Practical Product Management
Who is Thanasis
Professional
Community
Open Source
- 5x CTO over 6y
- 4x Founder
- MBA & Sales
- Over 40 NPM packages
- Contributor to major Node.js packages
- Avid OSS author
- DEVit Conference organizer
- skgtech.io founder
- Local Node.js Meetup organizer (Greece)
- Founder
- CTO
- Software Engineer
Practical Product Management
- Values & Principles
- Product Workflow Showcase
Topics we will go through today
Practical Product Management
Values
- Reason and Sanity
- Alignment
- Pursue of Excellency
Principles
- "Fast Paced"
- Documentation
- Areas of Responsibility
- Methodologies & Processes
Reason and Sanity
Values
- Reason and Sanity
- Alignment
- Pursue of Excellency
Principles
- "Fast Paced"
- Documentation
- Areas of Responsibility
- Methodologies & Processes
Practical Product Management :: Values
- Bottom Up Culture
- Pursue Consensus
- Empathy
Alignment
Values
- Reason and Sanity
- Alignment
- Pursue of Excellency
Principles
- "Fast Paced"
- Documentation
- Areas of Responsibility
- Methodologies & Processes
Practical Product Management :: Values
- Personal Goals
- Organization in sync
- All Levels
- With Cadence
- Alignment of values
Pursue of Excellency
Values
- Reason and Sanity
- Alignment
- Pursue of Excellency
Principles
- "Fast Paced"
- Documentation
- Areas of Responsibility
- Methodologies & Processes
Practical Product Management :: Values
- Craftsmanship
- Instate Culture of
- Community at Large
"Fast Paced"
Values
- Reason and Sanity
- Alignment
- Pursue of Excellency
Principles
- "Fast Paced"
- Documentation
- Areas of Responsibility
- Methodologies & Processes
Practical Product Management :: Principles
A few truths...
- Product and Engineering are Creative Jobs
- Creative jobs can't be rushed
- Software Engineering is hard and complicated
I can tell you what you're going to get, or I can tell you when you're going to get it, but never both at the same time
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle of project management - The unknown CTO
"Fast Paced"
Values
- Reason and Sanity
- Alignment
- Pursue of Excellency
Principles
- "Fast Paced"
- Documentation
- Areas of Responsibility
- Methodologies & Processes
Practical Product Management :: Principles
When a creative job is rushed
- Product Quality suffers
- Bugs are introduced
- Vulnerabilities are created
- Technical Debt is accumulated
- Customers are not happy
(deadlines in software engineering)
"Fast Paced"
Practical Product Management :: Principles
Doing it Fast vs Right™
The "Fast Pace"
"Fast Paced"
Values
- Reason and Sanity
- Alignment
- Pursue of Excellency
Principles
- "Fast Paced"
- Documentation
- Areas of Responsibility
- Methodologies & Processes
Practical Product Management :: Principles
To Recap
- Rushing is damaging the business
- A "fast pace" is when things are done right™
- We all know what right™ is, the tricky part is doing it
Documentation
Values
- Reason and Sanity
- Alignment
- Pursue of Excellency
Principles
- "Fast Paced"
- Documentation
- Areas of Responsibility
- Methodologies & Processes
Practical Product Management :: Principles
Documentation Helps
- The team stay on the same page
- Reduce communication errors
- Onboarding new members
- Remembering functionality
Documentation
Values
- Reason and Sanity
- Alignment
- Pursue of Excellency
Principles
- "Fast Paced"
- Documentation
- Areas of Responsibility
- Methodologies & Processes
Practical Product Management :: Principles
Documentation Requires
- A System
- Team Effort
- Diligence & Discipline. Nothing sort of live docs.
- Measure. Measure your words.
- Tools & Templates
Areas of Responsibility
Values
- Reason and Sanity
- Alignment
- Pursue of Excellency
Principles
- "Fast Paced"
- Documentation
- Areas of Responsibility
- Methodologies & Processes
Practical Product Management :: Principles
Respect the Boundaries
- Everyone has a job to do
- Understanding the areas of responsibility is key
Methodologies & Processes
Practical Product Management :: Principles
- Find the right one for the situation.
- Apply it, follow it religiously.
- Go to step 1, rince and repeat.
Practical Product Management
Values
- Reason and Sanity
- Alignment
- Pursue of Excellency
Principles
- "Fast Paced"
- Documentation
- Areas of Responsibility
- Methodologies & Processes
Product Workflow Showcase
Scenario Parameters
- Post-MVP stage
- 3 to 10 engineers
- PM and Design resources
- Hightened Security Requirements
Product Workflow Showcase
Workflow Overview
- Bucket of Requests
- Roadmap Prioritization
- Product Design & Requirements
- UI/UX Design & Research
- Technical Specifications
- Sprint Prioritization
- Feature Implementation
- Acceptance Testing & QA
- Release
Product Workflow Showcase
Product Channels
Product Workflow Showcase
New Features
- Goes through the entire workflow
Enhancements
- Can skip steps
Bugs
- Can skip steps
- Can inject in current sprint
1. Bucket of Requests
Product Workflow Showcase
Open up any and all channels of communication to receive feedback or track user activity
- Customer Feedback
- Tracked user behavior
- Product Vision
- Stakeholders
- Team
2. Roadmap Prioritization
Product Workflow Showcase
- Situational Awareness
- Engineering Capacity & Capability
- Product Roadmap
- Stage the company is at
- Rough resource estimation of feature
- Effort to Gain estimation
- This is where most features are deprioritized
- Comparative prioritization
3. Product Design
Product Workflow Showcase
- Requirements Gathering
- User Research
- Written / tracked feedback
- Draft Product Requirements is produced and circulated
- Product team & stakeholders feedback on the document
- Product Requirements are Set
4. UI/UX Design & Research
Product Workflow Showcase
- Product Requirements are passed on to design
- Draft designs produced
- Designs tested internaly (product & engineering)
- User testing
- Final designs are produced
5. Technical Specifications
Product Workflow Showcase
- Set format / template
- Require approval mechanism
- i.e. github pull requests
- Technical Specifications repository reflects the actual implementation 1:1
- Instate culture of "tech-spec driven development"
The Last Mile...
Product Workflow Showcase
6. Sprint Prioritization
7. Feature Implementation
8. Acceptance Testing & QA
9. Release 🚀
- Situational Awareness
- Sensible expectations
- ⛏⛏⛏
- Product Requirements & Technical Specification describe what QA has to do
The Boundaries
Product Workflow Showcase
6. Sprint Prioritization
2. Roadmap Prioritization
CPO Chairs
CTO Chairs
Engineering Time Budget
Product Workflow Showcase
Workflow Overview
- Bucket of Requests
- Roadmap Prioritization
- Product Design & Requirements
- UI/UX Design & Research
- Technical Specifications
- Sprint Prioritization
- Feature Implementation
- Acceptance Testing & QA
- Release
Product Workflow Showcase
Questions?
Thanasis Polychronakis
@thanpolas
Practical Product Management
By thanpolas
