At its most basic level, a customer-led product strategy means that your customers are the top priority at all times. Sounds pretty obvious, right? But creating a truly customer-centric business model means balancing a lot of different factors, not just customer service. All too often, customers are losing out to more influential stakeholder groups and other priorities. One report found that80 percent of customers said the experience a company provides is just as important as its products or services. Therefore, it makes total sense to look at the products you offer from the customers’ perspective. Ensuring your products and services bring joy to customers at every stage of their journey will help grow your business, helping it survive even in tough times. Putting Customers First Any time you launch a new idea, a new product, or a new system, ask yourself the following questions: #1 Who will this serve? #2 How will it benefit the people it serves? #3 What are the company’s goals for this product or service? By asking – and answering – these questions, you can create something that people truly value. Anticipating the kind of products customers need and making sure they get them will lead to deeper brand loyalty and customer retention. But first, you need to know exactly what the customer wants to deliver it. Making use of key customer insights and then implementing them is vitally important. For example, if you discover that most customers want to receive their purchases in the fastest possible time, you could use retail inventory management software to speed things up. Remember that81 percent of consumers are willing to increase their spend with an organization in return for a better experience! Read the Customer Interview Toolbox ➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, 'd7d86cbd-164a-46c9-8c8f-f15fee88bc7f', {}); Looking at the Data You might think you’re pretty hot on knowing what your customers want, especially if you’ve been running a successful business for many years. However, here’s a sobering statistic: 80 percent of companies believe they are delivering a superior customer experience, but only 8 percent of customers agree! This proves that you shouldn’t claim to be customer-centric if your products and services don’t reflect that. Digital technology means there are now more avenues for observing customer behaviors and spotting crucial insights – and statistics suggest thatinsight-driven customer experiences help businesses retain 89 percent of their customers. By blending data from customer surveys with qualitative and observational insights, you can build a detailed profile of your target users and see their needs. It’s also helpful to note what your competitors are up to and look at non-competitors to get an idea of best practices. You don’t have to copy their approach, but you can tease out the best bits and blend them into the perfect strategy for you. Creatinga partnership with a competitor can actually aid the customer journey in some cases. If you cannot offer a product or service that your customer really wants, put your rivalry to one side and team up with a company that can! Making a Plan Once you’ve taken a look at the improvements you could make, it’s time to produce your plan of action. This framework should always put the customer front and center while ensuring any changes are viable within your overall business model. Product roadmaps are useful in planning and development and can be used to create alignment across the organization. Start with the product vision statement, then set out your goals and initiatives. The customer-led product strategy must be ingrained at every level of your company, so all your employees need to understand who the product is aimed at, what its unique selling points are, and what the long-term goal should be. Having your customer service and marketing departments work together is a good way to boost the customer experience. Hiring the right people, who truly believe in your vision, is crucial – as is keeping them up to date and motivated. Using video conferencing software can help maintain face-to-face contact with those in other sectors of the business. Download the Guide to Roadmap Software ➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '4bf8579a-d29b-4f68-83a0-dff66a99d470', {}); Adapting to Change The digital environment has created a definite shift in customer behavior, meaning that customers become more discerning and impatient in the products and services they choose. They now have higher expectations and more choice than ever before – so if you don’t meet their needs, they can just as easily go elsewhere. New technology might make it easier for you to communicate with customers, but it’s also easier for them to complain! Older businesses, in particular, can struggle to adapt to the new pattern, compared to newer companies and start-ups with millennials at the helm. But it’s basically a case of “adapt or die.” Companies that consistently find innovative ways to develop and market their products will succeed in the long run. Tapping into Technology One prediction is that by 2021, there will be over 230 million digital shoppers in the United States. The role of technology affords many opportunities to provide a superb customer experience and gain customer insights at all the different touchpoints. The automation of customer service is one such element, and we’re seeing businesses introduce improvements like a call recording service to make life simpler for both customers and agents. Meanwhile, the rise of artificial intelligence can give extra insights into the customer experience using smart chatbots and analytics. Technology will only increase in importance, but you should make sure it is always useful to the customer and helps rather than hinders their journey! For older customers and more traditional businesses, the latest tech may not necessarily be the best solution for booking appointments, where it has advantages and disadvantages. Making it Personal A customer-led product strategy means learning which products appeal to customers and viewing them as much more than mere transactions. However, just offering them excellent products and an enjoyable, hassle-free experience isn’t enough. Personalization is the real key, as it makes customers feel like they are genuinely valuable to the business. Finding ways to personalize both the product and the overall journey will boost customer retention – and a happy customer will share their positive experiences with others, thus enhancing your rating on product review sites. It goes without saying that you should deliver a great omnichannel experience as standard. Still, it also helps to give customers personalized support as they browse and hopefully make a purchase. Customers appreciate little details, such as adding extra filters to narrow down browsing choices and save time. A customer-facing product roadmap can be used to let individual customers know what you’re up to and how you’re implementing their feedback, helping you to build a deeper relationship. You can encourage employees to develop empathy for the customers by talking to new service users and regular visitors if a customer has decided to switch to a different company, try to find out why – and see if there’s a way to tempt them back in. 点击播放声音 @keyframes VOLUME_SMALL_WAVE_FLASH { 0% { opacity: 0; } 33% { opacity: 1; } 66% { opacity: 1; } 100% { opacity: 0; } } @keyframes VOLUME_LARGE_WAVE_FLASH { 0% { opacity: 0; } 33% { opacity: 1; } 66% { opacity: 1; } 100% { opacity: 0; } } .volume__small-wave { animation: VOLUME_SMALL_WAVE_FLASH 2s infinite; opacity: 0; } .volume__large-wave { animation: VOLUME_LARGE_WAVE_FLASH 2s infinite .3s; opacity: 0; } 1:09:25●●●●●IntroCustomer Feedback and Your Product VisionDeciding What to BuildHow to Use Metrics to Align Product Strategy...Questions Answers #wistia_chrome_23 #wistia_grid_103_wrapper .w-css-reset{font-size:14px;} #wistia_chrome_23 #wistia_grid_103_wrapper 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.w-css-reset-button-important{border-radius:0!important;color:#fff!important;} Complete the form to access the full webinarFirst Name*Last Name*Job Title*Email*LIKE.TG is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy, and we’ll only use your personal information to administer your account and to provide the products and services you requested from us. 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For more information on how to unsubscribe, our privacy practices, and how we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy, please review our Privacy Policy.#wistia_grid_103_wrapper{-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;box-sizing:content-box;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;height:100%;position:relative;text-align:left;width:100%;} #wistia_grid_103_wrapper *{-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;box-sizing:content-box;} #wistia_grid_103_above{position:relative;} #wistia_grid_103_main{display:block;height:100%;position:relative;} #wistia_grid_103_behind{height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;top:0;width:100%;} #wistia_grid_103_center{height:100%;overflow:hidden;position:relative;width:100%;} #wistia_grid_103_front{display:none;height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;top:0;width:100%;} #wistia_grid_103_top_inside{position:absolute;left:0;top:0;width:100%;} #wistia_grid_103_top{width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0;left:0;} #wistia_grid_103_bottom_inside{position:absolute;left:0;bottom:0;width:100%;} #wistia_grid_103_bottom{width:100%;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;} #wistia_grid_103_left_inside{height:100%;position:absolute;left:0;top:0;} #wistia_grid_103_left{height:100%;position:absolute;right:0;top:0;} #wistia_grid_103_right_inside{height:100%;right:0;position:absolute;top:0;} #wistia_grid_103_right{height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;top:0;} #wistia_grid_103_below{position:relative;} Maintaining Momentum A customer-led product strategy means you need to be proactive instead of reactive. Make sure you ask the necessary questions before the customer embarks on their experience, thereby keeping in control of the process. Once a customer has been convinced to create an account, the onboarding system is crucial in executing your product strategy. You could keep them coming back by creating personalized messages or offering free trials or discounts on products you’ve learned that particular customer would like. The importance of website maintenance cannot be overstated if you want customers to choose you over your competitors. Ensure your whole online presence is optimized to give all users the best experience on whatever device they use, including personalized product suggestions and plenty of up-to-date, relevant content. The eventual aim is that happy customers will keep returning, so you won’t have to spend so much on marketing and sales activities – especially great news for smaller businesses. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '1f74539e-d4fc-4cb3-97c6-fd86de2bf62e', {});

Product Strategy is Important One of the most important roles of a product manager (PM) is setting the product strategy. The strategy, by way of a roadmap, is the document that drives team alignment.When a group of people adopts a strategy, it transforms the product strategy from just a piece of paper to something that drives team success. Informed teams, including product and everyone that affects product development—from engineers to executives, can deliver consistent results, essential to any organization that wants to grow from pure greenfield exploration into gaining product-market fit. When you are looking for consistent strategic results that you can sell to the business and the team around you, you’ll need to escape the trap of pure feature velocity (“building stuff”) and get to building the “right stuff” that makes an impact for customers and the business. Consistent strategic results are essential because as teams scale, wasting time and resources gets easier. Consistency is why the strategy must exist and live in the minds of those who need to operationalize it. That is when the strategy is truly alive when you can see it in action. But, unfortunately, most strategy is dead when it exists, but in name only. What makes a strategy alive or dead? Well, let’s start by making sure you have a strategy that works first. If you aren’t sure what that looks like, you can find our complete guide here. A Refresher of the Six Pillars of an Alive Product Strategy: 1. A product must have a purpose. Building a product just for the sake of creating and maintaining something isn’t a strategy. Products should have a raison d‘être and exist for something beyond themselves. What drives the company? Why does the founder wake up in the morning? What about your product can the customer not live without? Take the time to communicate externally to find the locus of your product’s truth. Once you simplify that into something repeatable that a team can align around, you are most of the way there. The alive product strategy has a clear, repeatable purpose. Dead strategy is muddled. 2. Understand the customer’s needs and their evolution. Our customers are important, so it is critical that any product strategy we make also has to meet the customer where they are. But, more importantly, we can’t fall into the trap of “building a faster horse” instead of a car. Our customers don’t deal in features, and they deal in problems. Those problems evolve, and so must our strategy. Alive strategy evolves with the customer. Dead strategy is static. 3. Understand your value chain and how it’s evolving. Products don’t exist in a vacuum. Neither do its users. The product strategy must incorporate how it fits into the larger ecosystem, determining where it adds value and where friction points remain. As an ecosystem changes, the product’s role within it may also evolve. When determining strategy, you can find insight into how your product makes decisions—whether looking at your competitors or what systems your product builds on to work. Alive strategy engages with the ecosystem. Dead strategy engages with a point in time. 4. Determine what change is likely to happen. Although strategic thinkers don’t possess psychic powers, they should cast an eye toward the future and anticipate likely disruptions to either limit or expand the product’s opportunities for growth and usage. Then, with a good strategy, you’ll see what chances the business is willing to take. An alive strategy makes bets. Dead strategy “knows” the future. 5. Define actions against those changes. With a view on the horizon, what can your strategy do to mitigate disruption or seize opportunities? Alive strategy anticipates risks. Dead strategy hides them. 6. Measure success and course correct. There’s no way to know if a strategy is successful if no one’s keeping score. While the strategy itself shouldn’t be hitting specific metrics, tracking progress and KPIs illuminate progress and offer potential warning signs. Alive strategy iterates. Dead strategy always starts from scratch. 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.w-css-reset-button-important{border-radius:0!important;color:#fff!important;} #wistia_grid_43_wrapper{-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;box-sizing:content-box;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;height:100%;position:relative;text-align:left;width:100%;} #wistia_grid_43_wrapper *{-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;box-sizing:content-box;} #wistia_grid_43_above{position:relative;} #wistia_grid_43_main{display:block;height:100%;position:relative;} #wistia_grid_43_behind{height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;top:0;width:100%;} #wistia_grid_43_center{height:100%;overflow:hidden;position:relative;width:100%;} #wistia_grid_43_front{display:none;height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;top:0;width:100%;} #wistia_grid_43_top_inside{position:absolute;left:0;top:0;width:100%;} #wistia_grid_43_top{width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0;left:0;} #wistia_grid_43_bottom_inside{position:absolute;left:0;bottom:0;width:100%;} #wistia_grid_43_bottom{width:100%;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;} #wistia_grid_43_left_inside{height:100%;position:absolute;left:0;top:0;} #wistia_grid_43_left{height:100%;position:absolute;right:0;top:0;} #wistia_grid_43_right_inside{height:100%;right:0;position:absolute;top:0;} #wistia_grid_43_right{height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;top:0;} #wistia_grid_43_below{position:relative;} Strategy Doesn’t Need to Just Exist Simply having a strategy isn’t enough, however. For example, if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, did it make a sound? Unfortunately, many teams that find themselves with a product strategy have to ask. “how does this matter to me?” and, as a result, lose interest. Strategy means nothing if it isn’t alive, in people’s hands, hearts, and heads applying to their work. So, as we continue this article, let’s ask ourselves some questions. First, does any of this sound familiar to you? Feeling unsure of what to do, even though the strategy is there. Having a ton of distractions, even though the strategy is there. Operating in the past, even though the strategy is there. Then your strategy might be dead. Don’t fear! There is an opportunity here. If you have a strategy, you’ve already done the first step, create a strategy! So, we need to turn it around, and on that note, it feels like a good time to talk about what we mean by “alive.” An Alive Product Strategy Yes, your strategy is living. In fact, strategy is a muscle and an important one for teams to exercise. Much like the muscles in your body, they need nutrition, and for them to operate at their best, they need exercise. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '1f74539e-d4fc-4cb3-97c6-fd86de2bf62e', {"region":"na1"}); So, what do we mean by that? When we mention nutrition, your strategy needs context. Think about point two, mentioned above “2. Understand customer needs and their evolution Our customers are important, so it is critical that any product strategy we make also has to meet the customer where they are. More importantly, we can’t fall into the trap of ‘building a faster horse’ instead of a car. Our customers don’t deal in features, and they deal in problems. Those problems evolve, and so must our strategy. Alive strategy evolves with the customer. Dead strategy is static.” When you think about your customers, this concept makes sense. Our strategy needs to build towards our customers’ context of the marketplace. What if I told you that it needs also to do so internally – stakeholders who use your strategy also need that context. So how is that strategy you made a few weeks ago? Is it alive? Does it have its nutrients? Has it gotten its exercise? In fact, when is the last time anyone referenced it? Let’s talk about alive in another way – author Robert Greene once told author Ryan Holidaythis: “He told me there are two types of time: alive time and dead time. One is when you sit around when you wait until things happen to you. The other is when you are in control when you make every second count when you are learning and improving and growing.” “Strategy is something that grows” is great as a mental model to see product strategy. But, remember, product strategy is a muscle. When a team sits around and doesn’t exercise that muscle, it will atrophy. An atrophied strategy is a recipe for disaster, as it is as good as no strategy at all. In fact, an atrophied strategy is a one-step towards a dead strategy. So, let’s pose the question again, is your strategy alive? Like any new artifact, your strategy, once well crafted, starts that way. That said, from a distance, an alive product strategy can look like a dead one if you don’t know what to look for. Don’t let your strategy turn into a zombie. A Dead Product Strategy Will Become A Zombie Grrr, brains Zombies are scary (and possibly real). But we aren’t talking about those zombies right now. So instead, what we’re looking at is a zombie strategy. The people we work with are smart and ready to work. A dead strategy, however, will sap their energy and leave our teams to fend for themselves. Moreover, as our teams grow, a culture built on dead strategy is a culture whose problems compound. Product strategy is our domain, not theirs. When strategy atrophies, they will spend time working on things that make sense to them. Sometimes, the team will get lucky. Oftentimes, they will end up distracted. That distraction is how you look up in the middle of the third quarter and wonder what happened to that roadmap you set in December. But, unfortunately, you’ve been bit by the strategy zombie, and as a result, the team is now playing catch up. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '527dc6af-8860-436f-9ca6-ae2b71b0cc99', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); The bad news, as a PM, is you’ve turned into a necromancer. The good news is that you can step away from that. The first step, though, is to identify if there is a dead strategy in your midst. How do you identify a zombie strategy? Well, if it’s well built, here are a few indicators. Of course, we won’t leave you without homework either, so expect some ways to clear the zombies out. Then, each section holds a way to move that strategy from dead to alive. 3 Ways to Identify a Dead Product Strategy 1. Team members can’t remember what’s important. Our brains’ short-term memory holds 5-7 things at a time. Why is that important? One of the issues that can zombify a product strategy is overloading people with too much information. We may have an urge to load the strategy with everything we need to get done. You, as a PM, may feel like you are giving proper context – however, overloading the team with context is exactly what will atrophy your strategy. Instead of giving context and helping folks find alignment, you allow the team to turn off and figure it out independently. This is how your strategy sits on the shelf and eventually zombifies. So, let’s make this real. Let me ask a question: If you were to go around your team and ask, “What are the three priorities from our product strategy?” How confident are you that individual team members can list these top priorities? What about within 80% of your expectation? If you gulped during that question, chances are, you may have a zombie product strategy on your hands. Unfortunately, whatever you thought was happening isn’t. The zombie strategy is eating your team’s mental space. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '4077b305-9bcc-4a5a-a982-aad75ee06c23', {"region":"na1"}); In fact, brain science provides a reason for that. Our brains are more tuned to negative experiences than positive ones, up to seven times more. So those near-death experiences are negative experiences. Strategy is a positive one. Simplify your strategy The basis of strategy is here. You need to simplify. Evangelize. Become a broken record and talk about the strategy regularly. Remind people at the end of every team meeting of the important pillars of your strategy. When people start getting sick of hearing it, you’ve only begun. Prioritize. Be clear about what is important, and get rid of the rest. Cut until it hurts – a strategy that doesn’t make any choices will atrophy. Positivize. Remind people of the small wins regularly. Remember, teams think negative first, so overwhelm them with positivity. 2. Strategy incorporates incentives for all Every discipline has its own incentives. It’s important to recognize that the strategy isn’t about you. Human beings are storytellers, and without something more compelling, they will take what is around them to create their incentives. That is why a telltale sign of a lack of an alive product strategy looks like this: Engineering cares about engineering stuff, same with design, marketing, and sales. It’s natural with any vocation. Teams are just telling themselves a story and running with it. Since it isn’t compelling, they have to make it up as they go along. A strategy will atrophy if the members of the team don’t see themselves in the strategy. As a PM, are you aware of everyone’s incentive? If you have to wonder, chances are you don’t. When building the strategy, remember strategy is an abstraction. That abstraction helps people fit their mental model into the world itself. If that strategy doesn’t help them, they’ll split their time between your strategy and their incentive at best, and at worst, completely ignore your strategy. Then your strategy is dead. As an owner of the product strategy, make sure you talk to the point of contact from every discipline. Meet with the team regularly and have coffee with random team members to find out what drives those team members to work. This is a slower process, but every time you iterate, the strategy gets better. This is because you are working your strategy muscles with each conversation as you make it more alive. As a bonus, your relationship with the other discipline will get better, too. 3. Strategy relies on consistent process Do not try to turn the entire ship at once. Our teams have enough on their plate. That is why we, as PMs, have to be very careful when we bring in a new process. If we do, we have to do so thoughtfully and repeatedly. Once is not enough. Remember, our brains can only hold 3-7 things in short-term memory, so it’s far better to leverage things that are already comfortable in an organization or build it into muscle memory. As PMs, we live with our strategies for a long time, making sense to us (only). So we want to try a new process to shake things up and partially bring newness to ourselves, selfishly. So, we make the team go through an exercise, something you may find on the internet, and never refer to it again since the pieces fit so well in your head. Well, while you may remember it, the team around you has their own issues, and more than likely, is overloaded. When this happens, you’ve walked right into a dead strategy since the team has learned not to take anything you’ve done as seriously. As a rule of thumb, small edits to the current process are better than a new process. If you aren’t going to plan around a new process to ensure it’s compelling and do it often, don’t do it at all. Alive Product Strategy Starts with You There is a pattern here. A product strategy isn’t alive on its own. So simply writing a great one isn’t good enough. Instead, as a PM or product leader, you’ll need to work hard at keeping it alive continuously. It’s worth bringing up this quote again. “He told me there are two types of time: alive time and dead time. One is when you sit around when you wait until things happen to you. The other is when you are in control when you make every second count when you are learning and improving and growing.” One is when you sit around when you wait until things happen to you. The other is when you are in control when you make every second count when you are learning and improving and growing. A great strategy is something you control, iterate, and grow. If you aren’t careful, you’ll turn from a PM into an unwitting necromancer. So your strategy will be less about control and more about waiting. Strategy is a way to speed up alignment, and alignment isn’t stationary. If you aren’t working those strategy muscles, your strategy will turn from alive to dead. As a result, your team will get further and further away when strategy stands still. Building a product strategy is not enough; make sure the strategy is alive and aligned not just with the market and the customers but also with the team that is working through it. When other functions use product strategy, it lessens the cross-functional burden and gives the organization a chance to course-correct when things aren’t going well. Keep your product strategy alive with focused goals, aligned incentives, and repeatable processes. Download IMPACT ➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '76387af0-7ef4-49da-8b36-28e99e4f5ba3', {"region":"na1"});

There’s a concept in business called the trust communication curve. It states that the more trust between people or teams, the less one-on-one communication they’ll need to align on goals. If you graphed that curve, it would look like this. The product trust communication curve follows the same logic. As trust increases, product managers can rely more on communicating information. They can even refer people to the roadmap, rather than repeating twice. And according to the data we’ve collected, product managers want that ability. In LIKE.TG’s 2022 State of Product Management Report, we uncovered interesting data points on this topic. First, most product professionals (62%) share product information with internal stakeholders by hosting live meetings. That is more than 5x the number who said they refer people to the product roadmap and ask them to review it themselves (11%). But when we asked how they would prefer to communicate this information, our survey respondents voted strongly in favor of asking stakeholders to review the product roadmap. As you can see from the response percentages here, many product professionals (45%) would be happy to host a meeting with stakeholders. They don’t mind communicating product strategy, plans, or other details to everyone. But they don’t want to repeat answers to the same people asking the same questions repeatedly. Download the stakeholder analysis guide ➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '3eb23c05-aee3-46a4-9662-df983ee6cc53', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); Why It’s Valuable to Understand the Product Trust Communication Curve The sooner you establish trust across your company, you can reduce your time repeating yourself to stakeholders. The more they trust the product team, the more your stakeholders will feel confident finding the answers to their questions. In other words, boosting trust with stakeholders is a great way to save your product team a lot of time. In the next part of this post, I’ll offer suggestions for improving your product trust communication curve. What Improves Trust Between Product Managers and Stakeholders? Unfortunately, the first factor that increases trust is one you can’t manipulate: time. I’ve worked with hundreds of product professionals in my career. I have also had the chance to work closely with customers. In my experience, I have found that more seasoned product people tend to trust their processes more. They and they also enjoy more trust from their colleagues. Both factors enable senior product professionals to communicate information once, and they can refer stakeholders to the roadmap instead of answering the same question twice. Some of the trust you’ll earn as a product manager comes only with time and experience. But the good news is that there are things you can do today to improve your company’s product trust communication curve. Yes, even if you’re a newbie to product management. 4 Tips to Improve the Product Trust Communication Curve at Your Company 1. Invest in relationship building. One key to building trust is to build familiarity. Your developers can’t trust you if they don’t know you. Time spent together—even just chatting in the lunchroom or exchanging fun GIFs over your chat app—can go a long way to establishing that level of comfort that leads to trust. Also, the more time you spend talking with stakeholders across the company, the more you can develop a common language to ensure everyone aligns around product strategy, goals, and vision. Every department has a unique shorthand, and your role as a product manager includes uniting all stakeholders around a shared language. 2. Keep your roadmap accurate and up to date. Trust goes both ways. Suppose you want to feel confident that your stakeholders will always be able to find the details of your latest strategy, timelines, and priorities. In that case, you’d better make sure that the roadmap is always current. If your stakeholders trust you—but they don’t trust the roadmap will always be up to date—you can expect them to come to you with their questions every time. And that’s one more reason to use native roadmap software. When your roadmap lives on multiple stakeholders’ computers as static files (XYroadmap-v3-new-FINAL-updated-v2.xlsx), someone could quickly be working from an outdated version. But if you have a purpose-built roadmap app, you’ll have one version—online, to which you can easily invite stakeholders—and updating it will be as simple as drag and drop. 3. Present your product information consistently The details on your product roadmaps will change over time, and you’ll include different information from one roadmap to another. But to build trust, you’ll want to create as consistent a process as you can to present that information each time. For example, if you add an epic or feature to the roadmap, you’ll want to explain how it supports the strategy. That process builds trust because it helps you show stakeholders the strategy behind your decisions. But here’s the key: Include that strategic reasoning every time you add an epic or feature. Using purpose-built roadmap software, you can drop a strategic statement just below the epic in the same bar. What’s important is that your stakeholders learn to find that strategy in the same place each time they see a new initiative added to the roadmap. To the degree your stakeholders have a consistent and predictable experience reviewing your product roadmap, it will enhance their trust in the process—and in you—and make them more self-sufficient. And remember: the more your internal stakeholders become more self-sufficient at staying current on your product strategy, goals, and responsibilities, the less time you and your team will have to explain—and repeat those details. Download From Product Manager to Product Leader➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '0d4b3291-d656-408e-a01c-f54629389934', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"});

Great products come from great product teams—not from frameworks. Using the right product framework can help guide a team’s work. But the product will be only as good as the people behind it. Product Frameworks Can Become a Crutch A few years ago, marketing author Seth Godin appeared on a business podcast. The host wanted to talk about Godin’s legendary blog, where he has published a post every day for decades. When the host asked him to describe his process for sticking to such an impressive schedule, Godin refused. I’ll paraphrase his response. The process I use to write a blog every day is irrelevant to everybody but me. The danger in telling it to you is that many people are looking for a shortcut or easy answer to becoming more productive. If they’re listening to us now, they might be hoping they’ll find it in a list of steps. They won’t. My process is just that, a process. It’s not the work itself. Don’t get me wrong. As a product leader, I encourage my teams to use whichever product frameworks they find helpful. LIKE.TG has written about frameworks to help with product prioritization,frameworks to develop an effective product strategy, and some of our favorites for UX designers, includingGoogle’s HEART framework. But as Seth Godin said, you need to avoid the trap of confusing your framework with the work itself. For product teams, that work involves all of the familiar roles product managers and product leaders are responsible for, including: Building and leading a great product team Getting to know your market and users Identifying market problems worth solving Earning the trust of your prospects and customers Directing your team’s energy toward the right strategic goals That bullet list could serve as your product framework. But you will need to execute each of those steps successfully, and the framework can’t magically make that happen. How Useful Are Product Frameworks? To answer this question, I’ll ask one of my own: Can your clothes lead to success? You know Steve Jobs wore identical outfits to work every day: the black turtleneck, the blue jeans, the sneakers. I’m guessing you also know why. It reduced the number of things he had to think about each morning, giving him more mental energy in the day for Apple. Thousands of entrepreneurs and executives followed that Steve Jobs framework. Today, we have thousands of business leaders wearing the same thing to work every day. But do we have thousands of more Apple-caliber companies out there as a result? Of course not. Which is a good lead-in to discussing what frameworks can and cannot do for product leaders and their teams. 1. Product frameworks free up time and creative energy. Think of all the steps along your journey, from developing a new product concept to get that product into your customers’ hands. Many of those steps will involve creative thinking, strategic planning, and effective teamwork. To get the most from your team on those steps, you’ll want them to have as much focus and mental energy as possible. Then there are the less-creative steps: the checklists, the meetings, the review processes. One way to free up more energy and time for the project’s creative aspects is to make these steps as routine and standardized as you can. Think about it this way. If your team’s sprint sessions run each time differently, team members will have to spend more time thinking about how they’ll handle the various ways the next meeting might go. They’ll also spend more time during each session discussing the logistics of the meeting itself, leaving less time to focus on the tasks they need to work on in the next sprint. The good news is that you can use frameworks to take your team’s guesswork and additional mental energy out of the project’s routine stages. For example, you can create frameworks to: Standardize your team’s sprint, retrospectives, and other meetings Give your team the right tools to complete their work efficiently. The right tool meant they don’t spend mental cycles thinking through how to manage those aspects of the job Create a standardized signoff process. A process ensures your team knows exactly when and by whom they’ll need their work approved before they can consider it done Most teams get this wrong, I believe, is thinking the right framework will improve their work’s quality or creativity. In reality, it works more like this: You use frameworks to move the logistical tasks to the background, so you can create more space and focus for the creative work. But the quality of that work will depend on your team’s talent and effort, not on the framework you’re using. You can put on a turtleneck and jeans, walk into your office, and brainstorm with your team. But if you want to develop a product as ingenious and disruptive as the iPhone, then you’ll also need to walk in with a Steve Jobs brain—and have a team as brilliant as his at Apple. 2. Product frameworks can help a team avoid skipping an important step. Use frameworks to help your team move the routine aspects of their work into the background. We can call this the turtleneck effect. By increasing standardization, you might find their newfound energy leads to some great ideas and increased enthusiasm. That’s great. But you need to be careful. If your team is so excited about an idea for a new feature and so energized to start building it, you could neglect an important step, such as your normal vetting process. You might be convinced the idea is viable, even groundbreaking. But before you commit resources to it, you’ll need to step back and take a few important steps. Maybe part of your process is to perform a cost-benefit analysis of any new functionality or ask your sales team if they’ve heard interest in such a feature from prospects or customers. You never want a framework to constrain your team’s creativity or to slow their work. But you also don’t want your process to be ad hoc, so driven by intuition, that you’re creating products using completely different processes every time. It would help if you constructed some guardrails to keep from going down the wrong path. Build a very loose framework that includes at least a few basic steps—such as “Let’s test this idea with our persona before building it.” 3. Product frameworks can prevent ad-hoc requests from pulling the team off-track. Using a product framework—and, more important, making sure your organization knows you’re using it—can also help your team deal more effectively with the never-ending stream of requests that can derail their progress. Let’s says your team has no fixed stages or guidelines during the development process. You improvise your approach from scratch for every new product or even for every update to an existing product. What’s to keep a sales rep or executive from demanding your team stop everything from building something they want to prioritize? Without a process that you can point to, you will have to negotiate these requests every time. And in many cases—particularly with an executive—you’ll lose. Worse, every time they have to shift gears and refocus on a different creative project, your team risks not fully re-engaging in the work they were doing on your product. Using a framework that allows you to stop accepting new ideas or requests after a certain stage will help you protect your product team from these disruptions and frustrations. It will let them stay focused creatively on the same initiative throughout the development process. That will improve the chances your product will be a success. Pro tip: make your own product framework mashup. Bruce Lee famously developed a unique martial arts style by using moves and strategies from many different fighting styles to build his own. Essentially, Lee created a martial arts mashup. You can do the same with your team’s framework for building products. A product framework exists to serve you, not the other way around. If you can’t find a framework that suits your team’s unique traits and needs, design your own. Or do what Bruce Lee did, and poach just what works for you from several existing frameworks. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '76387af0-7ef4-49da-8b36-28e99e4f5ba3', {"region":"na1"}); How Should Product Leaders Guide Their Teams? Working with product teams all over the world as part of my job with LIKE.TG, I often hear product managers explain that they use a framework—Jobs to Be Done, the Scaled Agile Framework, SWOT Analysis, etc.—because their Vice President of Product or CPO insists on it. I understand a product leader wanting to standardize how their teams build products. If every team uses an impromptu strategy every time, it can be challenging for the company’s product executive to gauge each team’s progress along the way. But as a product leader myself, I can tell you from experience that adhering to a product framework can become a crutch. A team can fall into the trap of devoting their energy to checking all the boxes on their framework—which takes the focus away from making sure they’re building a product that will make their customers’ lives better. My take on frameworks is that teams should treat them as suggestions and tips—not rules. Product leaders should encourage their teams to use frameworks only if they serve the team’s needs. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '57ff7e42-ccfa-4d9e-b5be-8a0f6ba69363', {"region":"na1"}); So, if they’re not going to insist on a product framework to manage their teams’ process step by step, how would I suggest product leaders guide their teams? They should focus on a few broad strategic goals: 1. Hire the right product team. I’ve written some tips on the LIKE.TG blog about knowing you’re hiring a good product team member so that I won’t rehash those details here. But I do want to point out that building great products starts with building a great product team. You can also think of it this way: even with an excellent product framework, a poor or inexperienced team will likely develop a disappointing product. 2. Give the team the tools they need. Once you’ve assembled a team of smart, skilled, and enthusiastic people, your next task as a product leader will be to equip them with the tools to succeed in their roles. This might include a project management platform, a product roadmap app, data analytics software—whatever tools your product team needs to accomplish the strategic goals they are attempting to achieve. One of these tools could even be a product framework. What’s important to keep in mind, though, is that the decision to use a framework—like the decision to use other tools—should from your product team. These should not be top-down decisions the product leader makes. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '83ca4782-9cfe-4234-83e5-2ac0ed8ecf84', {"region":"na1"}); 3. Establish success metrics to guide the team. You’ve built a strong team and equipped them with tools that will give them the best chances for success with the products they create. Now you’ll want to tell your team exactly how you will measure their product’s success. This is a key reason the right tools play such an important role in your product team’s work. If you choose user-session length as the success metric for your SaaS app, your team will need the analytics tools to monitor that data and learn how and where they can improve the app to increase session time. If you make revenue your main gauge of success, you’ll want to make it easy for the team to view every initiative on their roadmap through a lens of its revenue potential. In that case, you’ll want a web-based roadmap app that makes it easy to connect themes and epics to strategic goals. But it’s also important to remember that, just as no product framework can guarantee you a better product, the tools you buy for your product team won’t be able to do the creative work for them, either. When they open it for the first time,even the best roadmap software on the market will present your team with a blank screen. Download Product Success Metrics ➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '18f5a8aa-393b-4397-9fd4-f7758c1edf55', {"region":"na1"});

As a product manager at LIKE.TG, I’m particularly proud of our new integration with Zapier because of the impact I know it can make. My appreciation of Zapier’s capabilities started years ago when I worked inCustomer Success here at LIKE.TG. Back then, we used Zapier to automate how we shared NPS feedback across the company. It was empowering to reduce the time I spent in spreadsheets, and I felt a connection with our customers who had similar pain points. I remember thinking how much time they could save by integrating Zapier’s app with LIKE.TG’s roadmap platform. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '3dea6f5f-f0d8-4af6-984a-1814bd725dc2', {"region":"na1"}); The Challenge With Spreadsheets Spreadsheets are a natural part of my and many product managers’ workflows. Yet, the manual work they require can be at the detriment of my more strategic work. During my research and customer interviews, I continuously heard conversations like the following, “I have 40 product managers in ProductPlan. I need to quickly and reasonably see what everyone is doing entirely in ProductPlan. Yet, a lot is still happening in Google Sheets and requires a manual transfer, which is time-consuming.” This type of scenario is where setting up the Zapier integration fits seamlessly. The automatic updates will support the workflow of product managers much more cohesively (including my own). So the choice becomes: do you spend the afternoon populating a spreadsheet or unshackling your roadmap data and syncing it effortlessly across your organization? Moving roadmap data automatically with Zapier feels I have my own personal product management assistant. Before I geek out further on the benefits of having Zapier automatically working with my roadmap, I want to be clear; it’s not an end all be all ‘magic solution.’ You still have to make intelligent decisions for Zapier to connect all the data dots into your roadmap effectively. Do the work properly, and with the help of Zapier, you will stress less about how you’re going to organize your work. 4 Ways Zapier Can Improve Your Work 1. Less manual effort, more time and energy. The number of product stack apps is growing every day. Getting your data moving from one place, like a project management tool, to your roadmap can be a lot of manual effort. You can export and import using spreadsheets, but that involves much data reformatting and room for error with each manual input. If both tools in question have an API, you could use that to keep data in sync, but that will usually require engineering resources. Despite your best efforts, data in your roadmap becomes static. I could spend my time manually updating and reimporting regularly—but that’s counterintuitive to the nature of roadmaps. I know from speaking with my peers, this manual workflow left us unsure that the version we were sharing with our key audience was, in fact, the latest and greatest. There’s always the looming question, “What if changes are being made elsewhere and not reflected in LIKE.TG?” The time and energy I spent on remedial tasks felt so ingrained in my work but ultimately took away from the time and energy doing more important tasks, like talking to our customers. 2. Confidently manage a standardized, single source of truth. I’m constantly plagued by the feeling that as a PM, there can be a constant influx of information from various sources, all organized differently—Slacks, emails, research, talking to customers coming from everywhere. Sure, I can track it all in a notebook or my head, but to get it into a presentable format, I need to organize it manually. With the Zapier integration, standardizing your input sources is much easier to maintain. Inputs from Slack and email are funneled through Zapier into the LIKE.TG roadmap and repository format: ideas, descriptions, sources, and where those ideas are coming from all in the same formatting. Zapier, the dubbed product management assistant, has it all done for you in one central place automatically. I can export and import, prioritize, and share my roadmap. Then, the Zapier integration spits it out in a format that’s easy to manage. What are the critical decisions I can make because of this information? Previously, standardizing my work would take me an hour or two on a Friday afternoon. The beauty is you have Zapier, an execution tool, efficiently collaborating with, LIKE.TG, a more high-level tool. 3. Rethink how you execute things. Take a moment to ask yourself, what are the time-consuming or frustrating tasks that you can offload? The Zapier to LIKE.TG integration helped me rethink my work in many ways, but here are two examples. We use Pendo to track NPS. I used to export the feedback into a spreadsheet every week. I’d read through all of the input. Not anymore. Zapier automatically culls through keywords and pulls out the scores I’m looking for. We started using Zapier for our Sales “Deals Closed” announcement to unify the team and foster excitement and celebration when deals were closed. Slack’s post included how each deal closed, with a summary paragraph that mentions the feature or product use case that won the deal. Here’s another example that I heard from customers. They have a Google Form on their website for requests. Once a week, they would export, review, and then manually transcribe it into the roadmap—spending about an hour every week doing this. Zapier and LIKE.TG’s integration automatically combs through the requests. It reformats them in a way you want. Hop in the roadmap, see who sent the form, what plan they are on, and who they are. All that information is in real-time on your table. I am executing the action of data entry. That time spent thinking about those feature requests and prioritizing those requests was manual overhead. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '4077b305-9bcc-4a5a-a982-aad75ee06c23', {"region":"na1"}); 4. Support collaboration with your broader team. Last but not least, this integration empowers me. I’m not a technical person. I can’t build something with an API. Yet, with Zapier, I can skip the phase of sheepishly asking one of my developers for help to build an API. This opens up so many possibilities. At larger companies, it can take forever to get things done. Some of the work I’ve done in Zapier would take months to get done at a larger company. From securing engineering resources to actually building the sync, you could easily spend a quarter just trying to get the data you need instead of focusing on your core responsibilities. If a bunch of processes bogs you down, then you can’t achieve the job you’re actually trying to do. Do the thing instead of waiting. Any product manager can set this Zapier to LIKE.TG integration in a matter of minutes and not dedicate all your resources. That way, you have a quickie proof of concept with Zapier, and you’re not pulling engineers off of something more substantial. When I develop a plan with the rest of my team, Zapier will help me execute that plan with the tools that other teams, like marketing and sales, are using. This opens up possibilities for folks outside of the product. When we have feature requests, it can automatically pull these into our table view and comments through Slack, bringing visibility to anyone. It’s picking things up for me from all of my apps while working on my roadmap. Takeaways Zapier is a productivity tool. It’s a means to an end, but not a solution itself. Before, there was a disconnect between the ever-revolving cast of tools and our roadmap platform. Zapier integrating with LIKE.TG won’t make you a better product manager; you still have to make good decisions. What it did for me was change how I think about where I’m spending my time. Whether you use Zapier or not, I hope these examples help people think about how they can automate tedious processes or think about how they can be more efficient in their day-to-day tasks. Get Buy-In and Budget Approval on Your Product Stack➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, 'c4f7dcc8-378e-4b20-9c16-637fcb9589a5', {"region":"na1"});

When prioritizing items for our product roadmaps, we sort and select them based on their ability to influence key metrics, achieve strategic goals, delight customers, and generate revenue. In evaluating possibilities, we choose the initiatives that maximize ROI and make the most of the available time and resources. In short, we’re trying to create a positive impact, and one lens to deploy for these exercises is the IMPACT mindset I’ve written about in our new free ebook. But the decisions we make as product leaders extend far beyond which themes and enhancements cut the next release. In this blog, I want to talk about hiring with an IMPACT mindset. Deciding which roles our team needs and who should fill them exercises muscles product leaders don’t use that often. It’s not like we’re hiring new product managers every few weeks like some of our engineering counterparts might fill out their vastly larger ranks. Product management hires at all, but the largest companies are relatively few and far between. And because we don’t get many opportunities, that makes these decisions that much more critical. We can’t just hire another if the first turns out to be a dud without navigating painful human resources processes. Plus, we have to find someone else to do the work while restarting another lengthy recruitment and hiring process. There’s usually a decent appetite for experimentation, ongoing learning, and trial and error in product development. But not so much when it comes to staffing. This makes our hiring decisions in many ways even more impactful than some of the choices we make around our products themselves. Why hiring product managers is so hard I don’t need to tell anyone in product management that finding good talent is tricky; anyone who’s ever had the opportunity knows that resumes and cover letters don’t give you a full sense of the candidate. Plus, you tend to get a flood of highly unqualified applicants you still need to sift through. But why is a product hire so much harder than finding another engineer or salesperson, or customer service rep? It’s because we ask so darn much from product management at every level. No other job requires you to do many different things with a high level of competence and mastery. In addition to being asked, forced, and blessed to wear so many hats, there’s also no preferred path to a career in product management. Our ranks include former developers, marketers, analysts, and customer success reps. They all bring unique experiences and skills to the table. But comparing candidates with such diverse professional backgrounds can be challenging. Especially since they may all have their own ideas about what product management actually is and what the day-to-day job looks like. Product management also requires a broad slate of soft skills to succeed. These aren’t binary, checklist items that a hiring manager can surmise from a glance at their C.V., and your HR department typically can’t offer much assistance in this department either. It requires probing interview questions and reference checks that try and uncover the real person you’ll be working with and relying on if they join the organization. Using IMPACT to Choose the Right Product Hire We know product management hires are important and that it’s hard. Luckily we can apply IMPACT to this process to help ensure we make quality hires that increase productivity and cut down on turnover. IMPACT comes in handy from the very first step—writing a killer job description—to making the final decision. Each pillar gives us something to think about and consider as we seek out additional team members. Download IMPACT ➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '76387af0-7ef4-49da-8b36-28e99e4f5ba3', {"region":"na1"}); How to Hire with IMPACT Interesting You want to work with interesting people—you’re going to spend a lot of time with them, after all—so you can look for candidates with backgrounds you find intriguing. A clone army is not the goal for product teams, as every new person brings a new perspective and lived experience to the table. More importantly, you want to hire people who are interested in things. You want people that always have another question and are lifetime learners. They should be intrigued by customers and their stories, always inquisitive but not seeking to impose their viewpoints on others until they’ve done their homework. If they’re not curious, they’re not likely to be an excellent product manager. Meaningful Even the most junior product manager has a lot of leeway in how they spend their time. Since you don’t want to spend all your time babysitting your staff, finding candidates that are instinctually focused on important things is key. Their resume and how they talk about their past achievements can be indicatory in this department. Using language about “improving” or “enabling” things and “delighting customers” resonates with me far more than simply “increasing revenue” or “delivering” lots of projects. I’m looking for a strong moral compass and recognition that they have the ability to make a difference in people’s lives through their work… even if it’s on something relatively mundane. People Product management is a team sport, even if you’re the only one with “product manager” on their business card. No one in this role can succeed if they don’t work well with others. So, naturally, I’m seeking evidence of past success in this area and an awareness of its importance. “Collaboration” and “partnering” carry much more weight than simply “leading” or “running” things. Candidates must truly value the importance of working with others and creating alignment and consensus. Actionable Coming up with ideas is easy. Coming up with good ideas that are actually doable is a lot harder. I’m looking for team members that don’t let “perfect” be the enemy of “good.” This means actually getting things done. I also want individuals who identify doable opportunities and not just pie-in-the-sky ideas. By ensuring candidates are grounded in reality, I know they’re going to gravitate toward opportunities that are practical and possible. It necessitates a 360-degree-view of the situation, collaboration with technical stakeholders to assess how actionable things are, and a focus on incremental progress toward goals. I also want product managers who don’t just present information and problems. I want them to have a clear ask or solution to go along with it. This is happening, this is what it means, and this is what we need to do now. Clear Communication skills are one of the top requirements for successful product management, and I’m looking for clear, concise communication from candidates from the get-go. This starts with their own “elevator pitch,” as I expect them to entice me and sell me on them quickly. This isn’t to be mean or overly judgmental. Rather, it’s an indicator of their ability to command the room and convey the essential information—and do so in a convincing way. Product management is always competing for the time and attention of stakeholders. So I want to know they’ve got what it takes to thrive in those environments. Testable The job application and interview process is really one big series of tests and questions. Have they checked enough boxes to warrant a phone screen? Do they still seem interested after learning more about the job? Did they conduct themselves well during interviews with myself and colleagues and distinguish themselves positively versus the other candidates? hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '6dfa8cf7-7fd5-4e22-8d7e-edacfc23154a', {"region":"na1"}); I’m also testing for my comfort with the hire. What do they bring to the table, and how will it positively (or negatively) impact the combined skills, experiences, and talents of the overall team. Is it filling a need or duplicating an existing strength? But for a product management role, I will also literally put applicants to the test. These should be reserved for finalists out of respect for their time (and mine!). But for such a key hire, it’s important to see their work output and the tactics and strategies they utilize to do it. I have several examples of these test exercises in my book. Hire with IMPACT at Every Opportunity More than anything, incorporating an IMPACT approach into your hiring philosophy is all about making the most of the limited chances managers get to augment and improve their staff. Who we hire will have a massive impact on both the products in our portfolio and the teams we manage. We want assets instead of liabilities, high performers, and not needy neophytes. This requires scrutiny, inquiry, judgment, and a healthy dose of gut feel (which we normally try to tamp down in this line of work). At the end of the day, we want employees that share our values and work ethic. They should be worthy of our trust and not clash too much with our style. Using IMPACT is one way to ensure our choices match that intent.

Many of the customers we work with talk about their frustration with how they bring new products and features to the market. For some, launching a new product feels like an afterthought without a defined process. For others, a product launch is tossed over the fence to marketing, and what happens after that is a mystery. We want to help product people create thoughtful and repeatable plans for their next launch. We’ve introduced Launch Management (currently in open beta), a new space in LIKE.TG to plan, track, and share your upcoming launches. One of the key parts of Launch Management is the Launch Checklist, where you can work with your go-to-market team to decide what needs to be done to ensure your launch’s success. But how do you build a Launch Checklist? What should you include? How do you tailor the deliverables for the needs of your product, your audience, and your team? To help you, we’ve developed 6 tips for building your first launch checklist within ProductPlan. Read on to learn more! 1. Start Your First Launch Checklist With a List of Deliverables From a Previous Launch After you create your first launch within LIKE.TG, you’ll see what is perhaps a daunting blank slate of a launch checklist. Eventually, we will help you get started by populating your checklist with several task ideas that you could consider to help you launch your next product. But for now, the checklist remains blank, and you’ll have to build a list of launch tasks on your own. But fear not. Your first launch created in LIKE.TG is likely not the first launch you’ve experienced. If it’s not your first launch, we highly recommend you start your launch checklist by bringing over a list of tasks from a past launch. It doesn’t matter if they live in a spreadsheet, a slide, or even in your head. What matters is you create something that you can see in ProductPlan. Play with it. Begin to build out a list of options for what could go into your next launch. Once you have that, you can share it with your teammates and get feedback. Every launch is different, so there will always be a bit of tweaking based on the launch goal, the product or feature launched, the target audience, and more. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '527dc6af-8860-436f-9ca6-ae2b71b0cc99', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); 2. Start Your Launch List Early and Get Feedback From Your Launch Stakeholders As a product person, you might feel it’s your job to decide everything that should go into your next launch. You are the product expert, after all. But as you know, many launches involve work far beyond the conventional realm of product management. For example, there will be marketing campaigns to create product visibility and adoption, sales campaigns to acquire new customers, and support articles to help current customers understand how to use the latest thing you’ve built. You likely won’t be the expert on every task required to launch a product. So as you begin to build out your launch checklist, we encourage you to add members of your team to collaborate with you. By creating visibility into your launch checklist, you can spark conversations about the appropriate tasks required to ensure success. Field new ideas for training your internal teams on the latest product or find opportunities to communicate changes to new and existing customers. Successfully launching a product is everyone’s responsibility – not just the product team’s. All people involved in the launch should own the quality and completion of their deliverables and the outcomes they aim to achieve. It would help if you also involved your stakeholders early in the process. 3. Launch Deliverables Should Have a Single Owner It’s unlikely that every launch task will only require work from one person, and there will be many instances where an individual task may have multiple contributors. Take, for example, an enablement deck for your sales team. A project like this could involve a sales engineer, product marketing, and even a select group of salespeople for shaping and feedback. Despite this, we’ve found it is best to select one person (not one team) responsible for driving the task forward, reporting on progress, and ensuring it is completed on time. Either the selected person is doing the bulk of the work, or it could be the person who manages the team responsible for the work. Either way, a single owner means you know who to turn to when you need an update, and it also helps you create greater accountability among your go-to-market team. 4. Create a Playbook for Each Kind of Launch You Manage One of the best ways to create a consistent, repeatable, and thoughtful launch process is to create playbooks for each kind of launch you manage. Of course, not all launches are created equal, so they shouldn’t receive the same treatment. Some will require more resources, and others can provide a more significant opportunity for product adoption and engagement. In contrast, others are a footnote only relevant to a specific list of customers. To spend less time planning and more time executing, it helps to come up with a system to categorize your launches. Here are a few recommended ways you can go about it: Categorize your launch into tiers (i.e., Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, etc.) based on the number of resources and effort required. The tiers are a great way to help you prioritize launches, especially when you have more than one happening around the same time. Categorize your launches based on who they impact the most. Does your launch matter more to your existing customer base? Or does your launch provide you an opportunity to acquire new customers? Answering these questions can help you determine the kinds of launch tasks required. Think about what you’re launching regarding how it helps your business. Does it close a feature gap between you and your competitors? Or does your new product create a competitive advantage? Another way to think about this is whether what you’re launching is something your market expects or finds delightful. Regardless of how you choose to categorize your launches, the important thing is to build a playbook for each. Think about the tasks required for each category of launch and document them. Now, whenever you begin planning the launch of a new product or feature, you can categorize your launch and start running with an already-established playbook. 5. Choose Fully Deliverable Tasks Every launch task will likely require a few subtasks to complete. For example, an in-app onboarding flow might require a series of product images. Which begs the question: what level of tasks should you include in Launch Management? We recommend only including tasks that represent a fully completed deliverable. Because you will be wrangling a wide range of deliverables from different teams and stakeholders, you don’t want to over-clutter your launch checklist. It also gives the person responsible for the tasks the ownership and discernment to determine what is necessary and sufficient for that deliverable to succeed. 6. Create a Cadence to Review the Launch Checklist and “Check-off” What’s Complete Timing is one of the most critical elements of any launch. From the first product development task to the final marketing material, there’s a crucial timeline for when things are assigned and completed. Knowing these tasks need to be managed by various stakeholders requires a release of control and setting expectations. When will you review the checklists as the launch owner and ensure things are running on schedule? Whether your releases come each sprint, quarterly, or annually will determine the right cadence for you. You must regularly check in with the task owner and overall product launch owner. Whether in weekly meetings or managed asynchronously, setting expectations is crucial. You’ll want to ensure stakeholders are checking off tasks promptly. Though you need to ensure they don’t feel the added pressure of managing the minutia of each task. Simply put, building a launch checklist aims to make your life as a product person more manageable. This provides you with a single place to oversee and drill into the details of each launch. It would help if you encouraged other team members to contribute and share ownership. As Launch Management is currently in beta, please share your feedback and best practices you learn as you work on your Checklists! hbspt.cta.load(3434168, 'c0e72364-ed4f-4ef2-b88d-490d0ae4946f', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"});

Information overload is a pre-existing condition these days. In our personal lives, we have endless streams of news stories and social media updates to scroll through. Our workplaces also overflow with facts, figures, and anecdotes that, in theory, empower us to make better decisions. Yet, we can only absorb so much at once. We have programmed ourselves to tune out whatever seems irrelevant. This allows us to maintain our sanity. We must balance between providing too little and too much information. Our stakeholders need just enough information to make informed decisions. And unfortunately, we’re going overboard far too often. Conduct a Stakeholder Analysis ➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '3eb23c05-aee3-46a4-9662-df983ee6cc53', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); Making your case As product management professionals, our success depends on our ability to convince our stakeholders to pursue particular paths. We’ve prioritized these options based on what we’ve learned from our customers and the marketplace. From those findings, we align those insights with the business’s strategic goals. To move forward, we must make compelling and convincing cases to support these ideas. Without solid information, we can’t secure buy-in from our peers and superiors. We know hunches, emotional appeals, and personal preferences must take a backseat to data-driven decision-making and cold, hard facts. With the best of intentions, we want to give these stakeholders context. They require a full appraisal of the situation, the various dynamics, the ramifications of action or inaction. We want them to reach the same conclusion we’ve already reached. Though, we shouldn’t assume they need the same data and learnings we used to get there. At the same time, we want them to be independent thinkers. They should use their own autonomy to confidently reach conclusions they themselves believe in. This forces us to create a delicate balance, keeping the pendulum from swinging too far in either direction. Less is more when it comes to context We hear all the time that “context matters,” but there can be too much of a good thing. When we inundate stakeholders with information, a few bad things can and often do happen: They don’t see the forest for the trees. Context comes in many shapes and sizes, and it’s easy to focus on the elements you agree with or find interesting or seem problematic. When presented with an extensive buffet of contextual elements, stakeholders can miss the big picture or give certain areas disproportionate attention and weight. They get distracted by something non-essential. Shiny object syndrome can strike anywhere, and some stakeholders can easily latch onto a certain detail and zoom in when they should be zooming out. This might be because they’re desperately trying to poke a hole in your case because they’re not personally a fan or maybe they’d just rather go down a rathole than actually make a decision. Regardless of why, these tangents stretch the entire process out, make meetings take forever, and squash momentum. They mentally check out. People don’t listen when there is too much information. Humans can only take in so much at once, especially when they don’t think they’re getting enough real value or benefit. When their eyes glaze over or they pick up their phone, you know you’ve lost them. After that, they’re unable to process what they’re seeing, hearing, or reading and just go through the motions, relying on instincts and previously held beliefs rather than the new information they’re receiving. With these dangers in mind, we must instead adopt an essentialist approach to context. Understanding Your Audience and Your Objective Bearing in mind the risks of overwhelming your audience, the key to deciding what, how, and how much context to provide is working backward: Who is your audience and what do you want from them? Each stakeholder, whether they’re a busy executive, a marketeer, or a seasoned sales rep, has a unique set of priorities, interests, experience, and preferences to account for. You can use a little stakeholder analysis to figure these things out and try to see the situation from their perspective. Next, determine what it is you need from them and pre-define what constitutes success. It might be buy-in or approval for a roadmap or change request or funding, but you may also need them to actually do something new or in a different way. If you don’t know what you need your audience to do with this new information, how can you expect them to? They must know why this matters to them and impacts their job since people also don’t listen when they don’t know how to put that context to use. Choose Wisely and Select with Intent From this point forward, every portion of context you dole out should be with the sole intention of getting them closer to making that decision of instituting that change. Anything extraneous only works against you. Your product development team doesn’t need to know your buyers are price-sensitive, but your sales and marketing team do. And the executive team likely doesn’t need detailed statistics about how many people use your app on a tablet versus a smartphone, but that’s some invaluable context for the UX team. What we edit and leave out is in some ways more important than what we leave in. As we tailor what we share and how we share it based on our different internal audiences, we must strip things down to only the crucial bits of context for that particular crowd and the business need at hand. While this applies to discrete meetings, presentations, and emails, it extends all the way to the dashboards, reports, and automated updates we provide stakeholders. If we’re hitting them with too much irrelevant context on the regular, why should they start paying attention now? By creating limited, filtered views of data that actually matter for each cohort, we keep them focused on the most pertinent details. Finally, you must create accountability. You can’t just give them a market overview or a tour of personas or an update on a new technology. You must set the stage before presenting all that context by explaining what they’re supposed to do with that information and then finish up by reiterating the action items and deadlines. Tell Them with a Story One way to limit context overload is to present information as a story. But we’re not writing a novel or meandering fluff piece, this is a straight-to-the-point fact-rich account with a clear call to action. Relying on the inverted pyramid structure, the most important information is always first. Since the reader might stop at any point (not to mention an editor lopping off the end of the story for space or brevity), storytellers don’t get the luxury of tossing in colorful anecdotes and descriptions or sprinkling in interesting but non-essential asides. There’s still a narrative, but after a few paragraphs, everyone gets the gist and knows what comes next. Consider sharing your context with the same ruthless approach. What must they know to make an informed decision and what’s expected of them next? If they want more details, they can ask for them, but you need to keep it short, sweet, and simple. It might feel like you’re depriving them of immersing themselves in all you’ve learned. You may also be concerned you’re not giving a hard enough sell. But in reality, you’re giving them just enough to grant them informed autonomy, facilitating the decisions and actions the product needs without bogging them down with extraneous embellishments. With this stingy-but-sufficient approach, each stakeholder has the context they need to decide or act and you get the results you set out to achieve. Save the rest for the water cooler. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '9252db78-e0f2-4f64-b933-416e291c2422', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"});

Have your big-picture roadmap discussions in the roadmap itself Users of LIKE.TG’s roadmap app can always add comments to any bar or container in a roadmap. Users can click on an item in the roadmap and type a note or question into the comments field. The app even lets users add @mentions to their comments, to make sure the right stakeholders see them. But what if you want to add comments or questions about the roadmap? How can you start those higher-level conversations about product strategy or other roadmap-level issues? What if your comment or concern doesn’t fit neatly into any of the roadmap’s bars or containers? We discovered that many LIKE.TG users were creating these comment threads outside of our app—often in email and Slack channels. Feature: Roadmap-Level Conversations LIKE.TG has a feature that allows your team to have roadmap-level discussions within your roadmap itself. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '527dc6af-8860-436f-9ca6-ae2b71b0cc99', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); How does the new feature work Look for the bell icon in the upper-right corner of the LIKE.TG app? Clicking on it brings up our roadmap-level Comments menu. It lets you filter between Open Comments and Resolved Commentsto view All Comments for the roadmap. Now, when someone on your team wants to ask about timelines or budgets or competitive info—not for a particular theme or epic, but for the roadmap itself—they can start that conversation right here. Note: You can even have these high-level conversations for an entire portfolio of products if you’re using LIKE.TG’s Portfolio View to consolidate multiple roadmaps. With our Roadmap-Level Conversation feature, your team can now: Hold and document strategic discussions at the roadmap level (rather than the bar or container level). Review roadmaps asynchronously with your stakeholders. Discuss and resolve issues between individual roadmap bars and containers. Update your team on the status of roadmap initiatives, identify blockers, request additions, and document changes—all within your roadmap interface. You can also resolve comments at the roadmap level. This way, all stakeholders quickly ensure they’re participating in the latest conversation about the current roadmap. Make it easy for stakeholders to see what’s changed since they last viewed the roadmap Our app does a great job of tracking all changes to your roadmaps. But your stakeholders have limited time. They want to see those changes quickly without reading through a long list of details. Here’s how we took that customer feedback to make our app even better. What our customers wanted Sonia works for a multibillion-dollar tech solution company, and her team uses LIKE.TG for their product roadmaps. We’ve heard variations on her request from many customers. Here’s how she summarized the issue: “I want to see a view of what was planned and what actually happened. It’s not a question of what was completed or not, it’s a matter of understanding how our plans changed.” We knew we could do better. So, we created the Visualize Roadmap Changes option.” Feature: Visualize Roadmap Changes How it works With this feature, you can simply click a button and visually display the differences between roadmap versions or the differences between the roadmap at any two points in time. As you can see from the screen above, clicking into the History section still allows you to display roadmap changes as a list. Those updates display on the right-hand side. But now you can also toggle to a visual depiction of this information. As you can see in the main panel above, the app can now also display the changes to the bars and containers. For example: Items moved show both original and new placement, connected with lines and arrows, and are color-coded with red borders. Green borders depict items added to the roadmap. Strikethroughs show items removed after the previous version. With the app’s Visualize Changes feature, your team can: Make roadmap changes easy to grasp for stakeholders. Quickly and easily compare a roadmap between any two points in time. Eliminate the need to manually recreate visual changes for executive and other stakeholder roadmap updates. Visually monitor your performance and progress over time. (For example, to determine if your team is moving an items’ deadline more often than you’d like.) Takeaway These new features address two very different use cases in our app, but they have a common theme: improved roadmap collaboration. At LIKE.TG, we are always looking for ways that our roadmap app can help your team communicate and collaborate more efficiently—so you can build great products. Try our Visualize Roadmap Changes and Roadmap-Level Conversations features, and let us know if they hit the mark with your team. Get Your Free Roadmap Template Guide ➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, 'aade5d3d-4c0b-4409-b1c0-31d727a356aa', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"});

Does your product team celebrate launching that feature they’ve spent the last three months working on and then never give it another thought until it breaks? Is the senior leadership at your organization constantly ordering you to work on the top 10 priorities that change every other day? Are you too busy to reflect on how your product team can work better together? Then you probably have to begin to face the challenges of being in a feature factory. What is a feature factory? John Cutler coined the term feature factory upon hearing a software development friend complain that he was “just sitting in the factory, cranking out features, and sending them down the line.” The term has gained traction ever since. And even with all the bad-mouthing that feature factories have received since John originally coined the term, they still exist. LIKE.TG’s 2023 State of Product Management Report found that 54% of roadmaps are designed around outputs. Only 43% communicate outcomes. Who knows what the other 3% focus on… What happens when a product team is a feature factory So are feature factories all that bad? After all, you’re producing a lot of features. Isn’t that a good thing? Not always, no. Your unrelenting focus on pushing features out to market results in multitasking, over-utilization, and the hard-core environment that only Elon Musk would love. Ways to know your team is a feature factory: You produce a lot of features, but you don’t always know how they relate to each other and if they produce a viable solution. Your product becomes too complicated to use. You constantly add features and never remove any. Your product becomes too difficult to maintain. When you furiously add features without considering how they work with existing features, you end up with a maintenance nightmare. You introduce many features, but you never take the time to reflect on how to improve them. Instead of iterating, you move on to the next big thing. You’re more likely to introduce features solely for the sake of closing a big deal, which leads to several of the issues described above. Download How to Structure Your Product Management Organization for Success➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '5a8c45d2-3eb5-402a-ac48-fe7597dd4d69', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); How does a product team become a feature factory? Ok, so if feature factories are so bad, why do so many product teams go down that path? Our 2023 State of Product Management Report gave some clear indicators. Per the report: “Reviewing customer feature requests” is the number one source of actionable product ideas (35%). That’s not too surprising because feature requests (usually expressed as a solution) can seem like an easy way to decide what to work on. But when you don’t dig deeper into those requests and identify the underlying problem, you risk hoping on the feature conveyor belt – introducing features with no overarching understanding of why except for “our customers asked for it.” Role of senior leadership Senior leadership is also a common source of product ideas, according to the report. That source of ideas comes with a big downside – a lack of product manager confidence. The report explained product managers are “five times more likely to rate their confidence [in their ability to identify problems worth solving] at one out of six when ideas come from senior leadership compared to respondents getting their ideas from other sources” Suppose senior leadership tells you what to build. In that case, you’re probably not going to be very confident in your ability to identify problems to solve, and you’re more likely to focus on outputs. Another reason teams focus on outputs and risk becoming feature factories because it’s hard to measure outcomes. When asked if the return on product development investments meets their senior leadership’s expectations, nearly a third of PM’s responding to the survey said, “I don’t know.” Based on the low adoption of tools for post-release evaluation and reporting, you could interpret that as a sign that they aren’t measuring return on investment. So if you don’t have a good way to measure return on investment, the path of least resistance is to measure progress by how much stuff you’ve delivered. As proof of that, 70% of roadmaps most influenced by senior executives focus on communicating outputs over outcomes. A final cause of feature factories is a poor execution of your product strategy or lack of a clear product strategy. Ideally, your product strategy provides the tie between your business’ goal and objectives and your plans for your product. Suppose you don’t have that guiding north star. In that case, you’re more likely to find yourself whipsawed from one emergency feature release to the next to satisfy the loudest customer or the latest HiPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion). Feature factory, here we come. How to avoid the trap It doesn’t have to be that way. There are some simple ways that your product team can avoid the soulless monotony of cranking out features. To start, change how you communicate what you’re building and why. Talk more about the value you’re delivering and less about the specifics of the features you’re working on. Next, treat customer requests as feedback – Talk directly to your customers, and learn how to read into their requests to find the underlying problem. After all, customer requests are feedback, not requirements. Finally, give product teams a mission – a problem to solve – and let them figure out how to solve it. When the outcome comes from leadership, it should be clear they care about it, so your team will look to how well they’re solving the identified problem as your gauge of success. Want more insights like this? Check out our 2023 State of Product Management Report to get in-depth information about where product teams are now and where they’re headed. Download Our 2023 Product Management Report➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '3606e408-64b7-428e-92de-d70da69b7d2a', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"});

I have been fortunate to have joined the LIKE.TG team as the SVP of Product Management in the latter half of 2022. As I experienced the whirlwind of onboarding and meeting my wonderful colleagues, I also spent much time thinking about the future of product management and the space at large. We have seen the rise of product operations, the Great Resignation, a renewed focus on digital transformation, and challenging economic uncertainty. However, throughout this period of monumental change, the product community continued to advance the field with shared knowledge and support, which allowed us to become more connected, even while many of us were still remote. Part of our mission at LIKE.TG is to support the product community with insightful, data-packed content that provides actionable insights and serves as a valuable resource for product leaders and teams alike. So, I am honored to share some highlights from The 2023 State of Product Management Report. How the state of product management report works Our eighth annual report explores significant trends and data-packed findings on the state of our industry. We surveyed over 1,500 product professionals last October. Our largest cohorts of respondents were “product managers,” “product owners,” and “directors of product.” A majority of respondents, 34 percent, had between 2-5 years of experience, with 33 percent reporting that they worked at an organization of 101-1,000 employees. Furthermore, most respondents reported working in “information technology and services,” while “computer software” came in at a close second. This year’s report focuses on how product teams support the entire product lifecycle from ideation to launch. These findings fill me with excitement about the future of product management and the multitude of possibilities to push our field forward. Keep reading to learn key takeaways from the report and how it will impact product management organizations in the year ahead. Cross-functional alignment is one of product management’s most significant challenges for 2023 Across various industries, product leaders often need help aligning their product strategy with organizational goals. Usually, this is the result of communication breakdowns amongst various stakeholders. According to our 2023 State of Product Management Report, 37 percent of those surveyed reported that “getting cross-functional alignment on product direction” was their biggest challenge. Struggling to get stakeholders on the same page is nothing new, but it becomes more challenging as companies look to scale. Ineffective communication can have devastating effects, including lackluster product launches and breaking trust among product teams and executive stakeholders. One way to look at this is as an opportunity to establish better communication strategies with all departments—executive leadership, customer success, marketing, and sales. Influential product leaders engage stakeholders and ensure conversations remain productive and informative. Best practice: use a product roadmap as a single source of truth for communicating with stakeholders A product roadmap is ideal for capturing important initiatives that product managers can share with stakeholders throughout the product lifecycle. The right roadmapping software can provide product teams with the ability to communicate roadmap changes to stakeholders, allowing them to understand changes to the roadmap at different points in time. A quick look back at the challenges product organizations faced has changed since 2022 As we look ahead to the new year, we must reflect on how product management trends have changed. According to our 2022 State of Product Management Report, 22 percent of respondents reported that “planning and prioritizing initiatives” was their most significant challenge. This challenge is likely the result of organizations readjusting after weathering the worst of the pandemic. We also found that 37 percent of respondents reported that they would allocate a significant portion of their budget to hiring product managers. Tightening budgets requires product organizations to scale more efficiently When looking at budgets for 2023 and comparing them to our 2022 report, hiring remains the primary bucket for budget allocation at 22 percent. Despite recent layoffs and the Great Resignation, the product management field continues its upward trajectory regarding new hires. In fact, according to Linkedin, 43 percent of organizations surveyed reported the need to hire more product managers. Though hiring was top-of-mind for our respondents, budget allocation to “change management initiatives” came in at a close second at 20 percent. Product leaders know that to execute change management effectively, they must first gain alignment amongst their team and stakeholders. Best practice: The seven R’s of change management Successful change management requires significant planning, strategy, and communication with all key stakeholders. To start, product leaders must focus on understanding the seven R’s of change management: The REASON for the change The RISKS of changing The RESOURCES required to implement the change Who RAISED the change request What RETURN is necessary for the transition to be considered a success The parties RESPONSIBLE for each aspect of the change The RELATIONSHIP between this particular change and other recent, concurrent, or future changes Product teams are focusing on using product metrics to measure success in addition to business metrics Each product team is uniquely positioned to identify how to measure product success. According to our report, 33 percent of respondents concluded that their team’s primary success metric was product metrics. Last year, our report ascertained that product managers who used “product metrics” as their primary success metric said that product experience had the most significant impact on customer acquisition. Additionally, 32 percent of respondents reported that “business metrics” defined how they measured success. Best practice: product metrics inform the success of the product vision When done correctly, product and business metrics can work together to help product teams understand where they are at accomplishing the product vision. In essence, the product vision serves as a north star that helps the ever-evolving product strategy and tactics remain focused. Everything the product team accomplishes aligns with the product strategy and using the product and business-oriented metrics can inform teams of their impact. Despite the challenges ahead, the future looks bright for product management When product teams align their product strategy with organizational goals, the value they provide their customer grows exponentially. Moreover, when product teams own the product lifecycle, product market success tends to follow, which challenges the efficacy of the top-down approach. I look forward to you reading our 2023 State of Product Management Report. My colleagues and I hope you and your product team benefit from the many insights found within the report. Feel free to share with your colleagues and friends! Download Our 2023 Product Management Report➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '3606e408-64b7-428e-92de-d70da69b7d2a', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"});

Let’s imagine you’re planning a trip across the country. You know where you’re departing from, where you want to get to, and what resources you have available (like the vehicle, budget, traveling gear, etc.), so all that is left to do is to map your way there. There are a couple of ways you can do this: you can plan your trip according to the time you have available (i.e., you need to get from point A to point B in x amount of days), or you trace your route based on the sights you don’t want to miss. Another option is to be more flexible, choosing the road you want to travel and picking the stops along the way. Product roadmapping frameworks work in a very similar way. There are a few routes you can take to achieve your product goals. As you choose which one you want to take, you must consider how you will allocate your resources along the way and set milestones to check off as you get through. Let’s map this out. Recap: What are Product Roadmaps? A product roadmap is a holistic visual document that outlines your product’s growth path. A stellar roadmap includes the release of new features, key dates, product updates, and the product vision – giving context to the product lifecycle. Product roadmaps are a good way for organizations to prepare for the future. If there’s a new product to launch, the tasks and timeframes will also be clear to everyone. Why is roadmapping important for product led-growth? In the era of product-led growth, the product roadmap is essential. Roadmapping helps you list all your competing priorities and narrow them down to what’s most important and relevant for the team and stakeholders. Prioritization is another crucial part of product-led growth. According to LIKE.TG’s 2022 State of Product Management Report, it’s the most challenging aspect of product management, with 22 percent of survey respondents ranking it as their biggest hurdle. Hence, besides electing the roadmapping framework that works best for your organization’s goals, choosing the right prioritization framework to help you determine the most important tasks and milestones along the way is also important. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '527dc6af-8860-436f-9ca6-ae2b71b0cc99', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); An effective product roadmap will: Support vision and strategy A product roadmap will outline how your product vision and strategy can become a reality. It should convey the strategic direction for your product and tie it back to the company’s strategy. But it should also be a source of inspiration, motivation, and shared ownership of the product and its successes. Guide teams toward success Sometimes we know what success looks like, but while managing all branches of product development, we can forget the actions needed to succeed. A product roadmap will keep you on track. Strengthen internal alignment Strong product-led teams have strong and well-oriented synergy between engineers, product leaders, marketers, customer support, and all other stakeholders. A product roadmap will serve as a guide to keep teams aligned and accountable for the same goals and milestones. Help communicate with external stakeholders and customers A strong customer and stakeholder relationship is one that acts as a partnership. Achieving that requires a transparent line of communication that can paint a picture of the company’s evolution and future. With a customer-facing roadmap, you ​​can address common questions from your customers like: What is the company working on right now? What new features and updates are coming next? Why is the company doing what they are doing? What to avoid when building a product roadmap A common and unfortunate mistake made by SaaS product teams is to treat the roadmap as a static, archival document developed early in the product development lifecycle. A successful product roadmap evolves alongside your product. Traditional roadmapping methods like spreadsheets and Gantt charts can be impractical for the team as they focus primarily on task management rather than setting actionable milestones that center on product success. A visual and collaborative roadmap can be more effective in communicating and tracking progress. Who is Responsible for Roadmapping? Creating a product roadmap is primarily a responsibility of the Product team, but it is also a group effort as it concerns all internal stakeholders. This combination of collaboration and discrete ownership gets stakeholders onboard while maintaining informational integrity and avoiding a free-for-all atmosphere. Product management begins with a clear understanding of the product’s and the organization’s strategic objectives. Then, with the desired outcomes in mind, product management creates the key themes for this portion of the product’s lifecycle. Tip: Chameleon has an excellent guide to Product Management frameworks that can help you strategize your growth path. In a remote-first world, collaboration can become somewhat of a challenge. However, there are frameworks and tools that can facilitate successful collaboration, like LIKE.TG’s dynamic roadmapping tool that offers key features that enable collaboration: Custom views: show stakeholders exactly what they need to see Roadmap level conversations: hold and document conversations within the roadmap Integrations: connect your roadmap with your tech stack to track progress, status, and completions. Watch our webinar: Working Better Together: How to Collaborate in a Remote World 3 Examples of Roadmapping Frameworks Let’s go back to the cross-country road trip analogy at the start of this article. If you’re starting to map your trip out, you typically ask yourself the following questions: Where am I beginning my journey? What is my final destination? What resources do I have? How long do I have to get there? What are the routes I should consider? Who else is involved in my trip, and what are their goals? As you answer these questions, you’ll better understand your goals and what roadmapping framework makes the most sense, given your resources, constraints, and priorities. We’ve selected three frameworks that work well for product teams. Timeline roadmaps If you’re working on a new product release and have it tied with a specific date-based event in the future, the best strategic move is to use a timeline roadmap. This type of roadmap outlines every task and step your team members need to take to achieve the final goal and the timeframe to complete each milestone. The timeline roadmap is a visual representation of a strictly time-constrained workflow. That said, this type of roadmap would suit a Scrum workflow within sprints. To make it easy to understand, you can include the upcoming tasks that need to be completed and attach key dates and other relevant information. Share the roadmap across the teams in your organization to ensure everyone is on the same page. Here is an example of a Release Plan Template Swimlane roadmaps On the other hand, if your product or feature release is not explicitly connected to a specific date, you can exclude the dates from your roadmap. Instead, you could make it quarterly-based with an overview of the planned product lifecycle development. The swimlane roadmap is also a good choice for emphasizing what is planned, what’s in progress right now, and what has already been completed. Here’s a template to help you build a roadmap aligned with your product development Flexible roadmaps Flexible roadmaps are another way of organizing the roadmap for your next product or feature release. It can be a release-based, an outcome-based roadmap, a roadmap based on customer requests, or any other type that suits your needs that aren’t strictly related to a specific timeframe. Besides that, in our guide to flexible roadmaps, we also talk about the value that lean, feedback-oriented roadmaps can bring to your team – and your customers. You can use in-app surveys to evaluate customer satisfaction, include them in feature ratings or request voting, and collect feedback to make better-informed decisions. Use the insights you gain to validate your feature ideas and further iterate your roadmap. Product landscapes vs. roadmaps While a roadmap answers the questions of “what” and “when” to build, a landscape answers the question “why”. In other words, a product landscape gives a broader picture of the product’s context. It includes the product mission, go-to-market strategy, and the overall position of the product in the market, along with the desired vision of where the product is going. Tools for Successful Roadmaps Alright, now that you know what framework works best for you, it’s time to build your roadmap. Here are a couple of tools to help you in the process. LIKE.TG: Build your roadmaps LIKE.TG is a roadmap platform that aligns team members in a visual, dynamic, and intuitive interface that concentrates your roadmapping efforts in a single, customizable space. Chameleon: Gather user feedback Chameleon is a Digital Adoption Platform that allows you to create code-free and native-looking in-product experiences that boost product activation and adoption. You can run in-app surveys to gather contextual user feedback and use it to inform your strategy. Choosing the Right Framework Whether you’re starting your roadmap from scratch or revisiting and updating your existing one, we hope this guide will help you choose the right framework. Before you get to it, let’s just recap some key points: Use your product strategy and vision to guide you in the roadmapping process. Prioritize tasks and milestones that will get you closer to your ultimate goal. Avoid static roadmaps that do not evolve alongside your product. Leverage collaboration in the process of building your roadmap. Use different SaaS tools to optimize your roadmapping process. See you at the end of the road! hbspt.cta.load(3434168, 'd3fa5225-9b84-4eae-8910-23016a8b8f99', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"});

We are excited to welcome guest writer John Cutler to the LIKE.TG blog. John is a product coach with Amplitude, where he collaborates with internal teams, customers, prospects, and the broader product public. Product teams are no stranger to the ever-changing and continuous demands of consumers and executives alike. When you create and update a particular product, it’s important to make sure the product does “things” that people need it to do. A list of available features holds obvious value to a customer—you can see in one quick bulleted view what the product has to offer and how it will fit your needs. But are features truly the only beacon of light for high-impact product work? Do the constant feature requests (and the ongoing efforts to communicate progress on those requests) distract developers and product managers from being able to create a more sustainable and meaningful product? We asked those questions, and more, in a recent interview with expert panelists Abbie Kouzmanoff, product manager for Amplitude, and Jim Semick, veteran product manager and one of the founders of ProductPlan. What are the pitfalls of focusing myopically on features while creating and communicating roadmaps? How do you avoid feature-fixation, and instead use themes and “north stars” as the guiding light for creating long-term value not only for customers but for product teams as well? Features and Inertia Feature-based roadmaps have long been the norm of product development, they put product managers in the hot seat to “deliver” the roadmap “to plan.” While in many ways it makes sense to first answer the question of “what are we building, and in what order?” the key is balancing that need against the upside of taking a less prescriptive approach. Certainty and surface-level predictability come at a cost. Once the team has converged on a specific feature—or set of features—it can be difficult to change course. We become less likely to respond to new information, and we don’t work in ways that elicit new information. We all have difficulty counteracting inertia, confirmation bias, and escalation of commitment. For example, Jim shared a past experience where his team helped develop software in the property management industry that would help property managers move tenants into their apartments faster. They created a roadmap based on an idea about what they were going to build and all the features it would encompass. Unfortunately, they were overly optimistic and got stuck. It took a long time to deliver that first feature. With this feature-based roadmap viewpoint, it was very hard to shift priorities along the way. Alternatively, Jim noted, “Had we created a theme-based roadmap, we could have delivered value to customers a whole lot faster. We could have learned faster. We could have introduced features more iteratively to our customers, and it might have re-prioritized what we did.” It’s really important to be able to test the riskiest assumptions first before committing to specific features. Instead, Abbie recommends, it’s better to treat features as options and give yourself the time for iterative learning—testing out and learning what features will have the biggest impact and save time in the long run. The end game is outcomes, rather than outputs. You might have an idea for a great feature to build, but that feature doesn’t necessarily create a business outcome or solve a customer problem. And in the end, as Abbie asserts, “[A feature-based roadmap] doesn’t set you up for really evaluating yourself once that feature has actually gotten out there.” So what is the alternative? hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '53ae44b5-ec4d-4ff8-9d1c-56626297bb4c', {}); Product Themes and North Stars Themes and the North Star framework can be used by themselves or in tandem to address the traps above. Importantly, both can still be used even if your roadmap is currently feature-based. The key goal is coherence and shared understanding. Themes With a theme, features connect to an overarching idea for that work. Themes are a great nudge to see the bigger picture, link to a particular strategy or companywide objective, and allow for stakeholder buy-in. You can create a theme-based roadmap in several ways. The important part is tying together your theme with certain features to illustrate the benefits. A theme does a couple of things. It helps you earn stakeholder buy-in because—ideally—it is tied to the objectives of the company, in addition to the outcomes that you want to create for customers. Talk with your stakeholders about themes first and come to a consensus together. Then you can begin to plug your features into that theme. It helps you stay strategically on track. Jim notes, “You’re going to get distracted. You’re going to get distracted by a loud customer. You’re going to get distracted by the next shiny object. Someone’s going to come to you with a fantastic idea, and that idea is often phrased in terms of a feature.” With a theme, you are less lured by flashy ideas because the feature inevitably requires alignment. That way, even if you get distracted by a fantastic idea, you can decide whether to put the effort into it if it doesn’t fall in line with the theme.” Think back to the property management feature-based roadmap example, had Jim and his team started with a theme, they would have created a more innovative product. “If our theme was about moving in renters 50% faster, we could have started to measure our progress against that. It’s a lesson that I learned along the way and one that I would encourage you to do.” hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '527dc6af-8860-436f-9ca6-ae2b71b0cc99', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); North Star Framework In contrast, a North Star Framework represents your product strategy with a primary (North Star) metric and a series of inputs. Together, this “tree” of metrics serves as an effective way of capturing assumptions, beliefs, and known causal relationships between different components and subcomponents of a product strategy. For example, Amplitude’s North Star, Weekly Learning Users (WLUs), has three inputs related to activating customers and encouraging users to create and share their insights. Each input is a key facet of their team-focused, learning-focused strategy. Zeroing in on the right North Star metric can be a bit of a challenge. However, it forces you to ask hard questions related to your product strategy. How can you tell if you’re on the right track? Here are the key characteristics of an effective North Star, according to Abbie: It focuses on customer value and the exchange of value. For example, daily active users (DAUs) don’t really tell you anything about the value that was exchanged. It represents your unique product strategy. It is not generic. It connects the customer value you are trying to create as a product team with the business impact that the executive team in your company ultimately cares about. Once you have a strong North Star in place, it has an exponential impact on decision-making. With WLUs as a guide and reminder, Abbie’s team was able to take a routine feature request (the ever-popular in B2B “Bulk Editing of Records”), and ask “How does this impact learning and WLUs?” By asking that question, they’re able to see past the surface request to understand the deeper impact on how teams create and share insights. Abbie explains, “It’s a tool to communicate and say, ‘Hey, we still want to solve this customer pain, but we all know that we’re working toward this metric. This alternative path will really get us to that metric faster.’” Themes North Stars At a high level, both Themes and North Star Frameworks are tools for alignment and sensemaking. They are complementary. A team might use the North Star Framework to create alignment around a product strategy, and then attach Themes to North Star “inputs.” Themes are flexible and can be used to describe any number of dimensions related to the work. The job you’re hiring both to do is very similar: inspire aligned autonomy, encourage the best solutions and decisions, and foster a shared language. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '5894a003-79ce-4ea3-9804-dae280a96106', {}); How to Get Started Wondering how to integrate themes and a framework like North Star Framework into your roadmapping process? Here’s where to start. Have lots of conversations, brainstorms, and “testing.” See if your proposed themes and/or North Star metric and inputs withstand extra scrutiny, like the “yeah buts” and “what ifs.” These tools will only be useful if people can actually use them, so they must be “usable,” even if that means a little less theoretically correct. Buy-in is one of the biggest hurdles to adopting a feature-less roadmap. Abbie and Jim recommend that your first goal be to establish themes alongside your entire team—not just the key product decision-makers. Get everyone from design to dev on board with your themes and see where the journey takes you! Above all, keep the “why” in mind. Don’t remove features from a roadmap just to scratch a dogmatic itch. The reason you do this—along with Themes and North Stars—is to inspire better decisions. This, in turn, delivers more value to your customers and leaves your team happier and more proud of their work. Check out the webinar to learn more about feature-less roadmapping. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '3f36d63f-fe4f-400d-ab83-a64b28767625', {"region":"na1"}); John Cutler shares more of his product leadership thoughts in Spotlights: John Semick “The most daring thing I’ve done is shut up and observed”, below.

Product teams are as diverse as the products they help bring into existence. While backgrounds and experience can vary broadly, all product managers come to work with a similar core foundational skillset that organizations rely on to build successful products. Product leaders (e.g., CPOs, VPs of product, head of product, etc.) have the weighty challenge of bringing these diverse PMs together to form a cohesive team with a unified vision and aligned goals. Of course, not all product leaders are created equal. Some stand out from the rest as exemplary in the role. What separates the average product leader from the superstars who energize their teams and provide the right leadership, support, and space to enable teams to create and steer products to successful outcomes? In this post, we’ll explore some of the key skills and qualities that elite product leaders share, and we’ll also identify what separates the standouts from the status quo. What elite product leaders have in common Truly great product leaders share ten key attributes we’ll examine more closely here. 1. Driven to lead Elite product leaders are natural-born leaders. They are driven to lead. Not only do they know what needs to be done, they know how to get it done. They make prioritization look easy. But they also trust their team and nurture their people to lead. Leadership in and of itself is a core value. Bill George, the former CEO of Medtronic and senior fellow at Harvard Business School, knows a thing or two about cultivating an environment of leadership. (George wrote several books that explore leadership: True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership and Discover Your True North.) “The role of leaders,” he contends, “is not to get other people to follow them but to empower others to lead.” 2. See alignment as a cornerstone An elite product leader stays firmly aligned to vision, strategy, and an organization’s goals. The alignment of all three is considered sacred and unshakeable. But more important: this alignment is shared. And it becomes the glue that unites the product team. “It’s no longer good enough to build products customers love. Elite product organizations must work across multiple dimensions, building products customers love, that achieve the company’s objectives at the lowest cost and best use of resources. Elite product leaders are the multi-dimensional connector across teams, functions, and all levels of the company hierarchy.” (Connie Kwan, How to Run an Elite Product Organization) hbspt.cta.load(3434168, 'c6a78b23-a2f3-46e3-bc23-4578f7506068', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); 3. Powerful storytellers A product leader holds a strategic and visible spot for the product team within the company and has a great deal of power in setting the tone companywide. An elite product leader understands the power of effective storytelling and why getting the story right and telling it well are so important for product teams. They use stories to simplify, engage emotions, and be memorable. And when these three boxes are checked, that story becomes shareable–an ideal outcome for a product team. In Building a Storybrand, Donald Miller suggests that the job of product is “not simply getting products to market, but also communicating why customers need those products in their lives.” Without a strong story that persuades and sticks in people’s minds, even the best products can be drowned out in a crowded marketplace. 4. Seek meaningful engagement Elite product leaders know how to motivate members of their team by meaningfully engaging them. They also encourage, support, and mentor their team members. They understand their people and know what makes them tick. And they see team members as individuals who bring unique skillsets and experiences to the group. Elite product leaders understand that building a great product begins with building a great product team that scales alongside product vision and goals. 5. Offer ongoing connection Product leaders are often responsible for hiring. Building the right team culture begins here but doesn’t end here. It’s an ongoing, intentional effort to cultivate the right culture. That intention might take setting a weekly goal for customer interactions or a daily time to check in on product usage. (Note: Elite leaders use their products.) Building a truly great team must be as intentional as building a truly great product. Elite product leaders know that “great product teams don’t build themselves or come together by chance or accident. Instead, it takes a dedicated leader to envision, shape, and nurture the team and its members so it can grow and scale with the products they manage.” 6. Intentionally build community There are many ways to generate an intentional product community. The easiest way is to relevant read books and articles and listen to podcasts. Join groups that create an external product bridge. Connect internally within the product group by launching a book club or setting up a casual monthly or biweekly meetup to talk shop. Merge internal and external communities by attending conferences together. 7. Data-driven (but not data-obsessed) Data is essential for a product team to make informed decisions. But sometimes, there’s so much data coming at the team; it’s challenging to know what to focus on or how to manage it so that it can be useful. Elite product leaders can skillfully balance the flow of data, get the right systems to manage it, and identify what’s most important. 8. Extraordinary communicators It really can’t be overstated just how essential strong communication skills are to the entire product team, but especially product leaders. Elite leaders can strike a strategic balance in knowing what to say, when, how to say it and to whom. Getting it right (or wrong) can make or break a product. 9. Amplify efficiency Increasing efficiency across product teams and organizations is the hallmark of product operations. To elite product leaders, this means long-term sustainability and effectiveness. This efficiency stems from “implementing standardization around metrics, infrastructure, business processes, best practices, budgeting, and reporting.” Further, it means enabling product teams with the tools and processes they need to do their jobs successfully. 10. Customer-driven (borderline customer-obsessed) Being customer-driven is a hallmark of a successful product organization. That being said, an elite product leader might be seen as more customer-obsessed. They take customer feedback and the customer experience very seriously. And they use this feedback to inform strategic product decisions about which goals to pursue. How do elite leaders view mistakes? Elite product leaders are not superhuman. They certainly make mistakes along the way. But they don’t bury those mistakes or distance themselves as quickly as possible from their mistakes. They circle back and poke at them, dissect them, and hold them up to the light to learn from them. Mistakes become teachers. Mistakes provide valuable insights. Leaders know this, embrace this, and put this value into action. “Failure is not the opposite of success. It’s a stepping stone to success.” Final Thoughts Effective product teams that build great products are a direct result of an elite product leader. Download How to Structure Your Product Management Organization for Success➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '5a8c45d2-3eb5-402a-ac48-fe7597dd4d69', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"});

Product professionals spend countless hours researching, prioritizing, and planning, all in the name of creating a successful product launch. And while they may know the problem space like the back of their hand, what we’ve heard time and time again when speaking with product folks is that no stakeholders involved have great visibility into what happens during a launch. And that is true for the product professionals themselves! In fact, a significant number of go-to-market efforts are entirely coordinated by a separate team without the direct involvement of the product organization. To add more complexity to this issue, these teams handling the launch processes typically coordinate their efforts in a tool that is entirely separate from the product roadmap. Therefore, it is no surprise that these teams have information gaps. Communication silos in the product launch process are a recipe for disaster It can feel worrisome to spend all this time developing a product based on a strategic vision and then have to turn the launch of your precious product or feature to a separate team to bring it to market. However, product professionals care deeply about the success of their product. And the product launch remains a crucial factor in determining overall success. You may solve the customer’s most significant pain point with a feature you just released, but how will the customer know about it? It doesn’t make much sense for the product team to own the research and strategy, disappear during the launch phase and come back to analyze the success. As a result, launch coordinators may have to create time-consuming reports to give updates on the launch. For instance, they have to repeatedly answer which upcoming items have launch plans, when the launch is happening, and if it’s on track. In addition, the siloed launch contributors often have to ask for updates on a release so they can adjust their launch plans and dates accordingly. In short, it becomes one big tangled mess of communication. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Putting all the pieces together: Your roadmap strategy and a successful product launch What if your launches were all in one place, and they tied directly into your roadmap strategy? With LIKE.TG, this is a reality! We wanted to create a deeper connection with your launch planning and roadmap strategy so that your teams have all the information they need in one place. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '842368a9-af78-421f-a3cb-4da00ad39f75', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); Our product and engineering teams have been hard at work enhancing our Launch Management solution with additional functionality for our customers. As you add bars and containers to the “Included in the Launch” section of your Launch Checklist, it will trigger the launch name to display on your Roadmap and Portfolio, reducing the need for you to have to update stakeholders on which items have planned launches and how they’re going. The information is front and center for all who need it. Keep reading for a quick recap of recent enhancements and capabilities to our Launch Management solution. 1. See associated launches in the Table View for roadmaps and portfolios On the table view, a new column displays associated launches. Here, your product leaders and stakeholders can easily look at all items on a roadmap or portfolio and understand which have an associated launch and which don’t. They can dig a little deeper by clicking on each Launch to find the status updates. 2. Launch information can also be accessed in the Timeline View for roadmaps and portfolios This concept extends to the timeline view for roadmaps by connecting associated launch information on hover and showcasing upcoming launches as milestone-like flags at the top of your timeline. These flags are designed a little differently to stand out but can be turned off via a toggle at the bottom of your roadmap if you need a more focused view. All of this happens when you connect a bar or container to a launch. You can now focus your time on more pressing needs. 3. Target dates for bars and containers display within the launch checklist Lastly, we know that coordinating launch tasks is a feat in itself. Your team must complete all the tasks in time for the launch. If you’re not involved in the day-to-day development, this may mean following up with a product manager or engineer to ensure that the item is still on track and adjusting your plans accordingly. By displaying target dates for bars and containers within your launch checklist, you eliminate the status updates and follow-ups. If you have your roadmap integrated with JIRA or ADO, this may be even easier as the dates now pass through from your development tool to your roadmap items, and finally, to your launch. Try Launch Management today! Launch Management is available as a part of our Enterprise plan and our two-week free trial. If you’d like to learn more, schedule 45 minutes with us, and we’ll tailor a demo to your unique launch goals and challenges. We’re looking forward to turning your next product launch into a success! hbspt.cta.load(3434168, 'd4bd00d0-70a8-4c3e-8784-09d1cafeb2f8', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"});

As a product manager, you spend a lot of time trying to dig into the minds of your customers and unearth exactly what the experience of using your product is like for them. Which needs or wants are they trying to address? How easy or difficult is it to complete their task? Where, specifically, do they stumble and why? The answers to these questions are worth their weight in gold. That’s why product managers are turning to a wider array of technologies to help them survey every nook and cranny of their customers’ digital experience. With tools like session replay, heatmaps, on-the-fly funnels, and customer event tracking, today’s picks and shovels are more sophisticated than ever. Finally, product managers have what they need to prospect for the insights that will help them optimize the customer experience to a flawless shine. The only question now is how do you use this technology to sift through mountains of data to find the nuggets that are truly valuable? In this post, we’ll focus on the specific ways analyzing your customer’s experience can help you understand and optimize customer interactions on your site or app like never before. What Is the Gold Standard for Understanding Your Digital Experience? Imagine the benefits of being able to observe how real customers engage with your product. Modern session replay makes this possible by seamlessly capturing the experience of what it’s really like to use your site or app, allowing you to observe video-like reenactments of individual user sessions in their entirety. In other words, you can see what your visitors experienced, cheer for their successes, and relive and learn from the pain of their failures. So Many Sessions, So Little Time However, for product managers on the hunt for answers, this staggering amount of digital experience data begs a crucial question: Where does one begin to look? If you have thousands, tens of thousands, or even millions of users in your online product or app, how do you know which sessions to watch? You need to narrow your scope—and find only the sessions that matter. Here are five ways you can use to quickly put replay to work. 1. Find the Rage! Session replay registers the digital equivalent of aggressive, rapid-fire button mashing on your site or app. These “frustration signals” indicate a user’s cry for help when they encounter something confusing or unexpected, and they’re all indexed and made searchable so you can quickly find and replay the sessions containing them. As you watch these sessions, you’ll see what the entire sequence of events looked like to the user, and you’ll learn exactly when, where, and how your product failed to meet their expectations. If you’re starving for real insights, you’ll get an understanding of the steps you can take immediately to make your digital experience better. Frustration signals are low-hanging fruit: Your users are letting you know quite clearly what they wish to do on your site, and all you have to do is pave their desire paths. Session replay captures the following frustration signals: Rage Clicks: The digital equivalent of rapid-fire button pushing, Rage Clicks are digital body language indicating that a user has clicked multiple times in the same area. Perhaps they are frustrated because a video is taking forever to load, or a string of text or product icon looks like it should link somewhere but doesn’t. Mouse Thrashes: The digital equivalent of rocking the vending machine, Mouse Thrashes signify erratic or circular mouse movements. Perhaps the user is still waiting for that video to load. Error Clicks: The digital equivalent of getting an “out of order” or “out of stock” message, this type of click triggers a client-side JavaScript error. Dead Clicks: The digital equivalent of the vending machine not responding at all to your selection, this type of click has no effect on the page and happens for one of two reasons: 1) A button, link, or other element isn’t working, or 2) A user clicks an element that isn’t supposed to do anything, indicating that something on the page is misleading or confusing. Tips to Get Started Timebox an hour to replay sessions that contain Rage Clicks, Mouse Thrashes, Error Clicks, and Dead Clicks. Take notes on what users are doing or trying to do before their experience goes south. Note any patterns and rank issues to triage based on their frequency. 2. Watch Why Users Fail to Convert Now that you’ve investigated the issues that are causing customers to pull out their hair, it’s time to aim your sights on what may be causing you to pull out yours: low conversion rates. Because session replay automatically records everything that happens on your site, (so long as your replay service indexes events) using it to build funnels and investigate trouble spots is incredibly easy. You don’t have to worry about setting anything up in advance. All you have to do is search for the specific engagement (such as visited URL or “Add to Cart” clicked text), user identification (such as “return customer”), or properties (such as “product SKU”) you wish to include. Oh, and remember our frustration signals? You can add them to your funnel to narrow your investigation even further. Basically, you can get as granular as you want and set up your funnel to include any combination of events in the order you specify, or in any order. Once you’ve drilled down to the sessions that match your exact criteria, it’s time to watch and learn from the firsthand experiences of individual users who failed to act in the way you wanted them to. As you watch exactly what they did before abandoning a shopping cart or ignoring a CTA, for example, you’ll gain the context needed to explain why drop-offs are happening. Tips to Get Started How about diving right into your most consternating conversion issues first? For example, what’s the story behind users who add items to their shopping cart and enter their purchase information but still bounce before completing their purchase? Build a funnel and replay these sessions to find out. 3. Find and Fix Buggy Code What other ways can your team use session replay to quickly find golden insights? It’s time for your engineers to put on the headlamp. Few things send users scrambling away from your site faster than the sight of an ugly, scary-looking software bug. And few things are more time-consuming for your engineers than trying to reproduce a bug and find the source of the problem. It’s a painstaking process requiring a ton of guesswork. Replay, however, helps eliminate the need for guesses—and almost all the work. When engineers can see exactly what the error looks like to the user and exactly what caused it, they no longer have to waste time on trial and error. This first-person perspective, combined with a detailed console log of JavaScript errors, also provided with every session recording, gives engineers all the information they need right from the beginning to reproduce and solve bugs fast—often in a matter of minutes. Engineering teams at thredUP, GenM and Sixty rely on session replay to understand and replicate bugs. Tips to Get Started How do you find the replays that shine a light on where bugs live? Simply integrate your session replay platform with your bug reporting tool to automatically include a link from each ticket to its associated session. Or you can manually bring up all sessions with JavaScript console errors by searching for “Error Clicks.” 4. Optimize Onboarding Another way to dive right into using replay for a specific purpose is to analyze the behaviors of your prospective customers: specifically, ones who signal interest in demoing your product. You want your demo to be as easy as possible to complete and for them to fully grasp the value of your product so they’ll sign up. When you watch the sessions in which users interact with your demo, you can easily pinpoint the sources of frustration that may be preventing them from taking the next step. The team at Classtime (formerly Go Pollock), an online education tool, did exactly that. K-12 teachers use Classtime during lessons to quiz their students (who answer on their own devices) and gain immediate feedback on their level of comprehension. The Classtime UX team was curious why so many of the teachers who visited their demo page failed to make it through the setup process and actually start the demo. As they watched user after user gets tripped up in certain areas, they quickly diagnosed the reasons why and developed a list of improvements: After implementing these solutions, Classtime saw their conversions to the next page immediately increase by 25%. Class dismissed! Tips to Get Started Whether you’re looking to optimize a demo, tutorials, or other onboarding features, session replay can help you make sure users learn how to use your product with as little friction as possible. You can find these sessions by searching for users who visit a specific URL (such as the demo page) or who engage with a specific element (such as onboarding pop-ups). 5. Search Their Search Our last way to mine your replay data is to use it to make your knowledge base significantly more helpful. Indeed, watching users interact with the search bar in your knowledge base is a powerful learning experience. Viewing these sessions can help you find insights into helping your site visitors find the answers they’re looking for—quickly, easily, and with no frustration. Case in point, eCommerce platform Shopify used session replay to unearth the gaps in their knowledge base and fill them with relevant content. First, the Shopify UX team discovered that users commonly entered questions into the search bar, such as “What can I sell on Shopify?” and, based on this knowledge, they created dedicated answer pages to address frequent queries. The team at Shopify also used session reply to provide additional context for the feedback they received for articles on their help center. At the bottom of each article is a section where users can provide optional feedback on its helpfulness. These ratings and comments often fail to paint the full picture of why users are dissatisfied. With replay, Shopify can fill in the missing context around negative user feedback by watching the sessions that prompted it. Tips to Get Started Playback digital experiences to pick up trends on how users look for answers, and if you notice common searches that are coming up empty, start compiling a list of missing content to address. Search and Replay Their Digital Experiences to Find Insights You Can Take to the Bank Session replay offers a way to see the digital experience “through your users’ eyes” exactly how your product is fulfilling—or failing to meet—their expectations. And with these tips, you’ll be able to narrow your scope and extract the most valuable nuggets from this data goldmine, which will in turn help inform exactly what ends up on your product roadmap. Want to learn more about session replay? Check out FullStory’s Definitive Guide. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '3f36d63f-fe4f-400d-ab83-a64b28767625', {"region":"na1"});

Thanks to the Internet, there is no unfindable fact. As information is always at the ready, there’s no excuse not to check sources, find corroborating evidence, and research every decision. Our well-instrumented products are delivering a steady stream of data ready to be sliced, diced, and analyzed — leaving many of us with a bad case of analysis paralysis. We can learn from others, quantify opportunities, and calculate results. We can experiment, tweak, and modify whenever we’d like; gauging the effects based on hard numbers instead of guesses and anecdotes. But the challenge is sorting through it all. With so many inputs relentlessly adding to our data, it’s hard to know what’s valuable. We could analyze 24 hours a day and never “finish” anything. You Have Analysis Paralysis Our job as product managers requires us to make decisions, prioritize, and plan. While we could theoretically analyze forever, our employers need us to make up our minds and move forward. But how do we know when enough is enough? When do we need to make up our minds instead of conducting another round of research and review? How do we balance backing up our recommendations with data and making those recommendations? Despite everyone telling you not to, sometimes you DO need to listen to your gut. Listening is one of the under-appreciated skills of the trade. How did we get into this situation? Analysis paralysis is a bit of a self-inflicted wound. For decades, thought leaders, investors, and board members have been championing getting out of the office, talking to customers, and performing extensive market research. Thanks to analytics packages, we also now get reams of real-time data on exactly how customers are using our products. We can see how users navigate, their dwell times, and where they click. We can tie back behaviors to conversions and purchases. We can cross-reference it all with demographics, personas, and more. And don’t forget our newfound love of testing and experimentation. We’re no longer restricted to focus groups. We can unleash A/B testing on the masses to measure real-world reactions to various messages, features, and visuals. We’ve armed ourselves with this supporting data to make our cases bulletproof and overcome imposter syndrome. We don’t want to make mistakes, we want everyone to be happy, and we never want things to be our fault. No one would scrap these tools to go back to the old days of crystal balls and analyst reports. But it has had some pretty significant side effects. Our workloads have grown when it comes to sifting through all the available data. Plus there’s now an expectation that every move we make has statistical evidence predicting its impact. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '5894a003-79ce-4ea3-9804-dae280a96106', {}); How Analysis Paralysis Negatively Affects You When too much data breeds indecision, it takes a toll on your ability to be an effective leader and get your job done. It reduces your confidence. Once upon a time, you felt sure of yourself. Now you only feel prepared if you show up armed with a PowerPoint chock full of charts and graphs backing up your ideas. It slows you down. When challenged, you retreat and pledge to “look at the data” even when the answer is obvious. When there’s a crisis requiring immediate action, your quick-twitch mental muscles have atrophied. As a result, you’ll either make poor decisions or no decisions at all. It presents too many options. There’s a time for data, and a time for common sense. Narrowing the field down to a few choices shouldn’t take long, but overanalyzing things makes this a far more daunting task than necessary. It leaves you unsatisfied. But if you’re always seeking the best solution, you’re never positive there’s not an even better choice still out there. Although there may still be room for improvement, this can rob you of both decisiveness and happiness. How Analysis Paralysis Negatively Affects Your Roadmap When you’re trapped in this unfortunate state, roadmapping becomes an unproductive grind. Instead of using rational, logical thought, you begin scrutinizing everything. You poke holes in perfectly adequate decisions. You are obsessing over the details. Once you get in the habit of analyzing everything, it’s hard to take any shortcuts. Yet the demands of the job require you to use your time wisely. If you divert too much energy toward items with minimal impact, you either won’t finish, or you’ll give important things short shrift. It simply isn’t scalable. You are aiming for perfection. There’s no point trying to create a perfect product roadmap because there’s no such thing. Even if you somehow manage to do it, that perfection will be short-lived as we know things will change. Shoot for “pretty good” and don’t sweat the small stuff. You are leaving everything on the table. When your backlog is overflowing with dozens (or hundreds) of items, it’s not easy to whittle things down. But quickly dismissing the undoable, unrealistic, and unnecessary items lets you spend more time on stuff that has a shot of making it on your roadmap. You are damaging your credibility. While you should leverage data where appropriate, you’re also supposed to be an expert when it comes to your product. If you’re unable to be authoritative about your domain, you’re sowing doubts amongst colleagues and stakeholders. Read the Strategic Roadmap Planning Guide ➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '06f68ad8-23a4-4d4e-b15a-e578f0f8adaf', {}); The Key to Defeating Your Roadmap Process Analysis Paralysis is Intuition Shepherding your roadmap along takes a combination of critical thinking and visionary instincts. Here are some tips to keep you from drowning in data by utilizing your intuition. Take baby steps. Roadmaps are not built in a day— at least they shouldn’t be. A roadmap breaks down the steps to create the ultimate vision of the product, and your roadmapping process has levels of its own. Make them as small and manageable as possible. By notching incremental progress, you can bust through those mental blocks and build momentum in the process. Save in-depth analysis for the big stuff. Not every decision requires the same level of rigor and research. Data should inform critical strategic moves. But smaller items with limited ramifications can be made without exhaustive study. Lean on your product vision. With well-defined goals and objectives, many decisions about prioritization should be no-brainers. Don’t make things harder than they need to be. Referring back to themes and North Star metrics can also help. Eliminate bad options quickly. Don’t waste time considering things that you know are bad ideas or unrealistic. Sorting through viable choices is hard enough as it is! Embrace deadlines. While roadmapping shouldn’t involve split-second decisions, it shouldn’t drag on needlessly. Allocate a limited amount of time for each phase of the process. Force yourself and your stakeholders to make up their minds and move forward. Get out of your head. Sometimes it’s hard to break the cycle of self-doubt and panic about making the wrong decision. So take your quandary to a colleague or trusted friend and bounce it off them. An outside opinion can help you snap out of it and push things along. If you’ve got a team under you, you can also try delegating decisions while retaining veto power. Mitigate the impacts. Don’t put all the available development resources onto a single initiative you’re not quite sure about. Hedge your bets and get to an MVP with a skeleton crew. This way, if it doesn’t pan out, you haven’t gone “all in” on a questionable call. Remember, nothing is permanent. Near-term items on your roadmap are pretty likely to play out according to plan. But after six months it’s a fair bet that things are going to get shaken up. You’re going to be frequently reviewing and updating your roadmap again. There’s less need to shoot for perfection for those longer-term items. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '3f36d63f-fe4f-400d-ab83-a64b28767625', {"region":"na1"}); Trust yourself. You talk to customers all the time, so you know their problems. Don’t couch statements with “I think.” Command authority and be decisive based on what you know from those conversations. Free Yourself from the Analysis Paralysis Trap When you’ve reached a decision standstill, take a step back. Contemplate whether you genuinely need more information, or if you need just to make a judgement call with your gut and move on. Don’t fear making the “wrong” decisions on your roadmap. Pivoting will happen whether you do all your research or hardly any at all. Need more help deciding what to put on your roadmap? hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '555f9324-4b50-4d5c-90fa-38516ce6484a', {});

What a year. There are so many changes happening in product management as I write this, and the evolution only seems to be accelerating. Our LIKE.TG community of writers and speakers (and you) have led the charge behind these trends. With your support, we dove into the most result-driven strategies, popular frameworks, and groundbreaking leaders who changed the product management landscape. And in 2020 we will more than double what we’ve done to keep up with all the changes. As the year comes to a close, I’d like to reflect on some product management trends I’ve observed and reveal a few exciting things we’ll be writing about next year in the product management space. I’m excited to watch it all unfold. Well-Defined Success Metrics are Key to Product Success In 2019, most product managers are using metrics to make decisions. Sure, product managers need numbers to report up the chain to track progress around goals. And now product managers are communicating the strategy using data-driven roadmaps. Companies define the metrics that matter. Then they use them to determine whether or not a feature makes the cut. In our upcoming 2020 Product Management report, 34% of product managers said that their primary product success metric was business-oriented metrics. The availability of data and machine learning is partially driving this movement. But what’s driving this approach is realizing that gut instincts alone don’t get you winning products. We bring too many biases to the table. We make snap decisions based on our personal feelings and experiences instead of letting the data inform our choices. Data allows us to calculate product and business metrics continually. Hypotheses can now be proven or disproven in days versus months. There’s no excuse to rely on a hunch when you’ve got metrics for everything under the sun. This abundance of data also allows organizations to adopt OKRs to enlighten stakeholders. Each product enhancement and initiative has measurable, predefined objectives, and the key results can be tracked accordingly. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '5894a003-79ce-4ea3-9804-dae280a96106', {}); Employing Blended Frameworks Intuition-based judgment calls are still part of the planning process, but priorities are more often being informed with prioritization models. Ideas and projects can be scored and stacked against each other, merging quantitative and qualitative thinking. We see increased usage of frameworks like MoSCoW, DACI, and RICE, but product teams also realize that one framework must not rule them all. In our upcoming 2020 Product Management Report, we found that they’re relying on a handful of options depending on the scale and scope of the exercise and which stakeholders are included. There are so many choices, and product managers can experiment until they find frameworks that resonate within their organization. Returning the Power Back to the Customer Worrying about customers is nothing new for product managers. Meeting their needs, anticipating their desires, and increasing customer value is what the job is all about. But customer-centricity is being embraced now more than ever. Customers are no longer “trapped” with vendors they don’t want to stick with because moving data between systems is easier. So companies are working harder than ever to build customer loyalty. There are also more choices than ever. Cloud computing and technological advances make it cheaper and faster to bring a viable product to the market. Companies simply need to be more competitive and offer more value over time. This means established firms must double-down on creating and maintaining a superior customer experience. They’re realizing that customer experience goes beyond the product and customer support. Every interaction along the customer journey influences how a customer feels about the product and the company. So organizations are making customer-centricity a core value. This is all culminating in organization-wide customer-centricity. It’s no longer relegating it to specific departments. It permeates every decision, making the entire company more sensitive to the impacts and benefits of their actions. They now strive for customer delight, not just satisfaction. To ensure they put the customers first, companies are also investing more time and resources into gathering customer insights. They’re valuing the actual voice of the customer (not just what internal stakeholders “think” the customer wants). The Growth and Specialization of Product Roles Product management was once the domain of generalists. You needed to be good at everything, given their broad portfolio of responsibilities. But as the profession matures and establishes its importance, more discrete roles are emerging. The primary factor is that companies now have product management teams versus only product managers assigned to specific products. C-level roles for product managers are more common than they were five years ago. With larger groups, some product leaders are creating more specialized roles. Technical product managers are common within larger organizations as one of the original subcategories of product management. But the rise of product ops has created a new class of product managers dedicated to this area of the business. There’s still plenty of debate regarding just how technical a product manager must be. And while product marketing managers have been around for ages (often confusing people thanks to their title), there are now even product managers assigned explicitly to growth. We’re Roadmapping Differently With agile, the prioritization and roadmapping process may have changed, but the roadmap is still necessary in an agile world. For product managers, this is more frequently meaning they shift away from date-driven roadmaps, especially those roadmaps that project a “known” future state several months out. These roadmaps are instantly out of date the moment they’re distributed. We’re now seeing more roadmaps that are feature-less. Instead of spelling out exactly which functionality comes out when product managers are communicating their product visions and priorities. They’re relying on themes that aggregate features into a higher level, and we’re also seeing more product organizations using north star metrics to guide the way. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '3f36d63f-fe4f-400d-ab83-a64b28767625', {"region":"na1"}); Meeting the Needs of a New Landscape At LIKE.TG, we’re in a great place to observe the evolution of product management. We track the trends shaping our profession. We know the problems and challenges facing product managers are changing. Product managers embrace lifetime learning, so we’re producing valuable, informative content that isn’t just repackaged sales pitches. In 2019, we launched our Product Management Glossary, where we defined nearly 200 essential product frameworks, roles, and terms. We also created nine books and guides. In case you missed them, we were proud to release: 2019 Product Planning Report Career Guide for Product Managers The Product Manager’s Complete Guide to Prioritization How Agile Product Managers can Build Better Products The Customer Interview Toolbox From Product Manager to Product Leader The Essential Feature Kickoff Checklist The Power of Pricing Experiments The Anatomy of a Product Launch We also launched our email courses: Prioritization Roadmapping Metrics Data Building a Product Team Putting Our Money Where Our Mouth is As product people ourselves, we must walk the talk. All these things that we talk about in our content (best practices, company building, experimentation, building products that customers truly love, simplicity first) and promote as concepts in the product management community, we are actively working to incorporate ourselves. We want to make the first-time user experience rewarding. We’re improving onboarding, so new customers get value from our products quickly. We’re also formalizing and improving this process, to ensure that every LIKE.TG user is positioned for success. And as we build out our team and add more specialized roles to the organization, we’re importing even more expertise in building roadmaps. These folks are flush with best practices for communicating vision, setting goals, and aligning stakeholders… all the things we know you’re doing daily. Setting a Course for 2020 Our roadmap for the coming year is focused on continuing to deliver great content and education while expanding the capabilities of our roadmapping software, so it’s even more valuable to you. You’ll see even more activity around prioritization frameworks, growth product management, and customer-centricity. We know these are areas of great importance to our community. We hope you’ll continue that journey with us as you create your own roadmaps for 2020 and beyond. And if you have any feedback you’d like to share, we’re always listening. So on behalf of the entire LIKE.TG team, thank you again for a fantastic 2019. We can’t wait to see where you help take us in 2020. Want to get ahead of the curve for 2020? hbspt.cta.load(3434168, 'e29c8e8c-234d-44fc-985b-67a542504810', {});

Thanks to the Internet, there is no unfindable fact. As information is always at the ready, there’s no excuse not to check sources, find corroborating evidence, and research every decision. Our well-instrumented products are delivering a steady stream of data ready to be sliced, diced, and analyzed — leaving many of us with a bad case of analysis paralysis. We can learn from others, quantify opportunities, and calculate results. We can experiment, tweak, and modify whenever we’d like; gauging the effects based on hard numbers instead of guesses and anecdotes. But the challenge is sorting through it all. With so many inputs relentlessly adding to our data, it’s hard to know what’s valuable. We could analyze 24 hours a day and never “finish” anything. You Have Analysis Paralysis Our job as product managers requires us to make decisions, prioritize, and plan. While we could theoretically analyze forever, our employers need us to make up our minds and move forward. But how do we know when enough is enough? When do we need to make up our minds instead of conducting another round of research and review? How do we balance backing up our recommendations with data and making those recommendations? Despite everyone telling you not to, sometimes you DO need to listen to your gut. Listening is one of the under-appreciated skills of the trade. How did we get into this situation? Analysis paralysis is a bit of a self-inflicted wound. For decades, thought leaders, investors, and board members have been championing getting out of the office, talking to customers, and performing extensive market research. Thanks to analytics packages, we also now get reams of real-time data on exactly how customers are using our products. We can see how users navigate, their dwell times, and where they click. We can tie back behaviors to conversions and purchases. We can cross-reference it all with demographics, personas, and more. And don’t forget our newfound love of testing and experimentation. We’re no longer restricted to focus groups. We can unleash A/B testing on the masses to measure real-world reactions to various messages, features, and visuals. We’ve armed ourselves with this supporting data to make our cases bulletproof and overcome imposter syndrome. We don’t want to make mistakes, we want everyone to be happy, and we never want things to be our fault. No one would scrap these tools to go back to the old days of crystal balls and analyst reports. But it has had some pretty significant side effects. Our workloads have grown when it comes to sifting through all the available data. Plus there’s now an expectation that every move we make has statistical evidence predicting its impact. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '5894a003-79ce-4ea3-9804-dae280a96106', {}); How Analysis Paralysis Negatively Affects You When too much data breeds indecision, it takes a toll on your ability to be an effective leader and get your job done. It reduces your confidence. Once upon a time, you felt sure of yourself. Now you only feel prepared if you show up armed with a PowerPoint chock full of charts and graphs backing up your ideas. It slows you down. When challenged, you retreat and pledge to “look at the data” even when the answer is obvious. When there’s a crisis requiring immediate action, your quick-twitch mental muscles have atrophied. As a result, you’ll either make poor decisions or no decisions at all. It presents too many options. There’s a time for data, and a time for common sense. Narrowing the field down to a few choices shouldn’t take long, but overanalyzing things makes this a far more daunting task than necessary. It leaves you unsatisfied. But if you’re always seeking the best solution, you’re never positive there’s not an even better choice still out there. Although there may still be room for improvement, this can rob you of both decisiveness and happiness. How Analysis Paralysis Negatively Affects Your Roadmap When you’re trapped in this unfortunate state, roadmapping becomes an unproductive grind. Instead of using rational, logical thought, you begin scrutinizing everything. You poke holes in perfectly adequate decisions. You are obsessing over the details. Once you get in the habit of analyzing everything, it’s hard to take any shortcuts. Yet the demands of the job require you to use your time wisely. If you divert too much energy toward items with minimal impact, you either won’t finish, or you’ll give important things short shrift. It simply isn’t scalable. You are aiming for perfection. There’s no point trying to create a perfect product roadmap because there’s no such thing. Even if you somehow manage to do it, that perfection will be short-lived as we know things will change. Shoot for “pretty good” and don’t sweat the small stuff. You are leaving everything on the table. When your backlog is overflowing with dozens (or hundreds) of items, it’s not easy to whittle things down. But quickly dismissing the undoable, unrealistic, and unnecessary items lets you spend more time on stuff that has a shot of making it on your roadmap. You are damaging your credibility. While you should leverage data where appropriate, you’re also supposed to be an expert when it comes to your product. If you’re unable to be authoritative about your domain, you’re sowing doubts amongst colleagues and stakeholders. Read the Strategic Roadmap Planning Guide ➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '06f68ad8-23a4-4d4e-b15a-e578f0f8adaf', {}); The Key to Defeating Your Roadmap Process Analysis Paralysis is Intuition Shepherding your roadmap along takes a combination of critical thinking and visionary instincts. Here are some tips to keep you from drowning in data by utilizing your intuition. Take baby steps. Roadmaps are not built in a day— at least they shouldn’t be. A roadmap breaks down the steps to create the ultimate vision of the product, and your roadmapping process has levels of its own. Make them as small and manageable as possible. By notching incremental progress, you can bust through those mental blocks and build momentum in the process. Save in-depth analysis for the big stuff. Not every decision requires the same level of rigor and research. Data should inform critical strategic moves. But smaller items with limited ramifications can be made without exhaustive study. Lean on your product vision. With well-defined goals and objectives, many decisions about prioritization should be no-brainers. Don’t make things harder than they need to be. Referring back to themes and North Star metrics can also help. Eliminate bad options quickly. Don’t waste time considering things that you know are bad ideas or unrealistic. Sorting through viable choices is hard enough as it is! Embrace deadlines. While roadmapping shouldn’t involve split-second decisions, it shouldn’t drag on needlessly. Allocate a limited amount of time for each phase of the process. Force yourself and your stakeholders to make up their minds and move forward. Get out of your head. Sometimes it’s hard to break the cycle of self-doubt and panic about making the wrong decision. So take your quandary to a colleague or trusted friend and bounce it off them. An outside opinion can help you snap out of it and push things along. If you’ve got a team under you, you can also try delegating decisions while retaining veto power. Mitigate the impacts. Don’t put all the available development resources onto a single initiative you’re not quite sure about. Hedge your bets and get to an MVP with a skeleton crew. This way, if it doesn’t pan out, you haven’t gone “all in” on a questionable call. Remember, nothing is permanent. Near-term items on your roadmap are pretty likely to play out according to plan. But after six months it’s a fair bet that things are going to get shaken up. You’re going to be frequently reviewing and updating your roadmap again. There’s less need to shoot for perfection for those longer-term items. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '3f36d63f-fe4f-400d-ab83-a64b28767625', {"region":"na1"}); Trust yourself. You talk to customers all the time, so you know their problems. Don’t couch statements with “I think.” Command authority and be decisive based on what you know from those conversations. Free Yourself from the Analysis Paralysis Trap When you’ve reached a decision standstill, take a step back. Contemplate whether you genuinely need more information, or if you need just to make a judgement call with your gut and move on. Don’t fear making the “wrong” decisions on your roadmap. Pivoting will happen whether you do all your research or hardly any at all. Need more help deciding what to put on your roadmap? hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '555f9324-4b50-4d5c-90fa-38516ce6484a', {});

As a product manager who now sits on the other side of the table as an executive, I’ve had lots of experience both presenting executive-facing roadmaps and receiving those presentations. I understand how much thought (and possibly anxiety) goes into these roadmap presentations. They’re the culmination of months of work, customer conversations, and experience. There’s no need to be afraid of your roadmap, either. They’re the capstone for a product manager’s vision and strategy. I want to share my thoughts from being on both sides of the process. I hope it gives you some inspiration to help you present executive roadmaps that align, guide, and facilitate the right conversations. And of course, to help you deliver a better product to your customers. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '57ff7e42-ccfa-4d9e-b5be-8a0f6ba69363', {}); Mistakes I’ve Seen When Presenting Executive Roadmaps The most common mistake product managers make in the roadmapping process is assuming they know exactly what to build without building consensus first. Of course, you are the customer expert, but leading with the assumption that you alone know the ideal priorities has consequences that might sabotage your well-intended agenda. The best way to overcome this is through curiosity and communication. Have informal discussions with executives and other stakeholders before the executive planning meeting. That way, you’ll present a roadmap with the right priorities and align those to the company’s business goals. It will help you to have a seamless review and approval process. Another key mistake: over-optimism. Believing your team can deliver more done than is realistic sets everyone up for disappointment in future planning meetings. If you must create a roadmap with delivery dates, try to keep broad timeframes such as quarterly. Things are always more complicated and take longer than you and your team think, right? It will help your cause if you educate executives over time to know that you can only estimate fuzzy delivery dates and that priorities will certainly shift. How to Present Your Executive Roadmap Delivering a winning roadmap presentation to the executive team isn’t just about the hour or so you get in the conference room. It takes a combination of preparation, execution, and follow-up to get your plans blessed and leave a room of satisfied and confident stakeholders in your wake. What to do before the roadmap presentation With so much focus on the roadmap itself, many people overlook one of the fundamental secrets to success: laying the groundwork for when you present your executive roadmap. The goal of a roadmap presentation isn’t to wow the audience of stakeholders. You’re not trying to knock them off your feet with bold new ideas and surprises. In fact, if stakeholders are seeing things for the first time during your presentation, you’re setting yourself up for failure and frustration instead of praise. A big reveal during a roadmap presentation puts everyone on the defensive and opens yourself up for a debate of whether it’s the right thing to build Alternatively, prepare everyone in advance for what they’re going to see. Build enough support and consensus that the presentation itself is an official sign-off opportunity. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '3f36d63f-fe4f-400d-ab83-a64b28767625', {"region":"na1"}); Continuous communication and conversation Remove the element of surprise and set the stage for broad acceptance and support by maintaining a dialogue with each stakeholder in advance of the presentation. You want each person to be familiar and comfortable with each item on the roadmap. Schedule time with each stakeholder at least a couple of weeks in advance. You can most effectively get alignment by linking each item back to the overarching business goals guiding the prioritization and roadmapping process. Don’t tell people that something’s essential—explain why it’s crucial – why it will add customer value or delight customers in some way. Then justify its priority and a rough timeline. Moreover, remember that these should be two-way conversations. The aim is to solicit feedback from your stakeholders at this stage. Again, curiosity goes a long way. Give them enough time to solicit feedback from their own organizations. While you may not agree with everything you hear, you’ll have the opportunity to incorporate their suggestions when warranted. Ideally, any dissent or open issues are dealt with and resolved well before everyone gathers together for the actual presentation. Set the agenda The objective of an executive roadmap presentation is to get their approval. Your agenda should reflect that. Provide enough context about the strategic goals to set things up and then efficiently communicate the elements of the roadmap itself. Address any outstanding issues or questions that require the entirety of the executive team to settle. Finally, get a solid green light to move forward (or particular action items if they’re not yet ready to provide that). Your slides or visual aids should move the conversation along accordingly, with a firm eye on the clock as you go. You only have so much time with the entire group assembled, so stick with the important topics and table everything else. Scope it out A quick way to reduce your credibility is to predict specific ship dates. As a product manager, you’re only one input into the development effort. You and your engineering team may also be unaware of dependencies that can impact a schedule. Do your homework, huddle up with tech leads, and develop rough estimates for each initiative (and have an idea of the minimal version for each one). Preparing this information will prevent you from overpromising and under-delivering. Plus, it’s helpful when you’re prioritizing. It might also come in handy during preliminary conversations with executives (or during the meeting itself) if there’s a request to reshuffle some things. During the Roadmap Presentation The main event is all about meeting executives wherever they are. They are not obsessing over your product roadmap. They’re trying to figure out how to achieve the business goals and want to see how your roadmap helps get them there. Show them. Keeping the strategic goals top-of-mind helps create and deliver a productive and successful roadmap presentation. Stakeholders want to walk away confident in the path you’ve plotted and excited to see your plans come to fruition. The power of a visual Using graphics and pictures to connect the roadmap to the rationale behind it is helpful. It ties the initiatives in the roadmap to actual customer value, business goals, and meeting real needs. Big picture thinking Executives have a lot on their plates and generally, try to stay as high level as possible. While you might want to take a deeper dive into the platform details with the CTO or the new messaging opportunities with the head of marketing, this isn’t the forum for those interactions. Those more specific conversations can take place before or after the presentation itself. This meeting is all about consensus, buying in, and signing off. Sticking to the big picture avoids thorny topics or detours that might lose the audience or make them question if the plan is fully baked. Levels of certainty Product managers aren’t psychics, so every roadmap item sits somewhere on the spectrum between “definitely going to happen” and “definitely a possibility.” However, without the proper context, executives will view everything on there as equals when it comes to delivery expectations. Unfortunately, people hear what they want to hear. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge that there are unknowns. Communicate your level of certainty for each initiative during the presentation. There are two dimensions to this. The first is more prominent, in that the further out you go, the less certain things are for everyone. You can mitigate this by creating roadmaps that don’t extend as far into the future. However, beyond that, there may be uncertainties driven by things other than the calendar. There may be unknowns lurking, such as dependencies, regulatory issues, expected new technologies, or customer commitments. If these could impact the roadmap and leave you less certain about some items, be sure to call that out. Product managers will often color code or identify roadmap initiatives based on how positive they are that it will all fall into place. Tie everything to business goals This audience cares about top-line business goals. While they may not embrace a “by any means necessary” mentality, they also don’t have time to worry about all the details. Therefore the context of the entire conversation should be about the KPIs they care about and how the roadmap moves the needle in the right direction. For example, how does a particular feature accelerate growth or decrease churn? How does a roadmap initiative influence progress on a strategic objective? Your presentation should both ask and answer those sorts of questions, as that’s what interests executives. Everything else is a detail. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '5894a003-79ce-4ea3-9804-dae280a96106', {}); There will be questions If you’ve done an excellent job beforehand, your presentation shouldn’t have a bunch of “gotcha” questions. You’ll already know the hot button issues before the meeting and will have addressed them in previous discussions or during the meat of the presentation. You, of course, should be asking consensus-building questions during the meeting. And you will likely hear a few different types of questions from executives: Clarifications and deeper dives. An executive may want to drill down on a particular element of the presentation. It’s OK to answer, but if it’s going to derail the momentum offer to meet with them later to discuss things in detail. A direct challenge. Maybe you didn’t quite have the consensus you thought you did, or perhaps you had a holdout you were hoping would be won over by the crowd. Ask questions to uncover the real concern. Don’t be afraid to let an ally on the executive team chime in with their support. An impromptu change request. Despite all your preparatory work, an executive may decide the roadmap review is the time to ask for something to be added, dropped, or swapped. It might be totally valid and based on new information, or it could be a bright shiny object that will fade under a more in-depth examination. In the end, it’s possibly a good idea, but it’s your job to educate them that there are other higher priorities. After the Presentation Follow up and follow-through Chances are you walked away with some sort of to-do list. It could be sharing the roadmap with other parties, further research, providing more data, or clarifying something. Don’t let those open issues fester; get on them as quickly as possible so they can be closed out. Closing the loop, maintains momentum and shows you’re responsive and were paying attention. You can also formalize any final decisions by sending out a follow-up email outlining what was decided and the expected next steps. For executives, this is the “speak now or forever hold your peace” opportunity as they realize this roadmap is now ready for execution. Changes to roadmap priorities are inevitable. Alert the executive team when these changes happen as part of your job. Also, if any of those disruptions require executive input, don’t put things off any longer than necessary. You don’t want to have that hanging over your head for the next meeting. Finally, if it turns out some of the business goals that drove the prioritization and roadmap planning have evolved, be sure to re-engage with the executive team and grapple with their impact. Don’t assume you should stick with the existing plan. Product management is hard. But presenting your roadmap to executives is your opportunity to shine and show why you were hired in the first place. Learn how to build an executive-facing roadmap with these 8 tips.

We are excited to welcome guest writer Carlos González de Villaumbrosia to the LIKE.TG blog. Carlos González de Villaumbrosia is the Founder of Product School, originally based in San Francisco. Product School was founded in 2014 and now maintains 20 campuses around the world where they offer certifications in Product Management. They organize events discussing innovations in the software and technology space. It can be easy, especially within large businesses, to take someone’s skills for granted. From the outside, a Product Manager (PM) is a resolute individual responsible for completing a product’s development. This involves (among other things) careful data collection, design awareness, and business knowledge. But today we’re going to talk about one of the most important traits a product manager needs. Product management leadership requires an ability to support their teams to victory! This comes from a combination of collective management and individual relationships; every PM must be equally good at both. You might be able to electrify audiences at the launch of your latest feature, but then find yourself struggling to strengthen relationships within your teams. This is a problem because stakeholder management work is very much bottom-up: it doesn’t come from your claim to authority but from a slow build-up of respect with each team and team members across the company. One very good moment to establish or improve professional relationships with specific team members is on product team one-on-ones. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '8bd83652-2868-48a8-9b9c-ebb8e0b9c945', {}); What are the 4 Phases of a Successful Product Team One-on-One? Phase 1: Look for the signs that your team communication isn’t working. Silence in the room: Did you just propose a pretty radical change of direction and nobody said a word? That’s a sign your team needs better communication. A healthy team should at least wonder why you are doing it. Lack of dissent: If you’re being knowingly tough on a particular project and nobody questions you, then you cannot learn or collaborate. Unexpected pitfalls: Milestones are not reached, there are undetected bugs, and there’s an impossible deadline. A normal office should feel free to communicate these pitfalls in advance. Putting out fires: Rather than acting, you spend a lot of your time reacting. Again, this is a sign of poor team planning. Conflicting communication: You speak to your team, and everything’s good and normal. You speak with other teams or even superiors, and everything’s falling into pieces. This sort of mismatch calls for one-on-ones. Open challenges: It’s one thing is to get constructive feedback. It’s something different to be contradicted in front of everyone. That’s a sign that something has gone wrong in your communication. Individual isolation: If one member of the team seems removed from collective activities, operations cannot really function. Every situation will be different. It’s not the same to work at a small startup compared to a big enterprise. It’s not the same to seek a discussion with a colleague you have known for a long time compared to a new hire. And it’s definitely not the same to hold a product team one-on-one during a normal check-in compared to a huge failure. Keep these different parameters in mind and apply some common sense. To have the most successful product team one-on-one in all of these contexts, we recommend the following. Phase 2: Prepare for your product team one-on-one. Gather information and data that back-up your claims. Situation, action, result. What’s the situation that you wish to correct? What‘s the action that this person can do to help you out? What’s the intended goal? Be tactful. A private meeting with your Product Manager might sound intimidating. According to a study performed by Google, one aspect of their most successful teams is psychological safety. “The safer team members feel with one another, the more likely they are to admit mistakes, to partner, and to take on new roles.” Open the communication stream both ways. Make it clear to your team that they can also use this time to voice their own concerns and ask their own questions. This is as much for them as it is for you. Phase 3: Run effective product team One-On-Ones. State the topic from the start. Have an action point at the end of the meeting. Begin with a positive discussion. Then, bring up “negatives” in a constructive way. Listen, don’t anticipate. Clear your mind of what you’re expecting to hear, and really hear them. Phase 4: Close the loop after your One-On-One. Create a shared document that you both have access to and can edit. Write down the key takeaways and actionable steps from the product team one-on-one immediately and share them with your colleague to make sure you’re on the same page. Be patient. Many times, Product Managers lack the authority to act straight away. On the other hand, if this is something that you expect to become routine; share! Put your insights together and find a common narrative that you can explain to the team. Transform this qualitative information into actionable metrics. Set relevant targets from the meeting. Are you trying to decide on the need for future hires? Did a team member request further training to be funded by the company? How to Know Your One-on-Ones are Working: Teamwork and organizational trust are critical to operations, but as they are abstract concepts they can be difficult to measure. Paul J. Zak, the author of Trust Factor, came up with some simple metrics you can use to measure communication: Energy: How much communication is happening. Are your Slack channels silent? Is the lunchroom full of people staring at their phones? Engagement: What reaction do you get when you say something to your teams? If your messages are met with apathy and disinterest you may have a problem. Exploration: Does your team talk to anyone outside of the project, in the company, or in the industry? Now go forth and run your own one-on-ones with your product team. Read, 12 Traits of High Performing Product Teams, to learn more. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '3f36d63f-fe4f-400d-ab83-a64b28767625', {"region":"na1"});

No matter how far into your career you might be, you’re never too old for imposter syndrome to make an appearance. Imposter syndrome is a feeling of inadequacy that persists despite the evident success, according to Harvard Business Review. ‘Imposters’ suffer from chronic self-doubt and a sense of intellectual fraud that override their feelings of success or external proof of their competence. Sound familiar? So, to level the playing field. Even after years into my career as a product leader and founder, every so often, I too suffer from feeling like an imposter. We sometimes need to make decisions with imperfect information. Despite years of experience in this field, it still feels like I am taking risks as I lead LIKE.TG into the unknown. For example, with a recent project, the data wasn’t playing out the way we expected. We had to decide whether to adjust or stand pat, with no clear “right” answer in front of us. As an expert, I should know how to do all this. However, at that moment, I felt like an imposter. However, I’m not — and neither are you. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '57ff7e42-ccfa-4d9e-b5be-8a0f6ba69363', {}); Why Product Managers are More Susceptible to Imposter Syndrome Product managers (PM) are particularly vulnerable to experiencing imposter syndrome. The nature of our profession is nebulous. There a few reasons why product managers might be more susceptible to the feeling. First, no one gets a degree in “product management.” You don’t train for it. There’s no set path to becoming one. There also isn’t a universal definition of success for product managers. With no pedigree or success validation, it’s natural to feel like an imposter. Colleagues also look to their product managers to have all the answers. Of course, we don’t have them all—nobody does. But we’re expected to know just enough about everything that we can speak intelligently and have an opinion on nearly every subject. It’s important for our role. This creates very high expectations, which plant the seeds of doubt in our minds. Product managers also wield power in their organization, even if it’s not always reflected in the org chart. We have an awesome job to decide what’s in and what’s out. Others have input, but view us as the gatekeeper. Unfortunately, that puts a target for blame if things don’t succeed. This fear of letting people down compounds, so we start to second-guess ourselves. With the weight of the product on our shoulders, we’re the ones to say “no” to various stakeholders. We’ll say no to customer ideas or inform the CEO that their pet project won’t make it onto the roadmap. All while wondering who decided we’re qualified to make that call? hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '3f36d63f-fe4f-400d-ab83-a64b28767625', {"region":"na1"}); How I Overcame Imposter Syndrome (and How You Can Too) There’s no magic bullet, but I have found a few things that helped me get over the hump. 1. Humanize your counterparts Everyone is in the same boat. We’re all human and we all have fears that we have to push through. That means regardless of how much success or failures our peers have had, they’re still putting on their socks one at a time. By humanizing your counterparts, it takes away the fear and intimidation that people are inherently better or more qualified to do your job. 2. Opportunity always comes again Once it’s done, it’s done. Once a decision is made and acted on, then that ship has sailed. If it works out, great! If it doesn’t work out, there will be another chance to make another decision again. At that point, I’ll have learned from this mistake and be even better. There’s always tomorrow. 3. Nobody knows everything As disheartening as it is to realize, I will never have all the answers. Nobody knows everything. We’re all always operating with an incomplete data set and no guarantees. That’s not a defense to solely trust our gut and wing it. However, it does mean you need to move forward and believe that you’ve done enough homework to make an educated decision. Inaction due to uncertainty doesn’t breed innovation. 4. Embrace collaboration Embrace collaboration. The lone wolf product visionary that trusts no one, issues proclamation, and finds success is exceedingly rare. Most successful PMs learn fast that leveraging the knowledge, experience, and instincts of others makes things a lot easier. Not only are you operating with more information, but the decisions you make aren’t yours alone. Moreover, when others are involved in the process, they’re less likely to be resistant to the final decision. 5. Use data to make decisions Metrics matter. You can use data to make decisions and convince others to get on board. This is a valuable tool for PMs. Not everyone is going to trust you. They might have their preconceptions and biases that you’ll be challenged to sway. However, with an argument based on facts instead of feelings, it’s much easier to build consensus, not to mention instilling confidence that you’re on the right path. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '1f74539e-d4fc-4cb3-97c6-fd86de2bf62e', {}); 6. Vulnerability shows you have humility Honesty is the best policy. I prefer to be the person that is open and has good relationships with people versus the one who bulldozes their way through. No one likes a bully or a know-it-all. Don’t be afraid to tell people you’re not positive about something or are still seeking input from others. Others will appreciate if you expose your vulnerability, it shows you have humility. What I’ve Learned from Overcoming Imposter Syndrome as a Product Manager Everyone’s trying to figure it out, just like you. Once you realize and accept this, you can be much more empathetic to others. That forgiveness is contagious, and I’m certain will circle back to you. The only way is to outgrow your doubts. It doesn’t happen overnight. But over time, as you have more successes under your belt and more positive experiences in your rearview, you begin feeling like you belong. Download The Essentialist Product Manager ➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, 'be753440-dc4d-40c5-9808-cad744d00a28', {}); It’s hard to do. But, try to stop caring about what other people think. When you’re confident in your abilities, you know you’re doing good work, and are treating people well then it becomes second nature. Now with all that free time you’ve created for yourself, you can do the fun stuff. You don’t need that kind of stress. I’ve met plenty of older, successful people that are still racked with worry. Despite all they’ve accomplished, they can’t be content and convinced of their abilities. To them I say, “Relax, you’ve made it this far, and it wasn’t by accident.” Typically, this industry doesn’t put up with underperformers, so if you’ve made progress in your career, then you’re doing something right. Let your guard down. People can tell when you’re forcing it, so don’t bother putting on airs. You are who you are, and you’ll do a good job or you won’t. Have humility, take the time to figure things out based on the input of others, and have faith that you’ll make the best decisions you can. You can’t lead or even garner the respect of your development team, you have to believe in yourself. Not unreasonably or unwaveringly, but with general faith in your competence and abilities. Without it, no one’s going to have your back or want to follow you into battle. Conclusion Don’t let your insecurities hold you back! If your team didn’t think you could do the job, they wouldn’t work with you. Your requests for help are appreciated and not annoying. Imposter syndrome is real and unhelpful to your career. Moreover, you can beat it. We’ve all been there. When you make mistakes, you’ll learn from them and be better for it.

The most successful product managers think of themselves as finders of pain, not finders of products. In my experience launching LIKE.TG and prior products, I’ve learned that talking early with potential customers to identify pain can lead you to create better, more innovative solutions. Although it may seem obvious, that’s not how many companies start—they often start by building a product and then later seek out problems for it to solve. It’s this “product-first” thinking that is at the core of many product failures. When the up-front pain-finding doesn’t happen, products miss the mark and can waste countless hours in development effort. Unfortunately, I’ve witnessed this first-hand. My philosophy: Find the patterns of pain first, and you’ll be able to create better products. Ultimately, what you’re seeking is a market with a consistent problem area. Then, you can obsess about that problem. Thoroughly validate it and confirm it’s a problem you can solve. Moreover, if you find that solving this pain is at the top of your customer’s priority list, you have a much better shot at creating a winning product. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, 'ad657ba8-be75-4be1-a163-e71ff5498018', {}); Finding Pain through Customer Discovery People buy products to reduce pain or create a gain. You can uncover this through customer discovery. Through customer discovery, you can learn what it would mean to a customer if you solved that problem. Your goal is to uncover the value proposition of solving problems. A value proposition represents the value that the customer gets out of using your product. So a value proposition could mean: Saving money. Saving time. Making money. Lifestyle benefits or professional benefits such as looking good in front of your boss. I believe a “product” is more than the product itself; it includes the pricing, services, the way it’s sold, and so much more. With this broad definition, you have much more room to discover frustrations that customers are facing with their current solutions or the way they’re solving problems today. My recommendation: start by speaking with at least ten prospective customers. Even at low numbers, these interviews will give you incredible insight, especially if you start hearing a consistent pattern of pain. Ask the Right Questions One of the techniques that I recommend is asking open-ended questions. Open-ended questions allow people to include more information in their answers, including how they feel, which will lead you to ask questions you hadn’t considered. “Why?” is by far the most powerful question you can ask, so ask it often. Rarely accept a customer’s initial response. By asking “why?” as a follow-up question, you can extract an enlightening answer and get to the crux of an issue. Once you find a problem to solve, it’s essential to understand how high on the priority list this falls for your prospects. An even more basic issue to understand is whether the customer is aware that they have a problem. If you need to educate customers that they have a problem in the first place, that’s a sign it could be tough to create awareness and acquire customers in the future. And if they are aware they have a problem, is the problem big enough, pervasive enough, and painful enough that someone would be willing to pay you to solve it? Do they even have the budget and the decision-making authority to purchase? If you’re solving problems that people don’t care about solving, or worse, they’re not willing to pay, then you don’t have a business model that’s going to work for your product. Pattern Recognition A lot of people think the validation of a new product is a scientific process. For instance, if you conduct 30 or 40 interviews, then somehow, you will achieve a statistically valid result that gives you the truth. But this process is subjective, and biases abound. You have to read into the nuance of what people say, and that is anything but scientific. When you conduct about 15-20 interviews, you will start to hear the same things again and again. You’ll hear patterns. So by the 21st interview, you’ll ideally hear something similar to what you’ve heard previously. However, if you do not hear a pattern of pain after a dozen interviews, then there might not be a problem to solve. There is no magic number for the right amount of interviews. However, for every additional interview you conduct, you’re incrementally lowering your risk of failure. You can conduct ten interviews and reduce your risk of failure somewhat, or 20 interviews and reduce it even further. After 90 interviews, assuming you’re asking the right questions, you can reduce your risk substantially. That is the main point of the process. Also, as I interview, I pivot my questions and the pitch along the way. So my fourth interview is nothing like my first. Once I learn where I missed the mark, I adjust and move on. This flexibility is especially true if you’re validating a solution for a domain where you have limited experience. It can be a little awkward if you’re not speaking the same language for the field. If that’s the case, you’ll learn how to phrase questions, use the right industry buzzwords, etc. How We Found Patterns of Pain at LIKE.TG At LIKE.TG, we discovered pain around the product roadmap process by initially conducting 30 interviews with product managers from a variety of companies. Most of these discussions focused on their day-to-day challenges, and the pain they were experiencing planning, prioritizing, and communicating their product roadmap. We discovered significant pain around product roadmaps. Product managers were spending hours every week on the roadmapping process, and they still weren’t able to prioritize effectively. There were disconnects communicating the roadmap with internal stakeholders. They found it hard to get alignment within their organizations and found it challenging to tie the roadmap back to strategy. We also discovered that, because they wanted their roadmap presentation to look good, they spent valuable time making their roadmap look great for stakeholders and executives. The visual aspect mattered. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '1f74539e-d4fc-4cb3-97c6-fd86de2bf62e', {}); Based on discovering this pain, we built and launched a product that hit the pain head-on. We didn’t try to solve every problem they had but focused on reducing the pain around product roadmaps. We also created a gain by helping product managers communicate with and align their teams better. Ultimately, we help them ship better products, and we help them look good with beautiful roadmaps. We spent hours coordinating and conducting those initial interviews. By the time we launched the product, we had done over 70 interviews. But because of all of this up-front work, we got our roadmap software to market quickly, on a tight budget, and we made no significant pivots along the way. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '3f36d63f-fe4f-400d-ab83-a64b28767625', {"region":"na1"}); You can read more about finding patterns of pain and product-market fit in our book: Find Product-Market Fit Faster, Lessons for Product Managers

A few years ago, I was the acting product manager at a startup, developing an enterprise software product. Building the product was hard: it was taking longer to develop than everyone expected (of course). The complexity of what we were trying to accomplish became more evident as each day passed. The product backlog I managed grew daily. I heard requests from customers, domain experts, consultants, our development team, and internal stakeholders. And I diligently added the stories to the backlog. Feature request? Add it to the backlog. Bug found? Add it to the backlog. Corner case we needed to handle one day? Backlog. Declaring Backlog Bankruptcy I diligently prioritized and managed the epics and stories, moving them into the next two or three sprints in the sprint backlog. As the months passed, it became clear there was no way we’d be able to develop what was in the product backlog over the next few months. There was rising frustration from the whole team at the pace of development, partly from the perception that we would never get to everything. And every day, my stress grew as the backlog ballooned. What was the point of diligently managing the backlog when it would be impossible to accomplish it all? Especially when everything a few months in the future would likely be different? So along with the CTO, I made a decision – we’d declare backlog bankruptcy. Every story, issue, bug, and idea that we weren’t planning to release in a near-term sprint, I would delete. Clicking Delete was one of the harder things I’ve done. Over 600 items… gone. But then something interesting happened. There were no repercussions from that decision. And I got a sense of relief after eliminating the cognitive overhead created by the backlog. And after ruthlessly prioritizing and limiting what we added to the backlog, we got the product to market faster. Starting from scratch felt GOOD. The lesson declaring backlog bankruptcy taught me was that if an idea has high enough value for customers, it will come back. It will bubble up to the top. I no longer keep massive lists of all the ideas and things I want to do in the future. Sometimes the simplicity this creates in your product is a positive experience for customers. It also taught me more about the purpose of the product backlog – it’s not a place for every future opportunity. We needed to have a process around what gets added to the backlog. Download the free Backlog Refinement: How to Prioritize What Matters Book➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, 'ba6d6ffb-c21a-41c0-8f7e-7f79e553dae1', {}); What Does a Healthy Backlog Look Like? Every organization doing agile software development does it a little bit differently. My approach isn’t for everyone, especially for organizations that need to have more certainty about their product roadmap more than a few months out. For me, I’ve been a part of startups using only some variant of scrum. We plan the stories a few sprints ahead, guided by the epics and themes on the product roadmap. That’s typically enough for any product manager. Ideally, there aren’t hundreds of stories in the backlog. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '3f36d63f-fe4f-400d-ab83-a64b28767625', {"region":"na1"}); When the product backlog is too long, it clouds the vision and creates underlying stress of what’s not getting done. A shorter backlog frees you up to think about what’s most important. It improves creativity. Think in timeframes of perhaps three to six months out. Think about your process for what gets added to the backlog. It’s not for every possible “future” idea that you haven’t necessarily committed to. Yet you still likely want to track ideas and inspiration you’re getting from customer interviews. And you might want to remember who asked you for a particular feature so that you have context. For those situations, I recommend creating a separate “future opportunity” list, so you have a place to add your learnings as you proceed with customer discovery on the idea. After having been involved in launching multiple products over the years it’s clear to me that things you think are super important today aren’t as pressing a few months from now. So by adding every idea to the backlog, you’re doing yourself a disservice. But the stories and epics that you believe will add lots of customer value in the short term go for it. Also, it’s good practice to include bugs, tracking them and peppering them into near term sprints. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, 'a4593ff5-0cd1-4437-86db-eff7703f0d47', {}); Warning Signs Your Backlog is Unhealthy As a product manager, how do you know you’ve entered the dangerous territory with your backlog? Here are some of the things I’ve found to watch out for: Your backlog has become a dumping ground for every random idea from every stakeholder. Sure, it feels good to be able to tell a vital stakeholder you’ve “noted” their opinion, but is the minuscule, incremental cognitive overhead worth it if you do that 100 or 1,000 times? You’re adding ideas that you’d like to implement “someday.” This thinking is long-term, and because everything is guaranteed to change from a product, customer, and competitive standpoint, what’s the point? I suggest deleting anything in your backlog that is older than six months. You’re spending hours every month prioritizing items that aren’t winding up in your short-term sprint backlog. Be thinking every day about what will provide customer value in the short term. Sometimes You Need to Add More Now, to be clear, there are many situations where you might want to add something to the backlog even if it’s not going into a near-term sprint. For example, if your CEO believes a feature has merit, and you want to validate the idea and at the same time let them know you’ve noted it in the product backlog. If you absolutely must keep a long product backlog because it’s necessary from a corporate or process standpoint, try organizing it or grouping it by a theme, such as “near term” and “long term.” That might help a little bit with your sanity. As I mentioned previously, you don’t need to track everything that goes into your product backlog. You can use a separate “opportunity” or idea backlog, such as the Table Layout in ProductPlan. This approach is a great way to capture ideas that you haven’t committed to, and that need further validation. My decision many years ago to declare backlog bankruptcy has yielded so many lessons for me since then. By the way, out of extra caution, before I clicked Delete, I exported my product backlog. And I never went back to look at it. Want to learn how to efficiently funnel backlog items onto the product roadmap?Read Your Guide to Product Roadmaps hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '019ceee1-45ce-493c-8270-b738861f2296', {});

I’ll admit it, in the past, I’ve wrestled with needing to control uncertainty. For years I thoroughly planned most everything and felt the need to know the eventual outcome of decisions. I had expectations, and if the expectations weren’t met, I was disappointed. Whether it was a product I managed or a vacation I took, I wanted to control the inevitable uncertainty. Uncertainty is uncomfortable. As a result, I found myself with a lingering sense that things were out of control. As a product manager, the uncertainty manifested in really detailed and lengthy Product Requirements Documents. I know I’m not the only product manager with this challenge. Over the years, I’ve realized through observation and personal experience that the most successful and happy people are those who are willing to embrace uncertainty. They are the ones who make “risky” decisions without knowing 100% of the information. It’s especially true for product managers, entrepreneurs, and others who want to launch products or ideas. Download The Essentialist Product Manager ➜ hbspt.cta.load(3434168, 'be753440-dc4d-40c5-9808-cad744d00a28', {}); I’m much better now about letting things unfold without needing to know how the plan eventually will materialize. And yes, I get the irony that I’m the co-founder of LIKE.TG, software that helps product managers visualize their plan. More on that later. The Psychology of Uncertainty The fear we all feel from uncertainty – and the feeling that we can control it – can cloud our thinking. After all, research consistently shows that humans are wired for seeking comfort, safety, and loss aversion. Our inner cave-person wants to avoid getting eaten by the tiger. A couple of years ago, our team read the fantastic book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize Winner in Economics. His research demonstrated that we choose options to avoid loss. We don’t behave logically when presented with the same choice framed in different ways. In one example from the book, a disease that kills 1,286 people out of every 10,000 is considered more dangerous than a disease that kills 24.14% of the population. In studies, we believe the first disease to be more threatening even though the actual risk is significantly less than the alternative. We also tend to overestimate our ability to control events – and this feeling that we can control a situation is an illusion. If we can stop for a moment and change our thinking that we’re not in as much control as we think, and surrender to it, we’re more likely to succeed because we’re open to change and opportunities we wouldn’t see otherwise. hbspt.cta.load(3434168, '6291e080-7d48-43d6-99df-4a101a0c4487', {}); I’m not saying that we never need to plan. I think two ways of living can co-exist – it’s possible to have outcomes-based goals and, at the same time, take decisive action without knowing the exact path with certainty. And I’ll add that it’s a lot more fun to work once I learned to live with the uncertainty. Lessons for Product Managers I think there are many lessons for product managers in this philosophy. Here are a few thoughts for how product managers – especially those in an agile development environment – can embrace uncertainty and live with the inevitable discomfort. Hopefully, these ideas will help you focus on what matters. Make decisions based on outcomes One way to live with uncertainty is to relax about the exact plan, and instead make decisions based on an outcome-driven goal. For example, rather than creating a list of arbitrary and disconnected features for your product, instead, focus on what your desired outcome is for customers – what is the goal you want them to achieve? By focusing on an outcome-driven roadmap, you (and your team) have room to think about new possibilities, about different ways of achieving the goal. Focus on today (and maybe a few sprints out) There’s an expectation of product managers to spell out the vision for our products and what the product looks like one or two years down the road. But it’s problematic if this planning is too detailed. One or two years out any plan is only a fantasy. There’s no way things will go exactly to plan, and the goalpost will probably change along the way. You’ll never achieve perfection. This detailed planning, unfortunately, sets an expectation in your head (and your stakeholders’ heads) that simply won’t come true. It sets up everyone for disappointment. My advice: Don’t plan too far ahead. Focus on the big picture vision in broad terms. Then, focus on what is in your control today to meet that vision. For your product planning, a few sprints out are far enough. Get comfortable with the discomfort Stop spending as much time dwelling on problems at work and what-if thinking. You’re causing stress, which will affect you in all areas of your life. Spend more time working to solve the problems your customers are facing. Those are the fun problems. For all the worst-case-scenario planners out there… cut the negative thinking. Why worry about all the endless gloomy scenarios that your (fearful) mind can conjure up? Plus, I believe that if you expect the worst, you’ll put yourself in a position of being close-minded to recognize new options and opportunities. I’m not saying that you should avoid realistic contingency planning, but truly, the five percent chance of a worst-case-scenario is unlikely to unfold. Spend your brainpower toward an optimistic outcome. Positive thinking really does affect. And your nights will be more restful. Embrace confrontation Another tip: Embrace confrontation. Stop avoiding the conversations you know you need to be having. I’m not saying to pick fights, but rather address conversations directly. Rather than avoiding conflict, micromanaging, or trying to prove someone wrong (controlling), have an honest upfront conversation about the situation. Incorporate stress reduction daily The last bit of advice on another way I’ve found to embrace uncertainty at work and in life: give myself time for exercise and other mindfulness practices daily. I’m finding that when I prioritize this above other items, the rest of my day (life?) is happier, even when I get thrown a curveball I hadn’t expected. Takeaway In the end, will you be a product manager who embraces uncertainty or one who plays it safe and avoids unpredictability? While it’s not a guarantee of success, I think I know which one stands a better chance. Read the Agile Product Manager's Guide to Building Better Roadmaps hbspt.cta.load(3434168, 'f7b97c22-2e32-45da-99f7-1ddcb66e57d3', {});