They say that backlog management is the art of turning chaos into clarity, a challenge familiar to many PMs and product leaders. To guide you towards this clarity, we've selected some articles full of useful tools and strategies. For more insights, join our webinar this Wednesday with David Pereira.
🛠️ 5 Tools for Managing Your Product Backlog - Quadri Oshibotu
Before you start managing your backlog, you need to make sure you have the right tool for the job. In this article, Quadri presents 5 key tools for handling your product backlog, along with an analysis of their strengths and weaknesses.
💡 Overcoming Common Product Backlog Management Traps - Stefan Wolpers
This article discusses David Pereira's insights from the 54th Hands-on Agile meetup, focusing on strategic backlog management. Discover how to maximize value and steer clear of the 'feature factory' trap with these expert practices.
🦸🏼♂️ 10 Tips for Product Owners on Product Backlog Management - Robbin Schuurman
Product owners play a crucial role in managing backlogs within organizations. The author highlights key strategies they use such as maintaining a manageable backlog size, adhering to a single backlog for greater clarity, and actively involving development teams in the process.
🤓 Your Guide to Backlog: Product vs. Sprint Backlog - Vishal Chaudhary
Learn about the differences between Product and Sprint Backlogs in Agile methodologies, their unique roles, and how they contribute to successful Agile projects. A must-read for anyone looking to master backlog management and drive efficient workflows.
💬 Social Post of the Week
Jeff Gothelf via LinkedIn💡
2024 is predicted to be a great year for product management with lots of new chances for growth and innovation. At airfocus, we're excited to be part of this, with our latest funding success 🚀. Discover what's changing in product management in 2024. Explore the big trends, developments, and important events.
🤩 We Raised $7.5M to Transform Enterprise Product Management Globally - Malte Scholz
Explore the journey of airfocus and our recent $7.5M funding success, a key milestone in enhancing our AI-assisted Product Operating System used by leading global companies. Discover how this funding will propel our mission to redefine enterprise product management.
💡 3 Ways Product Management Is Shaping The Future Of Innovation And Market Success - Rhett Power
Explore the 3 ways PM is driving innovation and market success. This article highlights the impact of customer-centric approaches, trend forecasting, and tech adoption in shaping successful product strategies.
🔮 5 Product Management Trends and Predictions for 2024 - Nouran El-Behairy
Will AI revolutionize the way we work? Are PMs facing new demands? How will data reshape strategy? Find out 5 trends on the horizon for PMs in 2024.
🙌🏼 The best product management conferences in 2024 - Bart Krawczyk
Maximize your product management growth with Bart Krawczyk's guide to 2024's top conferences. This essential list spotlights premier events for unparalleled learning, innovation, and networking opportunities in the dynamic world of product management.
Malte Scholz via LinkedIn💡
Preparing for the future today can ensure your product's success for years ahead. We've curated a selection of articles that shine a light on critical areas you need to focus on to keep your product management approach relevant and dynamic.
💻 Does Your Organization Need Digital Transformation? - Kent McDonald
Staying ahead means leveraging modern tools. Kent McDonald emphasizes the crucial role of digital technologies in business, advocating for a product-centric strategy to enable successful digital transformation and maintain competitiveness.
🌱 6 Rs – Six principles for sustainable product development - UID
Highlighting sustainability as a key component of modern product strategy, this article introduces six principles that integrate economic, social, and ecological aspects, underlining their growing importance in product development.
👷🏼 What are Product Operations? A Beginner’s Guide for Product Managers - Kinzal Jalan
Product Operations is becoming a pivotal aspect of PM. The article breaks down the role of product ops in streamlining development processes and enhancing cross-functional collaboration.
🤖 The future of product management in the age of AI - Ravi Jadhav
AI's integration in PM has marked a significant shift, revolutionizing how products are developed and managed, a trend that is set to continue and expand in the coming years.
🚀 6 Ways to Identify if You Need to Modernize Your PM Approach - airfocus
Time to upgrade your PM approach? This checklist offers vital strategies for systematic prioritization, optimizing team workflows, and ensuring cross-functional alignment.
💬 Social Post of the Week
George Nurijanian via LinkedIn💡
Success is more than just planning; it's about quickly adapting to changing market trends. In this edition, we've curated content that aims to equip you with the insights and tools necessary to keep your products in step with market predictions for 2024.
🎯 2024 Enterprise OKRs: A Strategic Guide for Effective Planning - Vishal Chaudhary
This article provides a comprehensive guide for enterprises on planning and implementing OKRs for 2024, emphasizing their role in building resilient product roadmaps and fostering team alignment.
🔮 Product Management in 2024: Trends and Innovations - Miko Lehman
What does 2024 have in store for product management? Miko forecasts the rise of AI, IoT, and personalized user experiences, marking a shift towards a more technologically advanced yet human-centered approach in product management.
🔍 Market Research Techniques: A Comprehensive Guide for Product Managers - Maven
Relying on market research to make product decisions is a sure way to enhance your strategy. Maven's guide on market research demonstrates how these techniques can lead to better product insights and informed strategy decisions.
🤸🏼♀️ Adapting Product Vision and Strategy to Changing Marketing Conditions - Jillian Kaplan
What happens when things don't go as planned? In this article, Jillian discusses practical strategies for adapting product vision and strategy in response to unforeseen market shifts.
💬 Social Post of the Week
Anthony Murphy via LinkedIn💡
📆 Upcoming events
Join us on Dec 7: 5 PM CEST/4 PM BST/11 AM ET Webinar: Planning a Roadmap to Propel Product-Market Fit
As 2023 winds down, we've reached that pressing yet exciting time for PMs to roll up their sleeves for annual planning. It might feel overwhelming but fear not!
We've gathered some resources to help you step into 2024 with crystal-clear, actionable, and strategically aligned OKRs and roadmaps to set you up for a stellar 2024.
The airfocus Objectives app is an ideal tool for planning, monitoring, and achieving your goals. It offers a comprehensive, integrated, and flexible approach to managing OKRs and aligning them with your strategy.
7️⃣ Create An Effective Annual Product Plan With These 7 Steps - Sid Arora
From defining broad focus areas to finalizing initiatives according to available resources, Sid's process ensures alignment with the company's mission, promoting a culture focused on results and responsibility.
✨ How to Shine as a Product Leader during Annual Planning- Tami Reiss
Tami advises starting the planning process by balancing data and vision and considering the company's stage in its growth strategy and metric tracking. She argues that compelling product vision and strategy involve participation from various company levels.
📕 Product Management. Annual Planning: Instruction for Use - Michael Karpov
Karpov presents the annual plan as a dynamic roadmap, focusing on business metrics, resource allocation, and process improvements, guiding product managers toward achieving key objectives aligned with the company's future goals.
Sondra Orozco via LinkedIn.
As a product manager, you have the challenging task of balancing hard data and the invaluable insights gained from experience. Your ultimate goal is to transform this data into products that genuinely resonate with people, utilizing the power of tools and insights to create products that are both grounded in solid data and deeply human.
🚀 Data-Driven vs. Data-Informed: Finding the Right Balance for Your Product Team
The article discusses the differences between data-driven and data-informed approaches to product management, the advantages and limitations of each, and how to effectively blend data with human insights for better decision-making.
🔢 Data-Driven Product Management: Leveraging Analytics to Optimize Product Performance - Ankita Saraf
Here we delve into the essence of data-driven product management, detailing the systematic approach that relies on analyzing real-world data to make informed decisions in product development.
🧭 Creating a Data-Driven Product Management Strategy - Santiago Pampillo
Using customer feedback, market trends, and user behavior data in the product development lifecycle can change your PM game. The author encourages product managers to adopt data analytics to create competitive, efficient, and customer-centric products.
🗺️ How to Build a Product Roadmap No One Can Argue With - David Geffen
David argues against impulsive and ill-informed decision-making in the product development process, advocating instead for a roadmap that is informed by customer data and aligned with the company's strategic business objectives.
Ant Murphy via LinkedIn 💡
Product-led growth is often seen as the contemporary successor to sales-led growth. However, as the boundaries blur and businesses adapt, it's clear that these strategies can coexist. In fact, many thriving companies are discovering the magic of combining the strengths of both approaches.
🚀 Introduction To Product-led Growth and the Role Product Managers Play - Kerstin Exner
The article discusses the role that PMs play in the transition from traditional sales-driven SaaS models to product-led growth, focusing on collaboration, communication across teams, and emphasizing core functionality for a coherent user experience.
🪴 Sales-Led + PLG = Product-Led Sales - Aakash Gupta
What do you get when you combine the efficiency of product-led growth with sales-led expertise? PLS. Companies like HubSpot, Adobe, and Oracle exemplify this approach, showcasing its potential.
❓ Overcoming Common Obstacles to Product-Led Growth - Helena Ebert
What are the key barriers to PLG? The list includes lack of product-market fit, insufficient customer focus, inadequate data management, and absence of viral growth mechanisms.
🔢 Product-Led Growth Metrics: A Definitive Guide for SaaS Businesses - Eric Keating
Use PLG metrics to aid in understanding and optimizing the user journey, focusing on activation, adoption, adoration, and advocation stages to retain and expand the user base.
🦄 The Myth Of "No Sales" at Product-Led Growth Companies - Alexa Grabell
Contrary to popular belief, PLG companies' products don't "sell themselves" through user-friendly, self-serve experiences. Integrating a sales team is essential for continued growth and to address more complex customer needs.
Elena Verna via LinkedIn 💡
The Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) framework can be a game-changer for product teams, steering them toward alignment and purposeful actions. We're thrilled to introduce our latest 📘 eBook: OKRs for High-Performing Product Teams: A Practical Guide, packed with insights on how to master and utilize OKRs for optimal team performance. Grab your copy now!
📘 eBook: OKRs for High-Performing Product Teams: A Practical Guide - airfocus
Gain the key skills and insights for successful OKR execution. Uncover the distinctions between good and bad OKRs, supported by real-world examples and case studies, and the tools that can help you seamlessly align your team to set, track, and attain your goals.
🔍 OKRs vs KPIs: What’s the Difference? - Anthony Murphy
Here, Anthony explains the origins of OKRs and KPIs and provides an analogy to differentiate them. He argues that OKRs aim to achieve specific outcomes aligned with organizational strategy, while KPIs continuously monitor essential health metrics of the business or product.
🤔 What are the benefits and challenges of using OKRs as a product metrics framework? - LinkedIn community Contributors weigh in on the dual aspects of OKRs, underscoring their pivotal role in steering product strategies toward significant outcomes and organizational alignment, while also cautioning against common challenges like crafting unclear OKRs.
🩺 Goal-driven Product Management: How we use OKRs at Oscar - Duncan Greenberg
Instead of theoretical examples, here you can see OKRs in action within a real-world business. Greenberg offers practical guidelines, real examples, pro tips, and solutions to common pitfalls in implementing effective Key Results.
👀 Unlocking the Power of OKR Retrospectives - Andrea Saez
Achieving your goals is not the end of the journey. Andrea highlights the importance of holding regular OKR retrospectives to assess outcomes, celebrate wins, learn from misses, and fine-tune future strategies.
Jeff Gothelf via LinkedIn 👏🏼
Oct 19: 10 am CET/ 4 am EST
Webinar: Collecting User Insights for Roadmap Success
Oct 11-12: Lisbon, Portugal
As we step into the final quarter of 2023, we are faced with exciting opportunities and unique challenges, making it a crucial period for product managers to shine. In this edition of our digest, we've curated a selection of articles to help you prepare, strategize, and thrive in the coming months.
🚀 4 Tips for Product Managers: Make the Most of Your Q4 - Andrew Melville
This article provides valuable insights and practical advice for product managers to navigate the challenges that can arise in Q4. Emphasizing the importance of flexibility, adaptability, and strategic decision-making in managing product development and priorities effectively.
📆 Why Quarterly Planning is the Perfect Event to Create a Product Goal - Edward Lowe
Here, the author explores the role of quarterly planning in Scrum as a means to define and work toward the product goal. He discusses the benefits and challenges associated with this approach and provides insights into how to conduct effective quarterly planning sessions.
🛠️ Best Practices for Tracking OKRs With the Right Tools - Quadri Oshibotu
In this article, Quadri provides us with insights into how leading companies like Google leverage OKRs. He offers recommendations for successful OKR implementation, emphasizing the importance of transparency, regular reviews, and using the right tools to manage the process effectively.
🗺️ Everything You Need to Know About Quarterly Roadmaps - airfocus
Here we provide a step-by-step guide to working with quarterly roadmaps, including defining OKRs, prioritizing initiatives, estimating resourcing needs, and communicating with stakeholders.
💼 Product Team Hiring in Q4 - Christine Norrander
In addition to planning and OKRs, hiring poses challenges for product teams in Q4 of 2023. The article explores how layoffs, funding constraints, and market uncertainties have resulted in smaller teams, increased workloads, lower morale, resource allocation issues, and retention concerns.
Aakash Gupta via LinkedIn 👏🏼
Mastering the art of communication is a cornerstone skill sought after by employers in any product professional. It's not just another skill; it can be your secret weapon for driving success. Effective communication serves as the thread that knits together product ideas, execution, and collaborative efforts, fostering connections with both internal teams and external stakeholders.
🎤 How to Improve Your Communication Skills as a Product Manager - Hilary Johnson
Hilary emphasizes the 3 reasons behind the crucial role of communication skills for product managers. She also provides practical tips for improving yours, such as getting to know team members, understanding different audiences, and practicing clear communication, among other helpful insights.
🗣️ The Importance of Communication in Product Management - Michael Hayes
Learn why communication is key for product managers aiming to succeed in various aspects of the product lifecycle, from ideation to development and launch, as well as in building relationships with internal stakeholders (e.g., engineers, designers, marketing, sales) and external parties (e.g., customers, prospects, partners).
📖 Effective Communication Strategies for Product Managers - Luis Jurado
In this article, the author shares 7 communication strategies that can help product managers build strong teams and create successful products. From defining vision and goals to listening, storytelling, and using data, these strategies have the power to elevate your communication game to new heights.
🤝 How do you effectively communicate with stakeholders? - LinkedIn Community
With the help of AI, product experts on LinkedIn share their tips on how to best communicate with stakeholders. They stress the importance of clear, concise, and consistent communication to build trust, credibility, and collaboration while avoiding misunderstandings and conflicts.
🚀 The Ultimate Guide to Internal Product Management - airfocus
This comprehensive guide on internal product management will help you supercharge your internal communication skills. Throughout this guide, you will gain insights into internal product management, its associated challenges, advantages, optimal strategies, and what to communicate and when.
Ant Murphy via LinkedIn 👏🏼
Crafting a successful product strategy involves aligning your vision with customer needs and business goals. But how do you know if your strategy is effective? Our selection of featured articles explores key metrics and indicators that can help you evaluate and enhance your product strategy's impact and value.
📐 How to Align OKRs with Product Strategy and Business Objectives - Adam Thomas
Aligning OKRs with product strategy and business objectives ensures efforts contribute to broader goals. In this article, Adam highlights how effective alignment enhances organizational success and competitiveness with real-life examples from Google and Airbnb.
Judging the effectiveness of your product strategy might pose a challenge. How can you assess the impact and value of your product decisions? In this compilation of tips and opinions, experts share essential metrics and indicators to assess, enhance, and refine your product strategy.
⚖️ What metrics are the most important for your product?- Nick Odlum and Kevin Mcnally
Intercom's Analytics Manager and Senior Machine Learning Engineer highlight the challenge of translating product metrics into actionable insights. The solution lies in asking the right questions, collaborating between analysts and product teams, and defining metrics based on product goals.
🙌🏼 Measuring Product Success: Three Tiers of Product Success Metrics -Robbin Schuurman
The article discusses the challenges of measuring and maximizing product value. It emphasizes the importance of moving beyond vanity metrics (Tier 3) and proxy metrics (Tier 2) to focus on business and customer metrics (Tier 1).
🚀 How To Implement an OKR Strategy for Your Organization - Sami Rehman
This article highlights how major companies like Adobe, Amazon, and Netflix benefited from implementing OKRs. Sami explains the prerequisites for successful OKR implementation, the importance of a clear strategic direction, and how to set, cascade, and communicate OKRs across the organization.
Tim Herbig via LinkedIn
Product management is NOT limited to software alone. The truth is, whether tangible or intangible, products thrive under the guidance of effective product management skills. These skills are now a driving force cutting across diverse industries, igniting collaboration, innovation, and triumphant product outcomes. The below collection of articles showcases this universal potential and the dynamic product tools that make this possible.
🛠️ Why Every Industry Should Consider Using a Product Management Tool - Sami Rehman
Product management tools are revolutionizing industries beyond software. Learn how they can align goals, improve collaboration, gather feedback, and drive data-driven decisions across diverse sectors.
🤔 Becoming an Industry-Agnostic Product Manager - Becky Yelland
Explore the power of industry-agnostic product management. Uncover why your skills and adaptability are key assets when navigating different sectors, regardless of prior industry experience.
🎁 A Product is a Product: Product Management Is Not Just Software! - João Craveiro
Challenge the misconception that product management is limited to software. Dive into the universal principles that underscore product management's applicability across various industries.
💼 In-Demand, Tech-Adjacent Industries that Need Product Managers - Kyle
Why are different sectors seeking product managers? and why is your expertise as a PM essential? Explore the PM roles and responsibilities within eCommerce, retail, food delivery, ridesharing, and healthcare.
🚀 How To Select and Leverage Customer vs. Enterprise Product Management Tools - Quadri Oshibotu
Navigate the world of product management tools with insights into the distinction between customer-centric and enterprise-focused solutions. Discover the criteria for choosing the right tool and the top solutions that can enhance your product management journey.
Lisa Zane via X (formerly Twitter) commenting on Product management trends in 2023 💡.
In today's dynamic environment, a well-structured roadmap serves as the guiding compass for product teams, aligning their efforts with business goals and customer needs. It empowers them to make data-driven decisions, fostering innovation and maximizing product value. Here is a curated list of articles to inspire you to create exceptional product roadmaps that lead your company to new heights of success.
👍 Roadmapping Best Practices With Real-World Case Studies - Sami Rehman
Our journey begins with real-world case studies from industry giants Airbnb and Netflix. Discover roadmapping best practices that have enabled these successful tech companies to adapt, thrive in a rapidly changing market, and embrace customer-centricity. Learn the art of balancing short-term needs with long-term growth strategies, setting your product roadmap on a trajectory of excellence.
✔ 10 Tips for Creating an Agile Product Roadmap - Roman Pichler
Agility is the key to staying ahead in the ever-evolving tech landscape. Roman Pichler brings you ten invaluable tips to create an agile product roadmap that can gracefully adapt to frequent changes and unexpected developments. From goal-oriented focus to securing stakeholder buy-in, these tips will equip you to make informed decisions while ensuring simplicity and measurability.
📢Why SaaS Companies Should Embrace Public-Facing Roadmaps - Andrea Saez
Transparency, engagement, and trust - the pillars of successful SaaS companies! Andrea Saez unveils the power of public-facing roadmaps, providing an opportunity to showcase your product strategy and elevate customer engagement. Learn from real-life case studies of successful public-facing roadmaps, and unlock the potential to build stronger connections with your audience.
💣 Top 7 Tips To Avoid Destructive Product Roadmaps - Dave Martin
Steer clear of roadmap disasters with Dave Martin's top 7 tips. Learn how to position your roadmap to support autonomous teams, foster innovation, and align seamlessly with your business strategy. Avoid the pitfalls that could hinder your SaaS business's growth and become a master of roadmap success.
📐 How to Build a Product Roadmap No One Can Argue With - David Geffen
Data analytics - the key to building unbeatable product roadmaps! David Geffen walks you through the steps to create data-driven roadmaps that lead to better outcomes and success. Learn how to gather actionable feedback, analyze insights, and prioritize features objectively. Empower your company with a roadmap that leaves no room for doubts.
Enzo Avigo via LinkedIn 😂
What real-world impact does AI have on product management? And how can PMs not only adapt but thrive in this exciting era? To assist PMs in navigating this process, we are delighted to present our research report, "The Impact of AI on Product Management." This comprehensive report incorporates insights and tips from over 100 product leaders, empowering you to enhance product processes and drive organizational success. Click the first link below to download the full report.
📖 The Impact of AI on Product Management - airfocus
Explore the findings of this report involving 130 product professionals, highlighting the transformative influence of AI in the field. Gain insights into various aspects, including job security, barriers to adoption, and the specific areas of product management most affected by AI. Additionally, the report offers expert tips and strategies to successfully implement AI within product organizations.
👨💼 What is an AI Product Manager? - Nick Hotz
Nick explains in detail the duties and obligations of an AI Product Manager, and why businesses of all scales are depending on skilled AI professionals. Acquire invaluable perspectives into the fundamental principles of AI product management and master the art of navigating tradeoffs with an "AI PM manifesto".
💬 The Pros and Cons of Using AI in Customer Insights - Sami Rehman
Based on our report's findings, customer feedback is among the product areas most influenced by AI. In this article, Sami delves into the immense potential of AI technologies to analyze extensive customer data, empowering product decisions, customer-centric strategies, and overall business growth.
✏️ 10 Ways AI Is Improving New Product Development - Louis Columbus
Louis lists ten key ways AI is enhancing the entire product development lifecycle, from ideation to market launch. In this area of product management, AI adoption is ultimately leading to faster innovation, improved decision-making, and increased success rates.
In this thought-provoking article, the author explores the ethical considerations and potential biases associated with AI. He also offers essential strategies to ensure transparency, fairness, and accountability in AI-powered products to foster trust with customers and mitigate potential risks.
Marily Nika via Twitter 💡
In a constantly evolving field like product management, crafting your career path can be a challenging task. The recent announcement of Airbnb's product functions' shift sparked a wave of contemplation among PMs regarding their role.
Whether you are a seasoned product professional or just embarking on your journey, it is essential to reflect on what product management is, what it isn't, and where your career path fits, in order to have the vision and skills to grow and adapt.
❓30 Questions to Determine if the Product Manager Job is Right For You -Stephanie Oh
Do you have what it takes to be a successful PM? or to move on to the next step in your PM career? Answer these 30 questions to get valuable insights into the qualities and traits that are required to make it in a product-related role.
🧑💼 How To Prepare for a PM Interview - Adam Thomas
Here, Adam discusses the product management interview process, provides insights into common interview questions, and highlights mistakes to avoid when preparing for a product management role.
🔍 Decoding Job Titles: The Different Types of Product Manager - Ellen Merryweather
What is the difference between PM, technical PM, Product marketing manager, and other PM titles? (and who earns more?!) This article discusses the different types of product roles and provides insights into their responsibilities and average salaries.
5️⃣ Five Dangerous Myths about Product Management - Noah Weiss
In this article, Noah Weiss, an experienced product manager who worked at Google, Foursquare, and Slack dispels several dangerous myths associated with the position of product manager.
🔮 The Future of Product Management in 2023 and Beyond - Nouran El-Behairy
How will factors like AI, product-led growth, and product talent affect product management in the near future? This article highlights several key insights from "The Future of Product Management Report" by Product School, along with additional commentary.
Ankit Shukla via LinkedIn
It's mid-June, which means it's time to review last quarter's OKRs and set ones for the new quarter. However, it's important to remember that setting good OKRs is just the beginning; the real magic lies in effectively tracking and delivering success through them.
✍🏼 How You Should Set OKRs for Product Management - Tomas Prochazka
An excellent introduction to understanding OKRs in product management. Gain valuable insights into the meaning, history, and practical examples of OKRs, ensuring you kickstart your OKR journey on the right foot.
📐 KPIs vs. OKRs (With Examples) - Issac Kwon
While these metrics are often used interchangeably, it's crucial to understand their differences and leverage them appropriately. Discover their best practices and real-world examples from various industries to effectively measure success.
✅ Best Practices for Tracking OKRs With the Right Tools - Quadri Oshibotu
Quadri provides valuable guidance on the challenges and best practices for tracking OKRs, accompanied by real-world examples. Additionally, he shares a list of tools to help you stay on top of your OKRs and drive your team toward achieving their objectives.
🤔 Not Everyone Needs Objectives and Key Results (OKRS) - Christina Wodtke
It's important to remember that OKRs may not be suitable for every team. The author discusses common mistakes made by companies when implementing OKRs and highlights the importance of considering their effectiveness. Gain insights into a more mindful approach to OKR implementation that aligns with your team's needs.
📃 Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) Template - airfocus
This comprehensive OKR template enables product managers and their teams to set aligned objectives, track progress, and achieve product success by breaking down company objectives, assigning ownership, defining initiatives, and tracking key results.
Anthony Murphy via Twitter. 👏
Objective: Empower product managers with actionable insights and expert tips to set effective OKRs.
Key Result: Publish a comprehensive OKR resource in Q3.
Stay tuned for the amazing resources that will take your OKRs to new heights 🚀.
Successfully launching products and features in today's fast-paced environment is no small feat. It requires a great deal of careful strategy and meticulous planning. As product managers, we understand that the release plan is not just another artifact; it is a powerful tool that enables clear cross-functional communication and keeps our launches on track, aligning them with desired outcomes.
👊🏼 Avoid the Punch: How to Create an Effective Release Plan in an Outcome-Based World - Adam Hecht In this article, the writer argues that release plans are still important even if you are focused on outcomes. Having a release plan is the best way to avoid being "punched in the mouth" by delays, bugs, and team confusion. It can transform your roadmap into a blueprint for execution.
⚖️ The Product Roadmap and the Release Plan - Roman Pichler
This interesting article explains the relationship and differences between a product roadmap and a release plan. The writer stresses the importance of keeping both in sync, as changes in one can impact the other.
✅ Effective vs. Ineffective Release Plans - With Examples and Templates - Adam Thomas
Here, Adam helps us understand, with examples, what differentiates an effective from an ineffective release plan. He lists the common challenges faced by product managers when attempting to create an effective release plan and how to overcome them.
🚀 Tips for Product Owners on Release Planning - Robbin Schuurman
Setting goals, focusing on benefits and results, considering dependencies, and ensuring only "done" work is released are just some of the tips the author has for product owners to help them create a successful release strategy and plan.
📃 Release Plan Template - airfocus
Our release plan template is tailored to provide a structured approach for managing releases. This ready-to-use template can help you avoid chaos and ensure alignment and effective product/feature releases no matter how complex things are. Feel free to explore it and see its benefits firsthand
Pradip Khakhar views as presented by Victor Forest via LinkedIn. 👏
Jun 6th: 7 PM BST/ 6 PM GMT / 2 PM ET / London
Book launch and networking event: Product Rantz by User Pilot
Jun 21st: 5 PM CET / 4 PM GMT / 11 AM ET
Webinar: How to Go Beyond User Onboarding
Jun 28-30: Hamburg, Germany.
As a product manager, you've likely been mistaken for a project manager at least once. This confusion arises from the overlapping nature of these roles, despite their distinct differences. In fact, by harnessing the convergence between them and utilizing essential project management skills and tools, you can elevate your product work.
🔀 The Intersection of Product and Project Management- Victoria Inman & Jeff Hancock
What can be achieved through a partnership approach between product and project managers? This article contends that the collaboration of these roles holds significant potential to add substantial value and empower product teams.
🪄 Why Organizations Transition from Project to Product Management - Malte Scholz
One way things are moving is from project to product. In project management, success is measured by meeting predefined timelines and resource constraints. Conversely, success in product management revolves around delivering value, a defining trait of modern business.
🤓 Yes, Product Managers Should Project Manage - Victor Wu
On the other hand, product managers can wear several hats from the project management's closet to enhance their product development efforts. The author argues that acquiring fundamental project management skills can significantly boost the efficiency of your product team.
🔨 Gantt charts: The Project Management Tool You Need to Know - Andrea Saez
A prime example of project management tools that can elevate your product performance is Gantt charts. By integrating Gantt charts with product roadmaps, product managers can showcase the big picture and the finer details of the product's direction, strategy, and execution.
Purna Kaushalya via LinkedIn. 💡
A business roadmap can help product managers have a more structured plan for developing products that are in alignment with the business strategy, but how does that work? We have the answer for you!
🗺️ What Is a Business Roadmap? And How to Set It Up - Malte Scholz
A business roadmap is a long-term strategic planning document showing your company's goals and the steps required to achieve them. It differs from lengthy business plans as it focuses on the big picture, high-level goals, and objectives.
🏔️ The Fundamentals of The High Performing Business Roadmap - Rajesh Nair
How does building a business compare to climbing a mountain? Turns out they are quite similar! You need research and planning to climb a mountain and the same structures to build a successful business. Therefore, in both cases, having a roadmap can be the way to the top.
🪄6 Ways To Leverage AI in Roadmap Planning - Lisa Zane
While a roadmap acts as a guiding light for the team, building it can be an overwhelming experience, so why not leverage the power of Artificial Intelligence toward building the roadmap you need? In this article, Lisa shared 6 ways you can unlock the capabilities of AI in roadmap planning.
🤔 Entrepreneurs Confuse Product and Business Plans - Martin Zwilling
A business plan, which is more detailed than a business roadmap, is sometimes confused with a product plan and product roadmap. The product plan is an internal detailed description of the product, while a business plan is an external document that describes everything about the business to investors.
Daymond John via LinkedIn. 💡
When you start adding another product to your business, things get complicated fast. In this edition, we compile multiple articles on how to create and maintain your product portfolio strategically. Let's dive in!
📖 How To Develop a Product Portfolio Strategy - Andrea Saez
A product portfolio strategy is a strategic approach to managing a company's product portfolio. It involves evaluating the company's current and potential products to determine which products should be developed, maintained, or retired.
🖌️ Visualizing a Product Portfolio Strategy on a Wardley Map - Simone Cicero
The need to articulate a portfolio of product strategies is gaining importance as organizations are forced to deal with the increasing modularity and composability of markets in general. Visualizing the portfolio of your products is essential to evolve a strategy around the interdependencies and interactions between the building blocks.
🔱 Creating Product Strategy with Multiple Strategic Tracks (MuST) - Itamar Gilad
For most tech companies, their first big product success is also their last. Finding a second hit is very hard no matter how much we invest in vision and strategy development. But some companies are different: such as Apple, Google, Amazon, etc. Itamar digs deep into how these companies do it with the MuST principle.
📈 Maximizing Product Potential: A Guide To Building a Strong Product Portfolio - Kent McDonald
In order to add products in a way that helps you sustain and grow market share and revenue, you need to build your product portfolio intentionally. In this article, Kent shares some actionable steps to build and manage a product portfolio and how Atlassian is doing it.
❓ Should a Head of Product Make Strategic Product Decisions? - Roman Pichler
The head of product role and the product strategy are often linked. But should a head of product make strategic decisions for individual products? Or would it be better to empower the product people to own the product strategy?
📻 How to Build Your Product Strategy Stack - Ravi Mehta
In this podcast, Ravi dives deep into his product strategy stack framework and how it was used to develop a powerful strategy at Tinder. He also discusses his other popular frameworks—the frontier of understanding and exponential feedback—and how they can help you grow in your career.
Anthony Murphy via LinkedIn. 💡
Happy Easter weekend!
In this edition, we will share with you some very insightful and actionable articles on data and product metrics. Let's dive in!
☸️ Product Metrics: A Flywheel Framework For Cloud Business Leaders
Product metrics can be “leading” indicators for “lagging” financial outcomes. Which product metrics matter the most to your cloud business & how do these act as a barometer for financial performance?
🛠️ Lean Analytics: The Way To Build Better Software - Behzad Nazarbakhsh
The best way to make evidence-based decisions is to follow the data. However, the issue with using data is that you can easily become overwhelmed if you don't know what data to look at. Moreover, human flaw prevents you from fully utilizing all of the insights data has to offer.
❓ Are You Tracking The Right Product Metrics? - Eira Hayward
Metrics can be a minefield for the unwary – navigating your way to find the right metrics is one of the hardest parts of a product manager’s job. What do you need to know to make a go of it?
✅ Product Metrics That Matter - Cláudia Delgado
Before product metrics, we were relying on business metrics. Consider revenue, for example. That’s a lagging success indicator. We just understood the result of our shots at the end of the game or even the championship. Feedback and learning took too long. Since product metric is introduced, the game is changed forever.