360° product management
TRANSCRIPT
360°PRODUCT MANAGEMENTDeveloping a complete line-of-site view of product strategy, roadmaps and execution
1997-2000Getting Started
CornellWashington DC, DenverTravel Tech Companies Business AnalystProduct Manager
2001-2006Orbitz Era
ChicagoOrbitz.comProduct ManagerDirector of
Product
2006-2011Entrepreneu
r
ChicagoShopLocal.comSears.comHauteLookSenior Director, VP of
Product
ChicagoGogoMcDonaldsGlobal Head of Product
2016+Having Fun
Chicago + TBDCamelot GlobalXoobaWho knows?
BRAD JAEHN: MY PROFESSIONAL TIMELINE
2011-2015Executive
Fun
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KEY THEMES TO {HOPEFULLY} TAKE FROM TODAY
Agile Improvement Curiosity
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A FRAMEWORK TO USE FOR RELATING TO OUR DISCUSSION
Intrapersonal (Me)
What can I learn?What can I change?How can I improve?What are my
strengths?Where can I invest to
improve?
Interpersonal (Team)
What can we learn?What can we change?How can we improve?What are our team
strengths?Where can we invest
as a team to improve?
Systemic (Enterprise)
What are our values?What are our
incentives?What is our leadership
culture? What is our level of
systemic self-awareness?
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PRODUCT: THE BEST (AND THE MOST DIFFICULT) ROLE!
“I DISCOVERED THAT THERE WAS A TREMENDOUS DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HOW THE BEST COMPANIES PRODUCED PRODUCTS, AND HOW MOST COMPANIES PRODUCED THEM.” Marty Cagan
Author of “Inspired, How to Create Products Customers Love”
WHY? SOME OF THE REASONS? People Tools Organization Expectations Incentives History Deliverables Responsibilities
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BUT THE BIGGEST MISSES ARE A LACK OF: True customer centricity
Business value creation
Short and long-term thinking
Goals and measurability
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CUSTOMER CENTRICITY
Do you have a customer-centric philosophy?
Is the commitment to your customers something you live all day, everyday?
Is it a message you see at the annual company picnic?
Is it something you hire for?
Is it something you measure individual and team performance on?
Would you fire your most productive engineer if they didn’t meet your standards for customer centricity?
“We are Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen”
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CREATING REAL BUSINESS VALUE Define value drivers
Relevant stakeholders Needs and goals Agree on how to measure Select the most important = Value Drivers Define the relationship between the Value Drivers. Use the Value Drivers to focus and prioritize work from start to finish.
Define relationships between value drivers Which comes first? There is no right answer. It depends on the company, the project and the circumstances.
Agile approaches have changed the conversation about measuring project success, from comparing against cost, time, and scope projections to looking at how much value the project is going to deliver.
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SHORT AND LONG TERM THINKING
Just strategic thought alone? I know where I’m going but I can’t tell you how to get there.
Just tactical execution? I know what I’m doing right now but no idea where it will take me.
Focus on both. Sometimes takes a village.
The different levels and frameworks help product leaders balance both needs.
One of the criticisms of agile is that it is just tactical, short-term thinking. If done right, it will give both a short-term and long-term picture of the product efforts.
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LACK OF MEASURABILITY Do you have clear, understandable KPIs?
Most companies struggle in this area
Make them non-negotiable
Do you measure ROI? Impact?
Is every effort 1. Measurable and 2. Measured?
KEYS TO HAVING A GREAT PRODUCT MANAGEMENT FUNCTION
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THE OVERALL PRODUCT STORY: A JOURNEY
Strategy: Where are we going?Roadmaps : How may we get there?Opportunities: What roads can we
take?Initiatives: Which routes do we prefer?
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PRODUCT STRATEGY A product strategy is the foundation of a product lifecycle, and its execution plan for
further development. Strategy is comprised of three parts:
Vision Goals Initiatives (Roadmap)
The power of a product strategy comes from what you define as well as what you exclude. By identifying a particular target market in your product strategy, you are also excluding
other markets. This helps your company to understand which projects fall outside the product strategy and
distract from strategic goals. Review and revise no less than quarterly.
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PRODUCT ROADMAPS A product roadmap is a powerful tool to describe how a product is likely to grow, to align
the stakeholders, and to acquire a budget for developing the product. The building blocks are usually Initiatives, Projects, Epics, Stories, Themes It builds upon the Vision and Goals defined in the Product Strategy. Always tie back to strategic pillars and measurable goals.
Tell a simple, coherent story. Everyone who sees your roadmap should be able to understand it.
Dates are always a question. The best roadmaps are directional, not committal.
Review and revise as often as needed.
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IDENTIFYING AND ASSESSING OPPORTUNITIES
Ideas come from many places: Customer Competitors Executives Friends Analysts Research Testing Service Sales Your experience and expertise
Product management pros must: Evaluate and decide what to pursue
and what to ignore. Assess what is needed to make an
idea worth pursuing successful. Prevent the waste of time, money,
and effort. Determine if the time is right to
pursue an idea. Be able to defend both YES and NO
conclusions.
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THE RIGHT PRODUCT AT THE
RIGHT TIME The product needs the right features and capabilities for the right market and be able
to be delivered within the right timeframe to create business value.
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INITIATIVES: BACKLOGS AND PROJECTS
Agile
Great product managers constantly are thinking in terms of their backlog.
Backlogs are constantly groomed, refined, updated, and modified.
Write great user stories!
Waterfall
Great product managers produce the artifacts needed for their organization.
Business requirements, market requirements, product requirements.
Write great requirements!
Great products aren’t agile or waterfall. Those are just means to achieve delivery.
One of the key roles of great product leaders is they are the medium that channels the voice of the customer.
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HARD AND SOFT ATTRIBUTESHard-Attributes are objective and measurable, and have to do principally with the functioning and performance of a product.Soft-Attributes are subjective and emotional. They are described using words like attractive, young; sporty, pleasant, and feminine, and cannot be quantified or measured by objective means. For the most part, these attributes have to do with the character of the product and its user-experience.
The balance between the two can be different in different products, but any good product must consider them both in totally separate and different manners.
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RESEARCH Great product organizations listen in as many ways as possible.
Qualitative Quantitative Prototypes Testing Competition
Research informs the product strategy, helps prioritize initiatives, and provides support to more effectively manage stakeholders.
Digitize it, democratize it, and use it!
TOOLS“You can’t hammer a nail with a screwdriver”
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DIGITIZE EVERYTHING Many tools exist to digitize your product story.
Goal of digitization is access, one version of the truth, and reduced overhead.
MS Project is not a tool for product managers.
Strategy Roadmap Backlogs Requirements Research Export JIRA Project 1 2 4 4 1 2
Aha! 4 4 4 2 2 4
ProdPad 4 4 4 2 2 4
ProductPlan 4 4 4 2 2 4
Rally 1 2 4 4 0 2
Excel/Sheets 1 1 1 1 3 0
PowerPoint/Slides 1 1 1 1 3 0
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ENSURE TRANSPARENCY & ACCESS The product story should be widely available.
Subject to internal controls. Have a policy, make it clear, and stick to it. Manage access and caveats to associates who share information outside your
organization.
The key reason to ensure your story is simple, understandable, and current: It can and should be available and understandable at anytime and any place.
NOTE: Not everyone can and should be able to update and modify the different levels.
TRAITS AND CHARACTERISTICS
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WHAT MAKES A GREAT PRODUCT LEADER? Evangelism Selling Passion Empathy Intelligence Curiosity
Plus a thick skin, a hard head, and a selective memory!
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THE ABILITY TO SAY NO
While you want to get buy-in to from the key stakeholders, you should not say yes to every idea and request.
This would turn your product roadmap into a feature soup, a random collection of features.
Use your vision and product strategy to make the right decisions.
Have the courage to say “no”.
Collaboration requires leadership.
“Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It’s about saying no to all but the most crucial features,” - Steve Jobs
