Project Context

Amerisure is midway through a modernization effort for Guidewire PolicyCenter and its broker-facing workflows in Amerisure Agency Portal. You are the Engineering Manager for a 10-person team responsible for delivering the next 2 quarters of work while balancing growth initiatives, regulatory commitments, and platform reliability. The CIO has asked for a prioritized roadmap in 2 weeks because several business leaders believe their work is the top priority.

Key Stakeholders

The VP of Underwriting wants faster commercial package quote turnaround to improve new business bind rate. The Claims and Billing technology leaders want shared API and identity work pulled forward to reduce integration friction across PolicyCenter, Guidewire BillingCenter, and downstream reporting. The Chief Compliance Officer needs state filing and audit-related changes completed before renewal season. The Head of Distribution is pushing for agency portal enhancements promised to top independent agents.

Constraints

You have 10 engineers, 1 staff engineer, 1 product manager, and 1 QA lead. Capacity for the next 16 weeks is 1,280 engineering hours, but 25% is already reserved for production support and mandatory maintenance. Budget remaining for vendors and overtime is $120,000, with no new headcount approved. There are 4 major candidate initiatives competing for the same window:

1. Quote flow improvements in PolicyCenter estimated at 420 hours and projected to increase quote completion by 6%.
2. Agency Portal submission status tracking estimated at 260 hours and requested by Sales for 40 strategic agencies.
3. Compliance updates for 3 states estimated at 310 hours with a hard deadline in 11 weeks.
4. Shared API/auth refactor across PolicyCenter and BillingCenter estimated at 520 hours and expected to reduce incident volume by 18% over 6 months.

Complications

1. A senior engineer who owns the PolicyCenter rating service will be out for 3 weeks starting in week 5.
2. Production incident volume has risen 22% over the last month, and executives will not accept a degradation in service levels.

Deliverables

1. Propose a prioritized 16-week roadmap with sequencing and explicit trade-offs.
2. Explain how you would align engineering work to Amerisure's broader business objectives.
3. Identify what you would defer, de-scope, or phase, and why.
4. Define stakeholder communication and decision-making mechanisms.
5. Provide top risks, mitigations, and launch success criteria.