PITA 013
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TOPIC 1:
Putting together the Quarterly Roadmap: who should you involve? How in depth should you go?
Depends - do you already have the longer roadmap in place?
Do a stakeholder mapping exercise - anyone who will be impacted or surprised by it. Use a Stakeholder Onion or Interest & Influence 2x2 matrix.
Effort vs Impact maps for each business area, then sythesize and review.
Anyone who will be doing the work
Stakeholders and/or their representatives
Never be afraid of overcommunicating
What stage are you at? Is it prioritisation & organisation, or in an earlier stage?
TOPIC 2:
Preferred learning style in lockdown - short classes, self-paced, half/day or full-day? Groups or on your own
Short article, short video, repeat, homework, then a 1-hour session (Imperial design thinking course)
Nano-degree, using a book club model - solo
Be conscious of time zones and time commitments - 5 hour lecture marathons suck
Practical beats theory
Include Q&A - interaction is key
Buddy system/study group - have someone to work with between sessions, also adds in accountability - force them into it.
Hard to cut out half-day or more of focused time right now. 90 minutes commitment is about the top
Short and Async is good. Specific scheduled blocks OK.
Long classes, self-directed don’t work as well
3 x 90 minutes sessions, some homework (one plan for internal), some feedback on suggested topics
To keep it interactive - use the chat function - eg ask people to quickly jot an answer to a question and you can read the responses - keeps people engaged.
Re pairing - in zoom you can pre-pair people off and send them to breakout rooms to work together
Daily blocks with scheduled q&as as lean coffee style
consider recording sessions for viewing later
TOPIC 3:
Marketing team - friend or foe? :) Or best ways to work together without the feeling of “us” and “them”. Long topic: marketing vs product lead company… -
Is there a Product Marketing function?
Ask Marketing to nominate one person per week to be the key contact, attend meetings, etc
Jeff Patton’s MTP Hamburg talk - use this approach to align teams better (adding an extra column to the scrum board that means that the teams need to align on outcomes)
Consider a service design process
Get your vision and outcomes aligned to create better relationships
At roadmap/strategy stage, ask: What can I market? Use that as the basis for conversations, project management, etc
Have MKTG as user testing observers/note takers
TOPIC 4:
Tips for product discovery - 30/60/90 days in a new product domain + role
30/60/90 plans are doomed to fail - they will change
Talk to 3 types of people customers, customer and customers
Don’t fall in love - or let others - with a plan
Listen to your customers
Map customer problems, needs and what they use to solve the problem now
Map stakeholder’s bonusable measures/objectives
Set a timebox - then do a review, else it can just creep on forever
Start with a foundation: Are you finding new customers? New markets? New use cases?
Define at the outset: what does the business think success or failure looks like?
Challenge the definition of success and/or goals if they don’t seem right - you’re more allowed to do that since you’re new
Testing Business Ideas - Process to Reduce Innovation Risks, by David Bland (and podcast!)
Fail - or Learn! - Fast
People will tell you more, or give you permission to ask ‘dumb’ questions when you’re new. Take advantage.
Be generous in giving credit whenever possible.