Listen to the audio version of this article: https://www.romanpichler.com/podcast-player/26962/okrs-and-product-roadmaps.mp3 What are OKRs? OKRs are a method for setting and tracking goals. The acronym stands for objectives and key results. The objective is the goal, which describes what you want to achieve. The key results state the specific criteria that have to be fulfilled to meet the objective. To make this more concrete, let’s look at an example: Objective: Grow the product management team. Key result 1: Three product managers are hired. Key result 2: The onboarding system is improved ..read more

Listen to the audio version of this article: https://www.romanpichler.com/podcast-player/26053/the-strategy-stack.mp3 Introduction My first product management job wasn’t exactly what you call a success story: I was part of a team that was called in to help with a new product development effort, and I ended up working with the lead product manager. While I learnt a lot in the process, the resulting product sadly failed. But this taught me an important lesson: There is no point in worrying about the product details if a sound product strategy is missing. Without the strategy, it’s virtually imp ..read more

Listen to the audio version of this article: https://www.romanpichler.com/podcast-player/25803/empowerment-levels-in-product-management.mp3 Introduction To discuss empowerment in product management, I find it helpful to distinguish three main levels of decision-making authority, product delivery, product discovery, and product strategy, as the model in Figure 1 shows.[1] Figure 1: An Empowerment Model for Product People and Teams Level one represents the authority to decide how features are detailed and guide their implementation. Level two increases empowerment by adding the authority to det ..read more

Listen to the audio version of this article: https://www.romanpichler.com/podcast-player/25582/product-portfolio-strategy.mp3 What Is a Product Portfolio Strategy and Why Does It Matter? A product portfolio strategy is a high-level plan that helps you maximise the value a group of products creates. It achieves this by setting overarching goals for the entire portfolio. These guide and align the strategies of the portfolio members, as Figure 1 illustrates. Figure 1: The Product Portfolio and Product Strategy Using Microsoft Office as an Example In Figure 1, the strategies of the individual pro ..read more

Listen to the audio version of this article: https://www.romanpichler.com/podcast-player/25051/product-strategy-and-product-discovery.m4a What is Product Discovery? Product discovery is the process of “figuring out a solution to a problem we’ve been asked to solve,” writes Marty Cagan.[1] It involves understanding and selecting user needs, exploring solutions, and choosing the most appropriate one. Let’s make this more concrete by looking at a popular product discovery tool, Teresa Torres’ Opportunity Solution Tree (OTS).[2] Before I proceed, let me point out that I am neither a product disco ..read more

Listen to the audio version of this article: https://www.romanpichler.com/podcast-player/24755/decoding-product-leadership.mp3 Leading as the Person in Charge of the Product When you hear the term leadership, you might first and foremost think of a senior manager like the head of product, Director of Product Management, VP of Product, or Chief Product Officer.[1] In fact, some people argue that product leadership can only be exercised by a management role. But in my mind, that’s a misunderstanding of what it means to lead. Leadership is present when an individual guides a group of people to a ..read more

Listen to the audio version of this article: https://www.romanpichler.com/podcast-player/24492/go-product-roadmap-checklist.mp3 Overview The GO Product Roadmap consists of five elements, as the image below shows: Date, name, goal, features, and metrics. The most important element is the goal: It describes the outcome you want to achieve or the benefit you want to provide. Sample goals include “acquiring new users,” “increasing conversion,” and “reducing cost.” The checklist I’ve created offers criteria for each element as well as the entire roadmap. You can download the checklist together wit ..read more

Listen to the audio version of this article: https://www.romanpichler.com/podcast-player/24353/building-high-performing-product-teams.mp3 Organise the Team around a Product As the name suggests, a product team is focused on a product. This sounds simple enough. But in practice, organising teams around products can be challenging, especially when a company lacks a clear understanding of what a (digital) product is and if it does not embrace a product-led way of working. A first step to form effective product teams is therefore to identify the products in your organisation. But what is a produc ..read more

Listen to the audio version of this article: https://www.romanpichler.com/podcast-player/24122/double-vision-choosing-the-right-approach-to-capture-the-product-vision.mp3 Option 1: The Vision Captures Strategic Decisions Your first option is to view the product vision as a statement that captures strategic decisions like the product’s users and customers, its value proposition, and its standout features. A popular template to capture such a vision is the formula developed by Geoffrey Moore in his book Crossing the Chasm: For (target customers …) Who are dissatisfied with (the current market ..read more

Listen to the audio version of this article: https://www.romanpichler.com/podcast-player/23981/offering-constructive-feedback.mp3 “No Matter How it Looks at First, it’s Always a People Problem” This quote from Gerald Weinberg nicely summarises a core challenge we face as product people: Our profession is called product management, but the product part can be the easy one compared to the people challenges we sometimes face. Here are four examples: Joe, the sales rep, has promised a feature to an important customer without first talking to you—the person in charge of the product. Sue, the Scru ..read more