Articles by Ted Steinmann

• 🧠 Technology Foresight as a Product Strategy Tool

  How I apply technology foresight — a structured scan-analyze-forecast-recommend-roadmap system — to move from weak signals to defensible product decisions in uncertain, fast-moving domains.

  Category: blog
  Tags: product-management, technology, leadership
  Published on March 17, 2026

• 🗓️ A Weekly Product Huddle That Keeps Everything Moving

  A disciplined weekly product huddle keeps cross-functional teams aligned, surfaces blockers, and drives continuous improvement through data-driven discussion and operational cadence.

  Category: blog
  Tags: product-management
  Published on March 12, 2026

• 💬 AI-Powered Portfolio Search

  Added RAG-powered conversational search to my portfolio site, allowing visitors to ask questions instead of navigating pages — demonstrating how retrieval-augmented generation and edge inference reduce friction and accelerate understanding.

  Category: blog
  Tags: product-management, technology, platforms
  Published on February 16, 2026

• 🤖 AI-Assisted Product Development, in Practice

  What I learned orchestrating multiple AI agents across the product development lifecycle — from requirements brainstorming with ChatGPT to async coding with Codex to supervised edits with Claude — while building a production expense reporting app.

  Category: blog
  Tags: ai-workflows, devops, system-design
  Published on February 06, 2026

• 💰 Expense Reports App

  A production expense reporting app I'm building as an R&D testbed and "kata" for agentic development — using ChatGPT for requirements, Codex for async coding via voice, Gemini for architecture, and Claude in Copilot for supervised edits, with automated E2E testing and edge deployment.

  Category: projects
  Tags: technology, product-management, systems
  Published on February 06, 2026

• 🏛️ Policy and Terms AI Monitor

  Added an agentic policy review agent to the development and PR workflow so Terms and Privacy updates stay aligned as ExpenseReports.app changes.

  Category: projects
  Tags: product-management, integrations, systems
  Published on February 06, 2026

• 🛠️ Building a Canonical Data Model Using AI

  Extracting fragmented knowledge into a canonical data model by combining LLM-assisted consolidation with human-in-the-loop validation and domain expertise.

  Category: projects
  Tags: product-management, systems
  Published on January 20, 2026

• 🆔 Increasing Utility of the National EMS ID

  Drove enterprise-wide adoption of a persistent federated identifier as the canonical key across a distributed multi-agency healthcare ecosystem — replacing SSN dependency, enforcing data governance, and enabling longitudinal workforce intelligence.

  Category: projects
  Tags: systems, data, government
  Published on December 31, 2025

• 🛠️ Build it, buy it, or wait? Where to invest your AI effort

  In a fast-moving AI landscape, the hard choice is whether to build, buy, or wait. A real example using Gemini's Spreadsheet AI to summarize service club financials shows how leveraging platform AI can deliver better outcomes than building custom LLM solutions.

  Category: blog
  Tags: technology, product-management, service
  Published on November 22, 2025

• 🤖 Multi-Agent Orchestration for Community Paramedicine — A 24-Hour Build

  Built a multi-agent AI system for community paramedicine in a single 24-hour hooley day — aggregating CDA documents, NEMSIS records, PDFs, and imaging reports into unified clinical guidance using agentic workflows and RAG-style retrieval.

  Category: blog
  Tags: technology, systems, data
  Published on November 15, 2025

• 🧰 Project Based Budgeting

  A simple, transparent budgeting system built in Google Sheets—linking financial planning directly to projects and organizational priorities.

  Category: projects
  Tags: leadership, service, systems
  Published on October 14, 2025

• 🤖 Context Engineering for a Product Wiki

  Building a context engineering layer—system instructions, guardrails, and grounding rules—that lets AI agents reliably author and consume product wiki documentation, closing the loop between structured knowledge and agentic coding.

  Category: projects
  Tags: product-management, systems, technology
  Published on October 01, 2025

• 📈 Product Strategy in Contracted Purchasing and RFP‑Driven Markets

  Developed a product strategy framework for RFP-driven markets using TAM/SAM analysis, whitespace identification, and a feature requirements matrix to prioritize growth in contracted purchasing environments.

  Category: projects
  Tags: product-management, data, systems
  Published on September 30, 2025

• 🚑 NASEMSO EMS Workforce Reports

  Standardized EMS workforce reporting aligned to NASEMSO’s Core Ten—designed and led at ImageTrend—to deliver comparable, actionable metrics across states. New datasets enable point-in-time and longitudinal analysis of supply, retention, and education outcomes, with solutions validated in collaboration with state EMS offices and NASEMSO.

  Category: projects
  Tags: product-management, government, data
  Published on July 08, 2025

• 🔗 Leveraging External Resources through Integrations

  A presentation exploring how software platforms maximize efficiency and reduce operational complexity through deliberate integration with specialized third-party services for authentication, payments, verification, and compliance.

  Category: presentations
  Tags: integrations, platforms
  Published on May 01, 2025

• 🚀 Building a Feature Spec Assistant with Microsoft Copilot for Product Management

  Building a copilot-pattern AI assistant to embed product management discipline directly into feature specs, PRDs, and user stories — grounded in product wiki, strategy docs, and Azure DevOps via RAG.

  Category: projects
  Tags: product-management, technology, systems
  Published on April 30, 2025

• ✍️ Virtual Signatures for Inspections

  Designed a zero-touch inspection workflow that replaced in-person signature collection with event-driven process automation — time-limited secure links, automated status tracking, and compliance by design.

  Category: projects
  Tags: product-management, government
  Published on April 09, 2025

• 📚 Enhanced Education Program Monitoring & Management

  Led the transformation of the Education Program Management module—introducing real-time dashboards, course tracking by position, and sponsor agency workflows to empower education program administrators and state EMS offices.

  Category: projects
  Tags: product-management, systems, government
  Published on March 29, 2025

• 🔗 Permit Applications

  Led the modernization of the Permit Management module—delivering permit application receipt and processing from general public users to inspection processing including ArcGIS geospatial validation to streamline applications and ensure county level source of truth location accuracy.

  Category: projects
  Tags: product-management, integrations, government
  Published on March 29, 2025

• 📝 Solving Performance Problems by Rethinking the User Interface

  How a critical performance issue was solved by rethinking the user interface, leveraging analytics, and aligning system behavior with user intent.

  Category: blog
  Tags: product-management, technology, data
  Published on March 15, 2025

• 📚 Feature Area-Aligned Product Documentation Wiki

  Designing a product wiki structured around product feature areas — a knowledge base for delivery teams that doubles as RAG-ready grounding context for agentic coding.

  Category: projects
  Tags: product-management, systems, platform
  Published on January 05, 2025

• 🎯 Optimizing effort for impact in product management

  Presentation to the Fargo Full Stack Development User Group

  Category: presentations
  Tags: product-management, leadership, technology
  Published on December 19, 2024

• 💼 EMS Agency Grants Management

  Led user-centered design of Grants Management module through multi-session focus groups, translating stakeholder feedback into a streamlined grants administration platform with role-based workflows.

  Category: projects
  Tags: product-management, government
  Published on August 06, 2024

• 📊 Building a Cross-Customer Analytics Workflow for Better Product Decisions

  I built a reusable analytics workflow that made it faster to answer cross-customer product and business questions across many isolated databases.

  Category: projects
  Tags: product-management, analytics, data, systems-thinking, reporting
  Published on June 15, 2024

• 🐞 Analytics-Driven Continuous Improvement: Bug Resolution Project

  Data-driven approach to improving bug fix responsiveness and backlog health in a regulated SaaS environment.

  Category: projects
  Tags:
  Published on April 03, 2024

• 📈 Measuring Quality Improvement in a Live SaaS Platform

  A metrics-based quality improvement case study showing year-over-year hotfix reduction in a production SaaS platform.

  Category: project
  Tags: product-management, systems, data, leadership
  Published on June 12, 2022

• 💼 Product Manager · ImageTrend

  Led product strategy, system design, and delivery for a complex licensing platform serving state agencies and enterprise customers. Focused on aligning product, data, and architecture decisions to drive measurable growth, scalability, and long-term platform evolution.

  Category: experience
  Tags: product-management, leadership, systems
  Published on May 01, 2021

• ImageTrend LLC

  U.S. provider of public safety and healthcare data platforms—ePCR, fire and trauma registries, HIE, and licensing—that improve interoperability, compliance, and data-driven decisions for agencies and hospitals.

  Category: organization
  Tags:
  Published on April 16, 2021

• 📚 Technical Writer · Bushel

  Coordinated patent portfolio activities and produced technical IP and documentation, including a blockchain proof of concept.

  Category: experience
  Tags: technology, systems
  Published on September 01, 2020

• 🌾 Addressing Variety and Veracity of data in Ag

  Presentation at FASTCON 2019 in Saint Paul on how Bushel tackles challenges of variety and veracity in agricultural data through partnerships and digital infrastructure modernization.

  Category: presentations
  Tags: data, integration, partnerships, systems
  Published on December 09, 2019

• 🎯 Product Expert · Bushel

  Developed API-based business models and helped land strategic customers through incentive-driven network effects.

  Category: experience
  Tags: product-management, platforms
  Published on December 01, 2019

• 🤝 Technical Project Manager · Bushel

  Served as a domain and platform expert, helping internal teams and external partners understand system capabilities and translate them into usable solutions.

  Category: experience
  Tags: product-management, data, platforms
  Published on June 01, 2019

• 🏗️ Datalake technology as a platform for Research Driven Product Development

  Capstone presentation for the Master of Science in Management of Technology program at the University of Minnesota, exploring how data lakes can serve as a foundation for incremental innovation and research-aligned product development.

  Category: presentations
  Tags: data, platforms, technology
  Published on April 24, 2018

• 📊 Dashboards and Datalakes with Tableau

  Presentation at the University of Minnesota Tableau User Group (October 2017) on building a data lake and embedding dashboards in web applications.

  Category: presentations
  Tags: data, platforms, cloud
  Published on December 29, 2017

• 💼 Owner · Steinmann Consulting

  Technology-focused development of products, customers and software.

  Category: experience
  Tags: leadership, consulting
  Published on December 01, 2017

• 🛡️ Food Protection and Defense Institute project portfolio updates

  Updates from UMN’s Food Protection and Defense Institute (FPDI) supporting FoodSHIELD, a transitionable, research-funded software platform with custom apps and collaboration portals for food defense.

  Category: presentations
  Tags: data, partnerships, government
  Published on June 18, 2017

• 💼 IT Manager · The Food Protection and Defense Institute (University of Minnesota)

  Managed an IT business unit and executed IT strategy for a research institution, overseeing enterprise applications and research-driven startup projects.

  Category: experience
  Tags: leadership, systems, product-management
  Published on January 01, 2014

• 🧠 Lead Developer · ImageTrend

  Led engineering initiatives across multiple products, establishing standards, mentoring developers, and improving system architecture and delivery practices.

  Category: experience
  Tags: leadership, product-management, development
  Published on January 01, 2010

• ⚙️ Deployment Manager · ImageTrend

  Managed deployments and operations for web-based solutions across hosted environments, focusing on standardization, automation and scalability.

  Category: experience
  Tags: devops, enterprise-software, system-design
  Published on January 01, 2009

• 🛠️ Software Developer · ImageTrend

  Built secure, scalable web applications and data systems supporting regulated public-sector workflows, forming the foundation for later platform growth.

  Category: experience
  Tags: development, systems, agile
  Published on January 01, 2007

• 🛠️ Development Intern · ImageTrend

  Supported web development and NEMSIS XML data submission vendor compliance work.

  Category: experience
  Tags: development, technology
  Published on May 01, 2006