Product Manager

Reach your North Star with a compass not a roadmap

At the mention of product roadmaps I’m reminded of the scene in Blackadder II where he becomes a explorer. Lord Melchett hands him a scroll and says “The foremost cartographers have prepared this map of the area you will be traversing.”

Blackadder unrolls the scroll, looks at the other side and replies “But it is blank”

“Yes,” replied Melchett, “they asked if you could fill it in along the way.”

Which if you think about it, isn’t that different to what the Lewis and Clerk expedition did. Starting with what was know they explored and created better maps.

Now you don’t have to talk to a Product Manager for very long before the topic of Roadmaps comes up:

“How can I build a good roadmap?”

“How can I guarantee my roadmap is delivered?”

“How do OKRs fit with a roadmap?

“How can I make sure my roadmap is accurate?”

and so on… frankly, roadmaps drive me to despair. For a start the word “roadmap” means different things to different people, or rather, different organisations expect different things from a roadmap.

Second, most so called roadmaps are little more than a list of features with dates. Worst still, most of those dates are little more than guesses so even if the features listed didn’t change they are unreliable.

What roadmaps should be

I’ve long held that the best roadmaps are scenario plans, they are one version of how the future might unfold. Like all scenario plans they are designed to create learning, that means they need to involve multiple people. Creating a roadmap should not be a solo activity for a product manager. It should be a group activity, as is so often the case the true value is not the map itself but the process of creating a map. Another case where you want to prioritise planning over plans.

Like a good scenario plan the starting point for any roadmap should be what you know will happen. The future is uncertain but there are many events which are already programmed in.

We know how many people will turn 18 in 2030.

It is almost certain that Apple will launch an updated iPhone in 2026.

Laws don’t come out of the blue: implementation is usually months, if not years, after the law if passed by legislators.

You know the major trade shows in your industry and when they will occur. If you work in telecoms you will already be planning around WMC Barcelona, 2 March 2026. You can bet in WMC will be March 2027, then March 2028….

Only when you’ve mapped out what you know might you turn to what you want, and when you want it.

But still, roadmaps are hard. There must be a better way…

Compass over map

Leave aside those lists with dates, product development is too complex to make them worthwhile. Those who request them are misguided themselves and those who provide them are either living in fantasy land or knowingly offering up a flawed map.

What we need is direction.

What we need is purpose and intention.

Maps are not a good metaphor, what we want is a compass. We want a mechanism for pointing us in the right direction, a tool to measure deviation from our desired destination.

After all, we increasingly aim for a “North Star” (or “True North”, or the one I heard this morning “Lode Star”).

Armed with such a device, if you know where you are, and how long you have to get to your destination you can calculate how fast you need to go. Or, if you know how fast you are going you can work out when you will arrive.

Although, nobody has ever arrived at Polaris, the North Star. We have only at interim points along the journey. If we do the right thing then good things will follow.

Navigation with automomy

When you follow a roadmap you are programmed: Feature X by 1 June, feature Y by 1 September, product completion by 1 December. Miss one of the milestones and you may be called to account. Maps reduce your autonomy.

When roadmaps are used as a plan they are disempowering. Someone has decided the route your job is to follow not to question it. There may even be traffic police on hand to keep you on the route and take charge of any accidents, further removing autonomy and discretion.

Compare that with compass and North Star: you take readings, you recalibrate, you calculate how far you need to go, you adjust your direction… in other words you Inspect and Adapt!

Having a compass and following a North Start leave responsibility and decision making with those on the journey, the team. After all, the team are the experts, the team have the most knowledge, the team should be the fulcrum of making things happen.

Reach your North Star with a compass not a roadmap Read More »

First get small, next get broad

Small, small, small – I have spent a lot of my career arguing for small: small tasks, small user stories, small teams, small releases, small funding increments, small “projects”. I argue we should get good at small and optimise our systems for doing lots of small. I can justify my arguments – Project Myopia or Diseconomies of Scale. Small makes sense.

But…

While focusing on small is good for delivery it creates other problems. In truth, no solution is ever without consequences and few have no negative consequences, all we can strive for is more positive consequences than negative.

It is not enough to get good at small in delivery, one needs to couple that with an understanding of what is commonly called the bigger picture and which I prefer to think of as the broader picture.

The failure to situate small in the broader context underlies many of the problems we see in the work place today. Take work management, ignoring the broad leads to micro-management, disempowered staff, frustrated employees and collaboration failure.

It is also failure to see the broad that lies behind two of todays most common problems: Product Owner Failure and Run away Backlogs.

Product, sigh

Product Owners – I include Product Managers here – are failing because they are failing to see the broader picture: what is the problem we are trying to solve? how can we bring value to customers?

Product people are too often too focused on features. While I’ve recently seen some point the finger of blame at product owners/managers I think they are only responding to their environment. Companies are operating feature factors and sales are made on features, people think more when they should think better. Product people need to get out and meet customers and bring what they learn back to they can try and change the inside.

The feature, feature, feature attitude is also behind the backlog fetish which leads to backlogs stuffed full of ideas which are never, ever, going to be implements.

The discussion needs to be broadened. We need to get away from quick-wins and features, we need to think more broadly. We need to think about the big things: goals, objectives, purpose and even meaning.

Post pandemic it is common to hear of people seeking meaning in their work, no wonder so many people are dropping out of the workforce when the best they are offered is “more stuff to do.” In looking at broader goals we also need to recognise goals within goals, we need to uncover the hierarchy of (possibly competing) goals, call them out and work with them.

Thats is why I am keen to emphasise outcomes over outputs and its why its tempting to think of a great big funnel containing a machine for breaking the big into small (or Rock Crushing as my old friend Shane Hastie would put it.)

The challenge is to combine the need to focus on the small for delivery while also being able to think broadly. In part it is this challenge that has caused me to focus more on agility over agile.

The Strategic/Tactical Product model but it is not a complete solution.

Iteration, again

Another part of the solution is iteration: we spend a lot of our time in the small focusing on delivery, but from time to time we surface and consider the wider context. Thats why I embrace the OKR cycle, it gives everyone a chance to understand both and take part in both discussions.

Underlying so much of my work over the years has been a desire to remove intermediate pieces: like having a coder speak directly to a user rather than through a BA, its one of my objections to projects (which claim to show the big picture but actually represent a restricted view), its lurking in my dislike of estimates, and its part of my dislike of backlogs.

Asking people to carry the broad picture in their minds while working in the small is asking a lot. Thats why the cycle of thinking broad, setting goals, then switching into narrow mode for delivery works so well. Its fair, it includes everyone and it gives everyone the reason why we do what we do.

In short, we need to think broadly when deciding “what is the right thing to do”, then switch into the small to deliver. Importantly, we need to share not just that thinking but also the discussion. Everyone has a right to be heard.

First get small, next get broad Read More »

Videos: ITIL & the Product Owner

Last month I appeared in two videos now available on YouTube.

First I was interviewed by Adrian Reed about the Product Manager and Owner roles for The BA Fringe. My interview appears about 12 minutes into the programme and lasts about 10 minutes.

I also joined an expert panel discussing the ITIL 4 High Velocity IT – aligning agile and lean. It was a great conversation and a lot of fun to record, we hardly mentioned ITIL but #NoProjects did get a look in.

I know, ITIL is not something I’m usually associated with but digital and agile means ITIL is changing and I contributed chapters on Product Owner and Continuous Digital (aka #NoProjects) to the recent ITIL High Velocity IT book.

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