This really has been what my blog has been about. Reminders to myself. And much of what follows in this post you may have likely seen already. Essentially I coalesced thoughts from over the years into a single post covering these thoughts:

• Remember why you are here – a focus on process
• Focus on execution – understanding the lifecycle
• Pay attention to measurement – the numbers don’t lie
• Dream big – one of my favorite concepts

I hope this reminder serves you well.

Part 1 – Remember why you are here

Whether intentionally chosen, or inadvertently thrust upon them, Product Managers are called to be leaders. It may be a discussion about the three simple questions, or perhaps about the context of Vision, Execution, Measurement, or finally a view of Product Management from the lens of Interpret. Inform. Influence. Regardless, it is important to understand the role you play and the questions you should be asking.

Part 2 – A Focus on Execution

As Product Management leaders, we are measured on execution. The question is, how do you go about this? First off, remember The Importance of Portfolio Review & Governance. Understanding the end to end lifecycle & processes associated with Product Management Ideas > Planning > Roadmap > Launch cannot be understated.

Second, as it relates to the first two items in the lifecycle (Ideas > Planning), be intentional about The 5 Product Questions Leading Into PI Planning. The first two questions focus on Ideas: what is the universe of asks, and what are their priorities (e.g. – what value do they bring to the organization). The next two questions focus on Planning: what is the size/scope of the work, and does the team have the capacity to take it on. The last question is a sanity check: be realistic and ensure it all fits given the other intangibles going on within the organization or the team.

Third, be transparent as it relates to sharing the Product Roadmap and Status Reports. The primary focus should be what has been committed coming out of the quarterly PI planning. This is where status reports come in. Beyond the current quarter commitment, how you approach the roadmap can vary. I like to take this approach in representing the upcoming 12 months:

• Current quarter commitment – high degree of certainty
• Following quarter commitment – medium degree of certainty
• Next 2 quarters – low degree of certainty

Finally, don’t forget about launch … commercialization … go-to-market … etc. I’ve heard it called many things over the years. Be sure to understand how your organization refers to it, and what they really mean when they use the words. All too often people refer to the external facing portions (marketing, sales enablement, etc) and lose sight of the internal facing portions (legal, support, etc).

Part 3 – Pay Attention to Measurement

I’ll admit, measurement is not the sexiest part of the day-to-day role of a Product leader … but it is necessary! In The Numbers Don’t Lie post, I refer to a point about it taking courage to measure progress. The absence of data shouldn’t stop you from pursuing key metrics about your business so you a) understand your business and b) can act on what you learn from the data.

• when you are pursuing a new idea, vision or strategy … make sure it is compelling and supported by data … the numbers don’t lie.
• in the midst managing your product, make sure you understand key metrics about the health and trajectory of your product … the numbers don’t lie.
• when you are considering revenue for the upcoming/next planning cycle, make sure you can defend what you are going after with data … the numbers don’t lie.

Part 4 – Dream Big

I still love this perspective from the first Chief Data/Technology Specialist at the White House.

“This is the card that I kept in my notebook during my time in the White House … I kept it in my notebook because it was a daily reminder of what was needed to do my job: to make the country a bit better each day.”

Dream in years – I once heard if you want people to build you a boat, don’t just give them the plans and materials, make them yearn for the sea! As a product management leader, you’ll be most effective when your actions are aligned under the banner of an all consuming vision … something that either clearly speaks to the needs/pains of the marketplace, or imagines an even better way of doing something the market has never thought of before (think Ford and the first car … at the time, the typical person wouldn’t have said they needed a car, they would have said they needed more/better horses).

Plan in months – this is effectively the PI planning cycles!  Be intentional about them!

Evaluate in weeks – this is the status reporting.  How are you doing against what you said you were going to do?

Ship Daily – translated a different way, how can you deliver value daily?  What can you do for the team to ensure they progress each and every day?

It’s astounding
Time is fleeting
Madness takes its toll
But listen closely
Not for very much longer
I’ve got to keep control

Given we are still somewhat early in the new year, it is appropriate to be thinking about New Year’s Resolutions. Time to take control of our lives again; time to make changes to better ourselves; time to stop the madness. But at the same time, it isn’t always easy to make the changes and move forward without addressing some of the baggage we all carry. 

As this is true with our personal lives, so it is true with technology and Product Management. Curious?

According to several sources, when surveyed entering the New Year the top resolutions people tend to gravitate towards include topics like exercise, dieting, finances, reducing stress levels, spending more time with family, etc. But from personal experience, there is always some level of baggage from decisions we’ve made in the past which make it difficult to remain focused on (or achieve) the said goals we claimed were so important to us. 

Don’t worry, the intent of this post isn’t to focus on how well any of us did or didn’t do relative to New Year’s resolutions … but I do want to draw the analogy to how it applies to our roles as Product Management leaders. Consider this quote from a post titled The Broken Windows Theory of Technical Debt 

Doing things the quick and dirty way sets us up with a technical debt, which is similar to a financial debt. Like a financial debt, the technical debt incurs interest payments, which come in the form of the extra effort that we have to do in future development because of the quick and dirty design choice.

Can you see the correlation? New Year’s resolution is to do better with finances … save more, spend less, etc. Baggage is the mountain of debt accumulated because of poor decision making in the past making it difficult to save. New Year organization goals are to innovate more and drive new revenue. Baggage is the necessity to address technical debt (to retain clients, for security/compliance purposes, etc) making it difficult to innovate.

Here’s the reality … we think we can make up for the technical debt after the stress of this particular project is done … but the next priority project is just around the corner, and chances are it is just as important as the previous one. But as the technical debt continues to grow, executing against the next priority project gets harder and harder. I tend to be a pretty visual person, and this comic sums it up best!

Let me also share how this played out with a poignant example from my past that still haunts/frustrates me today. In one of my roles, I worked for a company who at the time was arguably the leader in the space we served. In fact, this company pioneered technology in the early to mid-90s to set the industry standard because it:

• defined the user experience
• created value to multiple parties in the value chain
• created a network effect which caused it to grow exponentially

As time went on, the company expanded into several adjacencies within the space (through acquisition as well as new development) to further cement their position. Eventually with an established leadership presence and dominant market share, the focus for the organization became more about sustaining technologies than innovation (for more on this topic … check this post out … I highly recommend reading Innovator’s Dilemma!). Single code bases were proliferated to become many with the goal of sustaining the needs of the largest existing clients (or win new large clients). And as this strategy played out, R&D went less and less towards building new features and more and more towards maintenance, stability, quality, compliance, security, and everything related to customer retention across multiple redundant platforms/code bases.

But just like in the Innovator’s Dilemma book with the Bethlehem Steel example, the strategy of sustaining high-margin customers through stability and quality worked well for many years, but the lack of innovation eventually caught up with us. 

Mind you, we were the recognized industry leader at the time when some new, disruptive ideas and technologies were hitting the marketplace. We were approached by all of the Tech Giants … Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft because of our market position. And although I developed the vision on how we could succeed with these Tech Giants and pushed hard for a roadmap to enable us to continue in a dominant market position, the mountain of tech debt was significant enough we simply could not dedicate the resources or move fast enough. Opportunity lost because of the baggage.

So, to finish where we started …

It’s astounding … In our roles as Product Management leaders, we will continually be called upon to astound the organization with new ideas/innovation
Time is fleeting … But be sure to carve out time to deal with the baggage, because over time it will catch up with you
Madness takes its toll … And if you don’t address it, it will drive you mad
But listen closely … Not for very much longer … I’ve got to keep control … As a Product Management leader, don’t allow the behavior to continue … take control

And for those of you who haven’t guessed … the lyrics come from Time Warp from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

But like any tool, it is not without its challenges & faults. So, as I struggle through various things related to Aha!, I thought it would be beneficial to share my findings and workarounds.

This post’s perspective is on publication of status reports.

Let’s be blunt … Aha!’s use of presentations as a mechanism to produce reports leaves a lot to be desired! It’s not intuitive or easy to use; it’s not very flexible; it assumes the entire presentation in question will be based in Aha!, so it limits the ability to be collaborative with status reporting in conjunction with other team members who perhaps don’t use Aha!. Let me explain:

The Situation: We use Aha! to track major initiatives/projects we undertook during the annual budgeting cycle, as well as to track commitments to the roadmap made during the quarterly PI planning process (which should in theory tie back to the major initiatives). I talk about this process in my post The Importance of Portfolio Review & Governance

My Product Leaders subsequently use Aha! to regularly track status, major highlights, and risks associated with the initiatives and quarterly work items. We used the Delivery Risks field within Aha! for the risks portion, and added custom fields for the RYG status reporting and major highlights. We then organized the data into a Pivot Table to communicate status of the work items at a level to be consumed by major stakeholders and executives.

So, all of the data is resident and generally up to date in Aha! at least on a weekly basis for each of the distinct product lines (or workspaces). Conceptually, this screenshot gives a snapshot of what it looks like (protecting the sensitive nature of the data of course!).

The Challenges: While it isn’t difficult to point people to a centralized place in Aha! where this type of information can be accessed, many times the audience (key stakeholders & executives) don’t have the bandwidth or willingness to go to the centralized place to retrieve the data. Furthermore, the status report produced for this audience includes not only these views, but also information from other parts of the business where the content does not originate from Aha!. So, there is a need to consolidate information from multiple places to a single deck.

My first thought was to try and export the presentation from Aha! to be included in the consolidated master deck. No good.

• I can present directly from Aha!
• I can export as a .pdf
• I can publish as a shareable webpage
• But I cannot save or export the materials in a manner easily consumed by PowerPoint.

What good is automating the reporting when I can’t use it constructively outside of Aha!?

The Solution: By pure chance, when researching other add-ins within PowerPoint for a different purpose, I stumbled across the Web Viewer Add-in which allows you to insert secure web pages starting with https:// into the slide deck. Then I remember the option to publish a shareable webpage from Aha! … which uses secure web pages. Not only can it be done from the Presentation capability, but also directly from the Pivot Table. And I had an idea … could that be a way to get the automated reporting from Aha! to PowerPoint? So, I started playing.

Step 1 – Add the Web Viewer Add-in to PowerPoint (start at the File menu)

Step 2 – Publish the Pivot Table/Report as a Webpage

Step 3 – Paste the copied link into the Web Viewer

The Results: It worked! This approach provides an automated, real-time feed of updates from Aha! into a PowerPoint deck where you can at any point in time get a live view of the status of a product line and its work items. And to sweeten the argument, I use the same Pivot Table output across 3-4 different meetings/audiences/presentations … but all updated from a single source in Aha! Magic!

While this is viable alternative until Aha! improves its presentation capabilities, it is not without its limitations. Here are some drawbacks I’ve had to work around:

1. Size of the output (horizontal perspective) – the ability to adjust or control the size of the webpage and how it is represented in the viewer is limited. I’ve read countless articles and played with the source code a bit, but nothing seems to work. So be careful about how wide your Pivot Table is in Aha! else you will end up with a horizontal scroll bar and not all of the information visible on the screen.
2. Size of the output (vertical perspective) – or in other words, how many items you are reporting on. There is no way to automate pagination of the webpages, so the way I’ve had to solve for this is by splitting the output into two separate views within Aha! by filtering on 1/2 of the data at a time. Two views, 2 pages in the status deck. Not ideal, but … c’est la vie.
3. Page refresh – every time you open the presentation, it is necessary to click the preview button in the lower right of the Add-in to get the data to appear. Just make sure you allocate some time before the meeting to refresh the various views you’ve imported so as to not disrupt the meeting flow.
4. Getting lost in slide – when navigating within the view (e.g. – using scroll bars), you can sometimes lose control of PowerPoint controls to advance to the next slide. Not insurmountable, but it definitely caused some angst the first time or two it happened!

Hope you found this information useful. If you have other workarounds to solve a similar problem, I’d love to hear about them.

A completely separate thread is digging into ChatGPT training modules at work to understand how this will impact me going forward. Certainly, from a technology perspective and how it many impact my approach to bringing products to market. But also, with how Product Management may have to evolve as a result of this new technology. Why do I think it will have an impact? Well, just consider these two poignant facts from the training module:

• ChatGPT is the fastest platform to reach 100M users in the history of all computing.
• ChatGPT crossed the chasm for AI into the mainstream and is ushering in the 4th industrial revolution.

So, you may be wondering ‘what is the intersection’? Good question. In one of the training modules the instructor was talking about using ChatGPT for communication … with emails, social media posts, and even blogs. Hmmm … what if I ask it to write the article for me? So, I decided to test it out and see how it works.

Generated Post (test #1 from ChatGPT)

Leadership is a vital aspect of any successful team or organization. It requires a unique set of qualities that help to inspire and guide people towards a common goal. Ted Lasso, the titular character of the hit Apple TV+ show, is a perfect example of a leader who possesses these qualities. In this post, we will explore some of Ted Lasso’s most memorable quotes and how they can teach us about leadership.

1. “Be curious, not judgmental.”

This quote from Ted Lasso is an excellent example of how leaders should approach their team members. As a leader, it’s easy to jump to conclusions about someone’s actions or behavior. However, a good leader should always take the time to understand their team members and their motivations.

By being curious and asking questions, leaders can gain valuable insights into their team members’ strengths and weaknesses. They can also learn about their team members’ goals and aspirations, which can help them to provide more effective guidance and support.

2. “Believe in yourself, and you can do anything.”

Belief in oneself is a critical trait for any leader. When you believe in yourself, you can inspire others to believe in themselves as well. This is especially important when facing challenges or setbacks.

As a leader, it’s essential to show confidence in your abilities and the abilities of your team. This can help to build trust and create a positive, can-do attitude that can drive success.

3. “Do you believe in miracles?”

This quote is a famous line from the movie “Miracle,” and it’s a favorite of Ted Lasso’s. It’s a powerful reminder that anything is possible if you believe in it.

As a leader, it’s important to foster a culture of possibility and positivity. This means encouraging your team to think big, take risks, and believe in their abilities. By doing so, you can create an environment that inspires innovation and creativity.

4. “There’s always a way to be more creative and find a solution.”

Creativity is a vital skill for leaders, as it allows them to think outside the box and find innovative solutions to problems. Ted Lasso understands the power of creativity and encourages his team to embrace it.

As a leader, it’s important to foster a culture of creativity by encouraging your team to try new things and take risks. This can help to inspire new ideas and approaches that can lead to breakthroughs.

5. “Lead by example, not by fear.”

This quote from Ted Lasso is perhaps the most important of all. It reminds us that true leadership comes from leading by example, not by fear or intimidation.

Leaders who lead by fear may get results in the short term, but they will ultimately create a toxic environment that stifles creativity and innovation. By leading by example, leaders can inspire their team to work harder and be their best selves.

In conclusion, Ted Lasso is a great example of a leader who possesses the qualities that make for great leadership. His quotes remind us to be curious, believe in ourselves, embrace creativity, and lead by example. By following these principles, we can all become better leaders and help our teams to achieve greatness.

Regenerated Post (test #2 from ChatGPT)

Leadership is a critical component in any organization’s success. Good leaders inspire their team members, motivate them to achieve their goals, and create a positive work environment. However, leadership is not just about telling people what to do. It’s about setting an example, guiding them, and helping them reach their full potential.

Ted Lasso, the protagonist of the eponymous TV show, is a perfect example of a great leader. Despite being a fictional character, Ted’s leadership philosophy can teach us a lot about what it takes to be a good leader. Here are some Ted Lasso quotes that highlight the key attributes of effective leadership:

1. “Be curious, not judgmental.”

One of the fundamental qualities of a good leader is being open-minded and curious. A leader who is always willing to learn and explore new ideas is more likely to inspire their team members to do the same. Being judgmental, on the other hand, can lead to a negative work environment and hinder creativity.

2. “I believe in hope. I believe in believe.”

Leadership is all about inspiring hope and belief in your team. A good leader must be able to see the potential in their team members and inspire them to reach their goals. A leader who believes in their team’s abilities can help them achieve the impossible.

3. “The happiest animal in the world is a goldfish. You know why? Got a 10-second memory. Be a goldfish, Sam.”

Leadership requires resilience and the ability to bounce back from setbacks. A good leader must be able to let go of failures and move on to the next challenge. Being able to maintain a positive attitude in the face of adversity is crucial for inspiring and motivating team members.

4. “Success is not about the destination, it’s about the journey.”

A good leader must be able to set clear goals and objectives for their team. However, it’s important to remember that success is not just about achieving those goals. It’s about the journey you take to get there. A good leader must be able to celebrate small victories and appreciate the effort their team members put in.

5. “You know what the happiest animal on earth is? It’s a human. Just one with a healthy mix of realism and hope.”

Leadership requires a balance of realism and hope. A good leader must be able to see things as they are while also having faith in their team’s ability to overcome challenges. Being able to strike this balance can help a leader inspire their team members to achieve their goals.

In conclusion, effective leadership requires a combination of skills and qualities. Being open-minded, curious, and resilient, having a positive attitude, setting clear goals, and inspiring hope and belief are all essential qualities of a good leader. Ted Lasso’s leadership philosophy can teach us a lot about what it takes to be an effective leader, and his quotes are a testament to the power of leadership in creating a positive work environment and inspiring team members to achieve their goals.

The Verdict

Not bad at all. Although, there are a few quotes I certainly would have included where the generated content did not.

• Taking on a challenge is a lot like riding a horse, isn’t it? If you’re comfortable while you’re doing it, you’re probably doing it wrong. [PH] – this reminds me of another quote I’ve used from racecar driver Mario Andretti … “if everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough”.
• I think that you might be so sure that you’re one in a million, that sometimes you forget that out there you’re just one in 11. [PH] – our talent alone is not good enough; teamwork is what drives success.
• I think things come into our lives to help us get from one place to a better one. [PH] – everything in life s a learning experience.
• Believe. [PH] – the simple sign over the locker room office door! For fellow sci-fi fans out there, this obscure quote will resonate … “I don’t care WHAT you believe in. Just believe!”

The second test definitely appealed more to me than the first test did (in ChatGPT, with the same question you can ask it to regenerate the response for a different outcome). And while there are stark differences in the way I write and the words I use (for example, I can’t ever think of a time where I have used the word ‘titular’ or ‘eponymous’ in a written or spoken context ), in general both examples were not bad.

But with these simple tests using the technology, I can certainly understand some of the arguments mentioned in the training course about the education arena being up in arms. Like any tool, I can see the positives/benefits in using something like this in various contexts. But I can also easily see the potential for abuse/misuse. I am certainly looking forward to digging in and learning more.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.  It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.” 

With respect to a process that most certainly raises the hackles on many folks, I couldn’t think of a better way to describe the intent behind why having a Portfolio Review & Governance process is so important than this quote from Aristotle.

As an organization, we align around a certain set of goals every year to help drive the business forward. Not every idea makes the final cut, but this painstaking process is necessary to focus everyone on the core set of major work initiatives to bring about the biggest impact. These major work initiatives are often aligned by business lines, product lines, geographic lines, etc, and get broken down into distinct blocks of work delivered over the course of due time via an agreed upon product roadmap.

Sounds simple enough, right? What could possibly be so difficult in delivering against what we said was so important? Well, as Product Management leaders I am quite certain you have experienced some of these … competitive disruptions, acquisitions, a new major customer/partner, a leadership change inside the organization, a critical system failure, a pandemic, etc. I’ve personally experienced changes due to all of these and I’m certain this is not an exhaustive list.

What is critical is not managing towards an expectation of preventing change, but rather having the confidence to manage through the change WHEN it does occur. Not if, when.

When I was reading various materials regarding the Portfolio Review & Governance process, these are just a few of the descriptions/definitions I found:

• Software governance provides organizations with a structure for aligning their development strategy with the overall business strategy, using a formal framework to enable tracking and measuring performance against specific strategic goals.
• Portfolio governance management supports how project stakeholders exchange relevant and reliable information in a timely manner.
• Portfolio governance management will also serve as guide for investment analysis to:
  • Identify threats and opportunities
  • Assess change, impacts and dependencies
  • Achieve performance targets
  • Select, schedule and prioritize activities

This is good guidance. And when I align this input against the quote from Aristotle, the intent then is to provide a framework (high intention) by which all project decisions are made (sincere effort); to engage key stakeholders for informed decision making (intelligent execution); and to ensure alignment with respect to changes to existing plans (wise choices)​. 

Everything we do should be predicated on remaining focused as an organization on our most important priorities (portfolio review), while allowing for the agility to adjust as the organization requires (governance).​

• Portfolio Level – key stakeholders across the organization should have a consistent view of the most important priorities from an investment and planning perspective, as well as a transparent view into the status/progress of those priorities at a given point in time.
• Product/Program Level – all work should be agreed upon amongst the cross-functional teams and communicated broadly via the product roadmap, and specifically with respect to the current PI planning cycle.
• Product Team Level – key organizational priorities and product planning will guide the sprint & release planning efforts to ensure alignment of work.

Regardless of whether a pending change is represented in the earlier list, or something entirely different, it should always be evaluated through these lenses. Changes to prior committed work (organizational key priorities and/or PI planning commitments) must be agreed upon across major stakeholders.

I had a colleague once who put it this way … I’ve got a can that holds 100 beans. We previously agreed as to which 100 beans would fit in the can. You’ve just given me 3 more beans, but they don’t fit. So which 3 beans should I take out in order to put the 3 new beans in?

Again, it is not a matter IF changes occur, it is a matter of WHEN. The question every Product Management leader should wrestle with is whether or not you have the necessary framework in place to manage through the change.

Providing clarity around these questions, to the team as well as to the organization at large, was a theme I took into our annual Sales Kickoff Event. It starts with an understanding of what Product Management is (and to be clear there are many perspectives out there if you were to search the term). I like this adaptation of one I found on Wikipedia because it is simple enough to follow, and if you were to evaluate the essence of the many Product Management frameworks out there, they all build their models around this context:

Product Management is the business process of managing the entire lifecycle of introducing a product or service … from ideation to planning to development to launch.

Ideation

Many moons ago, I posted about innovation being a funnel, not a pipe … keep the ideas flowing and try something new. After all, when you look at the Ideation stage of the Product Management Lifecycle, it should be fed with many ideas. Key to this is having a place for key stakeholders to go to feed the funnel. We are using the Ideas Portal from Aha! as the primary mechanism to solicit such feedback. The intent of having the Portal is to:

• Encourage innovation: Ideas are essential for innovation.  The Portal serves as an interactive hub to submit the ideas customers want, or improvements to process, or other innovative ideas.​
• Centralize/Crowdsource feedback: Contributors are empowered to not only suggest enhancements, but also to vote/comment on the product ideas most likely to drive the greatest impact such that they rise to the top for consideration.
• Manage requests efficiently: Ideas will be reviewed, organized, and scored as part of the intake process in preparation for consideration on the roadmap. Ideas which demonstrate tangible business benefits will be promoted and worked through the process.
• Promote transparency: Stakeholders will remain informed about status/progress of their submission.

And remember, sometimes focus is about saying no! Not all ideas warrant progression to the next stage.

Planning/Roadmap

Promoted Ideas will be the primary basis for all work prioritized by the Product Team for planning purposes and will feed product roadmaps.  But to borrow a quote, the reality is the number of demands will always outnumber the supply of your time.

So how do you approach situations where feature enhancements are stacking up, but capacity constraints prevent everything from getting done? The answer is through planning and prioritization. The focus should be on a stack ranked perspective of the things deemed most important to the business. This stack ranked perspective, alongside understanding the capacity of the team to deliver, inevitably leads to Product Roadmaps. Roadmaps serve not only as guiding strategic documents, but also as a plan for executing the product strategy. They allow for:

• Prioritization: Roadmaps allow product managers to think through priorities before making any promises about when or how objectives will be met.
• Sharing: Roadmaps align teams on how and when we will reach desired objectives and facilitate transparent communication with stakeholders.
• Accountability: Roadmaps keep product managers accountable to the stakeholders who are depending on them.

Launch

Launch (or commercialization) is the process of driving an idea to market. Done properly, it is how Ideas turn into dollars. The bottom line behind this discussion is a pay me now or pay me later equation.  Yes, this will take a lot of time and effort up front.  But if you invest in it up front, it mitigates issues on the back end where you would end up spending even more time.

• Identification: Commercialization identifies all affected stakeholders early in the process, and officially begins when a project is committed for delivery.
• Alignment: Commercialization aligns stakeholders with what tasks need to be finished by when and is complete only when all Stakeholders have approved.
• Excitement: The goal is to build awareness, excitement, and momentum for new capabilities and maximize the launch potential.

To dig a bit more into this topic, check out my post are you sure you are ready or this one on go-to-market.

You don’t build a business, you build people. And then people build the business.

I love this quote. And with 2022 winding down and 2023 on the horizon, the idea of building people is forefront in my mind. As I was thinking about ‘how can we end this year well and get the new one off to a flying start’, an opportunity presented itself. PI Planning for Q12023 was coming upon us, and as my boss so poignantly reminded me … how we execute in Q1 will set the tone for the rest of the year. What better time to bring the team together a day early for an all-day Product Summit.

From an agenda perspective, there were several things on my mind. First, this is a new team. Partially blended together because of internal changes organizationally, partially because we’ve added several new members to the team. One objective was finding a way to accelerate the Form/Norming stages of new team development. The second objective centered on ensuring expectations for the new year were firmly rooted.

It was in preparing for this Product Summit I had an aha moment … where several ideas from this blog began to coalesce into something I hadn’t seen before. And I thought it worth sharing.

Objective 1 – Team Building

I mentioned this was a new team, so I wanted to ensure intentionality around getting the team acquainted with one another. If you aren’t familiar with the concept of Form, Storm, Norm, Perform with new teams, I highly encourage you to read a bit more about it (the link is just one sample source on the topic). As you will read, when teams first get together there is a level of excitement and newness and exuberance to make great things happen. This is the FORMING stage. After a while, the halo effect of the newness wears off and when the team realizes there’s actual work to be done, there tends to lose momentum.

So, accelerating the Forming/Storming phase was important to me. And yes, queue the eye roll because I did begin with the obligatory ‘3 questions’ approach. But I found a fun way to make it not so predictable.

• The first two questions were to understand people’s backgrounds a bit … Why did you choose a role in Product … How long have you been in [domain]?
• But for the last question, I had a bit of fun with this Random Question Generator. It was the randomness of the questions that sparked some good discussion and at times, hearty laughter. Just what the doctor ordered!

The second step was to leverage a wonderful tool in the Birkman Assessment for understanding our own tendencies as well as those of our teammates. As a high-level summary, the assessment is

• a non-judgmental profile of your strengths, behaviors, motivations, and interests
• a predictive summary of how individuals and teams approach communication, conflict, and decision making
• a way to help people manage life and work situations to get their motivational needs met and reduces their stress

Across 9 components (one shown below), you get a view of how folks scored and then discuss how best to work with one another. Who are the introverts and extroverts? Who likes to be direct vs. needing lots of context? You can already see the value of discussing the results in the sample below due to the variances in how the team responded. Now imagine this compounded across all 9 components! Really good discussion and excellent way to promote effective team collaboration.

Objective 2 – Expectation Setting

The next part of the agenda would focus on setting appropriate expectations for the team as we embarked on a new year, and there are two perspectives I really wanted to spend time on. The first is Competency related … what is expected of us as a Product team in the organization? And what things should each of us in a Product role be expected to do? The second is Goals related … what is it the company is trying to do in 2023, and how do we contribute?

Competencies

This one was tough because it had to begin with a common understanding of what Product Management is. Where some folks on the team chose the role, some were thrust into it out of necessity (coming from roles such as Support, QA, Sales, Customer Service, etc). So, setting the proper foundation was critical.

Over the years, I have been influenced by many Product Management methodologies/frameworks. I appreciate them all because they all focus on setting a proper foundation for the organization.  To coalesce on the common elements, let’s reverse engineer the problem a bit. From an output perspective, every product has net new customers to pursue (as well as attrition to monitor). But how do you know who to pursue?  Do you understand your customer and/or why you win or lose? Every product needs marketing collateral.  But what story is being told through the collateral … what problem is being solved?  Every product should have a product roadmap. But what feeds the roadmap?

The commonality of the frameworks we as Product Management leaders should focus on is addressing three simple questions:

1. Who am I serving?
2. What do they need/want, and are ready to buy?
3. How can I reach them and persuade them?

This led to a brainstorming exercise where I asked the team to share their thoughts on what they thought the organization expected of us in our roles? The end result was discussing a vast number of the competencies you would find in the frameworks mentioned earlier, or I summarized in my posts on Interpret, Inform, and Influence. Not surprisingly, some areas were discussed/exposed fairly heavily (especially as it pertained to liaising with the development team). In other areas, acknowledgement of tasks like product launch were mostly glossed over.

This pointed to gaps as an organization, so the next step was to ask the team how they think we are doing collectively against those competencies? It was a leading question to be fair because in the several weeks leading up to the Summit, I had surveyed the key stakeholders to quantify some of the anecdotal evidence I had been hearing. The focus was on a subset of the broader framework, and really keyed in on 7 topics: PI Planning, Sprint Planning/Grooming, Requirements/User Stories, Release Notes, Release Demos, Roadmap, and Commercialization/Launch.

7 questions, ~40 recipients, 10 responses … so a ~25% response rate. And as an average, we scored a 5.5 on a satisfaction scale of 1-10. Definitely room for improvement, and as an organization we’ll do the survey again in 6 months to measure improvement. As Aristotle said … knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom … criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”

Which led to the second part of the conversation on individual Competencies. I’ve talked about these pretty extensively, so am not going to belabor the point, but these two resources are wonderful for understanding how to approach this and are worth sharing here.

1. Product Management Assessments | Sequent Learning Networks
2. Competencies-of-a-Product-Owner.pdf (agilecockpit.com)

Goals

This part of the conversation started with a discussion around Vision, Execution, Measurement. Let me use a sequence of quotes to explain.

Where there is no vision, the people perish! – Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover, the 31st President of the United States, quoted this old Proverb in his inauguration speech. This is true for countries, for companies, and essentially everything having organization tied to it. As Product Management leaders, our role is to develop a crystal clear vision of where we are going while at the same time inspiring others to embrace it and help to make it a reality. Success mandates we share the vision with every key stakeholder at every opportunity to ensure clarity, consensus and alignment of goals.

Vision without execution is hallucination. – Thomas Edison

As Product Management leaders, we need to dream big, but we also need to identify the path to success through execution (e.g. – Get Stuff Done!).  This is exactly the reason why Gartner’s Magic Quadrant has two axes for identifying leading companies/products … Completeness of Vision AND Ability to Execute.  The first in and of itself is a great start, but not enough to warrant a leadership position in the market.  There also has to be an Ability to Execute.

The numbers don’t lie. Once you actually know the truth, you can start improving … The numbers don’t lie. The numbers hold you accountable to making real improvements … The numbers don’t lie. The numbers inspire you to make action plans for reaching goals. – Cheryl Bachelder, CEO Popeyes

This thought about measurement comes from her book Dare to Serve and seems pretty straight forward in my mind.  Everything ties back to the numbers (revenue, margin, etc), so make sure you understand the contributions Product Management is making (or not) towards business success.

Tying it all Back Together

As I stated in my post My Take on Good/Bad Product Manager, the ideas originally put forth by Ben Horowitz are, in my opinion, timeless. If you are interested in being a successful leader in product management, this is where you need to start!  And while I’ve summarized the list down to 6, you can see the vision, execution, and measurement elements represented.

So, working backwards from Goals and tying it all back together … what is the vision for where the company is going broadly? How does this translate into the “big rocks” discussed during the budgeting process for the upcoming year? Which product(s) are affected by these big rocks? What is the sequence of work allowing us to solve for them? How will we measure along the way? By the way, having a dashboard is topic we’ll be exploring as a team soon.

But don’t lose sight of the Competencies … what is the organization expecting of us in this role? How are we doing against those expectations? How are we doing against what a Product Manager or Product Owner should be doing? What is the sequence of steps we taking (collectively or individually) to improve? How will we measure?

Ultimately ensuring success is the combination of both of these items!

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.

I don’t recall how I stumbled upon this quote, but as I think about where we are in the year, what a wonderful reminder to take a deep breath, exhale, and remember what is important. For many, this tends to be the time of year where family gathers, where trips down memory lane take center stage, and where often we give thanks.

I am certainly looking forward to the several day respite from work to do so with my family. And I would be remiss not to take a moment to reflect and give thanks from a professional standpoint as well, with the quote providing a nice segway to do so.

Define Reality

The quote offers several tidbits of wisdom to draw upon, the first of which is the responsibility of a leader to define reality. From a family context, how this often takes shape is someone stepping up to ensure there is a plan. Whose house will be hosting? How is everyone contributing? The list goes on.

From a work context, I’ll reference an old Proverb Herbert Hoover (31st President of the US) quoted in his inaugural speech … where there is no vision, the people parish. This is true for countries, for companies, and essentially everything with organization tied to it. As product management leaders, our role is to develop a crystal-clear vision of where we are going while at the same time inspiring others to embrace the vision and help to make it a reality.

Servant Leadership

Book ending the quote is the reference to the leader being a servant. When I think about this with family during the Thanksgiving meal, it means being aware of the sheer number of things which much be prepared ensuring no one person bears all of the burden. It means being willing to do myself what I know others will do themselves but shouldn’t have bear alone.

Defined by Robert Greenleaf in the early 1970s, the main principle of servant leadership suggests leaders remain attentive to the concerns of their followers and empathize with them, including those with little power in a system. Servant leaders make others better by listening, through understanding and empathy, by being aware and especially being self-aware, through persuasion, through conceptualization or vision, by being a good steward, and through commitment to the growth of people and the greater community.

When it comes to servant leadership, my inspiration is drawn from Nelson Mandela who said real leaders must be ready to sacrifice all for the freedom of their people. Let that sink in … ultimately, it’s not about us as leaders.

Give Thanks

And last but not least from the quote is to say Thank You. With family, this can often be difficult. We take them for granted or just forget to say thank you because we get busy. It’s no different in a professional setting. I was in a leadership training session last week where I heard about the five-penny challenge. To summarize:

Authentic compliments and encouraging words can go far to create a trusting, positive environment. But we all get busy and wrapped up in our own stuff, so as a reminder to give out positive words to others throughout your day, I want you to put five pennies in your right pocket. Every time you say something kind or encouraging to another person, move one penny from your right pocket to your left pocket. Before you can go home that night, you need to have all five pennies in your left pocket.

I took this to heart because I do get busy and often forget to say Thank You. I am going to use this post and the five-penny challenge as a catalyst to do better. And so, as I reflect back, I am thankful for …

• The many companies & bosses who have given me the opportunity
• The awesome successes … as well as the failures
• The mentors and comrades who have walked with me during those successes and failures
• The executives who believed in me and were willing to champion the vision I presented
• The executives who challenged my premises, causing me to rethink and come back stronger
• The architects and engineers with whom I have brainstormed & orchestrated
• The product development teams who have delivered for me, sometimes under difficult circumstances
• The sales leaders with whom I have collaborated & combated
• The marketing teams with whom I have dreamed with & created
• My colleagues and team members who have sharpened me as iron sharpens iron

Happy Thanksgiving all!

• environmental – consider the new normal given the impacts and residual effects of COVID in our everyday lives (from vanishing handshakes, to more prevalent mask wearing, to remote working, etc)
• economic – volatility in the stock market I haven’t experienced as an adult, and my kids have never known
• technology – there are so many changes to consider, but the two that made me stop and wonder were these:
  • every second, there are an estimated 127 new devices connecting to the internet
  • 90% of the world’s data was collected in the last 2 years
• behaviors – the only thing advancing faster than technology is consumer expectations
• business – shift to platforms, APIs, digital, etc. … consider the fact 7 of the 10 most valuable & influential companies in the world are powered by platforms (Google, Apple, Amazon, etc.)

This type of dynamic landscape can only be characterized as Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous. But what does this mean in our roles as Product Management leaders?

Let’s face it, the reality of where we find ourselves today can often feel overwhelming. The examples shared earlier barely scratch the surface in describing the bullet-train of life we find ourselves on.

This HRB image I referenced in a prior post does a wonderful job of explaining the characteristics of each of the VUCA terms with poignant examples, so not necessary for me to recreate the wheel there.

Daunting, right? But as I’ve pointed out many times in the past, while we cannot always control the environment and/or the circumstances we find ourselves in … but we can control how we respond. So, take solace in this thought and let’s take a look at what our response should be.

I found a resource a while back (if I could remember where I would source it, but alas this is one I failed to keep track of), and I really liked it because as I read through the context of how leaders should navigate amidst the VUCA, it references concepts I’ve posted about many times. Hopefully this high-level summary of the points I pulled will be helpful … and I’ve included links to prior posts supporting a few of the points.

Bring Vision amidst the Volatility

• Communicate – relentlessly communicate a sense of purpose and lead people towards it
• Belief – in yourself and others, supported by facts and evidence
• Focus – ensure your team’s efforts are aligned and focused in the right areas

“As a product management leader, you’ll be most effective when your actions are aligned under the banner of an all-consuming vision“

Turn Uncertainty into Understanding

• Curiosity – ask questions that challenge the status quo in your organization every day
• Empathy – get where people are coming from – their hopes, fears and desires
• Open Mind – explore new ideas, reflect and seek constructive criticism

“There are six types of Socratic questions … all Product Management leaders should utilize as a means of critical thinking to thoroughly understand their business.”

Simply the Complex and bring Clarity

• Simplify – chop the fat, cut through the complexity and distill the core down to its essence; define the problem statement
• Intuition – use the gift of knowing without reasoning, trust your gut and your experience
• Systems thinking – approach problems from a holistic perspective

“At the risk of oversimplifying things, framing is the basic problem-solving process beginning with ensuring the right questions are being asked, and the problem is well defined and understood.”

Amidst the Ambiguous pursue Agility/Adaptability

• Decisiveness – adapt quickly to changing circumstances and make decisions with confidence
• Adapt or die – learn from your mistakes, continuously seek new ways to get better at what you do
• Empower – value networks over hierarchy, collaboration over control

“If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will.“

So, back to the title for the post … same word, completely different context. As I heard from a colleague recently, be the change in the world you want to see.

Why the focus on this topic here today? What role should Product Management leaders play in the overall process? What is necessary from a preparation standpoint, and what should be expected with the output?

Today we’ll explore the high level context of the PI Planning event (lots of good sources out there for this topic), but really where I want to focus the discussion is around what I believe are the 5 essential questions every product manager should be asking as they head into discussions. Let’s dig in.

Definition/Overview

I’ve not found a distinct definition per-se of the term PI Planning, but conceptually there are many sources out who provide a good overview. Here are just a few:

• Scaled Agile Framework (© Scaled Agile, Inc.) – Program Increment (PI) Planning is a cadence-based, face-to-face event that serves as the heartbeat of the Agile Release Train (ART), aligning all the teams to a shared mission and Vision.
• Planview – The PI Planning event is two days of focused planning with all the teams, stakeholders, and product owners/managers in one place to review the program backlog and determine the direction of the business. 
• PMWorld Journal – PI Planning is a whole team event where the whole program – the set of smaller agile teams working closely together as a single team-of-teams – come together in a big room (hence it is often referred to as Big Room Planning) to agree a plan for the next 8 – 12 weeks. The goal of the event is to create alignment, encourage collaboration, enable self-organization, eliminate waste and exploit the synergy between the teams.

Goals, Benefits & Structure

I can’t state the goal any better than what was outlined above … create alignment, encourage collaboration, enable self-organization, eliminate waste and exploit the synergy between the teams! Love it!

From a benefits standpoint, I think Scaled Agile Framework summarizes it best with these points

• Establishing face-to-face communication across all team members and stakeholders
• Building the social network the framework depends upon
• Aligning development to business goals with the business context, vision, and Team and Program PI objectives
• Identifying dependencies and fostering cross-team and cross-ART collaboration
• Providing the opportunity for ‘just the right amount’ of architecture and Lean User Experience (UX) guidance
• Matching demand to capacity and eliminating excess Work in Process (WIP)
• Fast decision-making

And finally, in reviewing the main points from the goals and benefits, the structure needs to include

• Executive briefing – A briefing that defines the current business context
• Product vision briefing(s) – Briefings prepared by Product Management, including the top 10 features in the Program Backlog
• Architecture vision briefing – A presentation made by the CTO, Enterprise Architect, or System Architect to communicate align on architectural direction

Our Role as Product Management Leaders

Now comes the fun part. Part 2 of the structure mentioned above is the Product vision & briefing. What does this entail? In my experience, if you can answer these 5 questions leading into the event you will be well prepared.

1. The Universe of Asks – when it comes to the work to be done, what is being asked of you? And where is this information being managed for review (regardless of how good you think you are, this can’t be managed in your head).
   • New capabilities – this is where our natural inclination lies … what capabilities will help drive revenue or create buzz in the marketplace or around the company?
   • Technical debt – but you can’t forget about the plumbing. A few ideas include what architectural adjustments are needed, or what software upgrades are needed. There are plenty more not listed, and the Product leader should work directly with the Development leader to understand what they are and compromise on what % of the work should be focused here.
   • Compliance – what new regulatory changes need to be accounted for?
   • Rollover – this is also something people forget … what work didn’t get completed in the prior quarter?
2. Prioritization – what are the priorities of those asks? How do they stack rank against each other? I’ve posted on the mechanics of this in my post Prioritization, Complexity, Cost of Delay and other Musings, so if you are interested follow the link for more details. But in general
   • What are the tangible benefits of doing the work and/or the opportunity cost of not doing the work? (revenue, cost savings, efficiencies, time to market delays, etc.).
   • In other words, be able to justify why you have prioritized the work the way you have in an objective/calculated manner leaving few questions and/or doubt in the mind of the audience.
3. Capacity to take on the work – essentially this question goes to the make up and cadence of the team. How much work can the team be expected to do?
   • Team construct – how many people are on the team? How much work can they take on in any given Sprint (usually measured by story points)?
   • Velocity – what has been the throughput of the team on average? How many story points per Sprint are anticipated given historical trends?
   • Committed v. completed – it is important to understand how much the team says they can do vs. how much they actually deliver. This is where rollover comes from, and if not managed correctly can have a detrimental impact to future Sprints.
4. Size/Scope of the work – whereas point #3 really should come from the Scrum Master/Development Leader, point #4 is the responsibility of the Product Leader (with input/assistance from the development team). Essentially, do we know how much work we are asking the team to do?
   • Tracking – Is the work defined in Jira, AZDO, etc. at an Initiative/Project/Epic level?
   • Scope – are the proper Features/User Stories broken down and clearly communicated (including acceptance criteria)?
   • Size – Have the Features/User Stories been reviewed with the development team, groomed, and appropriately sized?
5. Fit – Have we aligned the prioritized list of work to be done (e.g. – point #4) against the perceived capacity of the team (point #3)? Is it mapped out by Sprint (at least the first several in the quarter)? Is it reasonable and does it fit?

Hope this provides keen insights as you approach your own quarterly strategic planning efforts.