using the results to guide additional investment, though teams need enough stability to complete meaningful work.
Building Ownership And Accountability
Gezgin says the way leaders make decisions has a significant influence on how quickly the rest of the company can move.
The company is working toward clearer ownership across teams, where leaders understand the outcomes they are responsible for and have access to the information they need.
People are expected to explain their reasoning, make results visible and raise issues early enough for the organization to respond.
When an experiment produces an unexpected result, I want to understand how the team approached the decision and what it recommends doing next.
Evaluating Progress With AI
As AI tools make development and testing more efficient, Gezgin says leaders need to become more thoughtful about how they evaluate progress.
Traditional measures such as features delivered remain useful, but they provide only part of the picture.
The focus is shifting to how quickly teams can validate assumptions, identify problems and apply what they have learned.
This requires a culture where people can discuss disappointing results openly, as the way leadership responds has a lasting influence on how teams approach future decisions.
Collaboration And Shared Identity
Eightpoint has brought Spigot and Eightpoint Technologies together under the Eightpoint brand to create a shared identity.
The company has learned that encouraging people to work together only goes so far; they also need shared information, aligned objectives and a clear understanding of who is responsible for moving decisions forward.
The desktop team is already using AI-assisted tools for browser upgrades and automated testing, with human approval remaining part of the development and release process.
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