Who We Are

Clarity - Transparency - Operational Excellence

These are the ideals that we constantly strive for, and we are relentless in our pursuit. No matter what the situation, by focusing on these core values, we can lead teams to success. We define that success based on outcomes, not on boxes checked. By leveraging our strengths, and the strengths of our network of partners, we ensure our clients are given a foundation upon which they can continue to grow.

We are committed to optimizing the Software Delivery Lifecycle through structure, process, and technology. Every organization is unique, thus we deliver tailored solutions to each of our clients. Our goal is to enable our clients to build better software faster, and we won’t rest until our goal is met.

Where it started

Lost Dog Consulting was founded by Mike Wellner, a 10-year veteran in SaaS Product & Engineering. Mike spent the majority of his career at Salesforce. During his tenure, he assisted several organization in transforming from disorganized startups to streamlined, enterprise product delivery organizations. He concentrated on utilizing the individual strengths of each organization, while using scalable frameworks to resolve common challenges seen across them. This allowed each of these organizations to scale effectively and meet the increasing demands of their customers, internal and external.

Through this experience, Mike and his organization became known at Salesforce as the people to take over the failing, chaotic programs, consistently turning them around and delivering them successfully.

The methods Mike used to facilitate these successful transitions are the foundation upon which our solutions are built.

Experience

Salesforce.org

Mike joined Salesforce.org in 2019, as they doubled their product and engineering organization in hopes of doubling their product portfolio within the next year. Mike became the lead member of the Technical Program Management team, tasked with designing and implementing a new operating model, while ensuring that the new product lines were successfully released.

Featured Accomplishments

  • Successfully launched all products on their targeted launch dates.

  • Established organization-wide reporting, risk tracking, and dependency management.

  • Standardized release schedule, allowing for streamlined go-to-market enablement and increased customer adoption.

  • Created an organization-wide release planning process to reduce overlap and dependency challenges.

  • Built robust reports and dashboards that enabled real-time program tracking, with different views for all levels from IC to Executive.

  • Grew the TPM function from 1 to 5 members in under two years.

  • These structures allowed the continued success of the new product lines once in market, and enabled those teams to scale as the organization continued to grow at 100% YOY.

Salesforce Industries

After Salesforce acquired Salesforce.org in 2019, Mike was responsible for the integration of the technology and product teams into the Industries operating model. Mike saw that many of the components of the Salesforce.org operating model would benefit Industries. These aspects became best practices and were advocated as such, eventually being adopted by other organizations within Salesforce.

Featured Accomplishments

  • Influenced leadership to adopt many aspects of the operating model, including release planning, release management, and automated program reporting, which drove rapid improvement to the operations of Salesforce Industries.

  • Advised other business units within Salesforce as they implemented aspects of the operating model.

  • Grew the TPM team to 7 people across the US, Israel, and India.

  • TPM Team received 4.8/5 rating with key stakeholders (vs. target of 4.2).

  • Launched previously failing customer migration program in under 6 months. Program model was then used as a best practice for other customer programs at Salesforce.

ExactTarget/Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Mike joined Exact Target in 2015, just after acquisition by Salesforce, but prior to integration. Mike was tasked with rebuilding the Release Management process, as the process had not scaled as the organization grew to over 60 scrum teams.

Featured Accomplishments

  • Developed a scalable process for ensuring releases were ready to be deployed and were successfully delivered.

  • Shifted quality and delivery ownership to scrum teams, giving them clear targets to hit in order to have their innovation included in the release.

  • Changes resulted in major increases in quality and throughput, and also allowed the Release Management team to operate in a more lean fashion and reduced the overall need for headcount.

  • After being assigned by the COO, revived a failing program, the opening of a first-of-its-kind data center in Europe. This included rearchitecting the application, network infrastructure, data center layout, and creating the GTM strategy for the EMEA Sales organization.

  • Successfully delivered the program on-time, despite multiple major setbacks and changes, which enabled massive sales growth in the following years.