The Roadmap Dilemma

Are roadmaps still a thing? Given that it is going to change, is it worth putting all the time and effort it takes into building a solid roadmap? My answer is yes, and here’s why.

Creating Clarity in a Complex Reality

As a product leader, your role entails much more than leading the product itself. It often involves complex decision-making – and many decisions that you can’t necessarily make on your own. Here is a simple tool that will help you create clarity and lead to alignment and better decisions.

What the Board Wants to Hear in a Product Presentation

When product leaders need to present to the board, they often talk about the product. But the board doesn’t want to hear about features. They want to know that they can trust you. Here are the important points to make sure you cover.

3 Surprising Product Strategy Benefits

Not having a product strategy is often painful. You feel the impact of not knowing where you are going. But when you want to convince the company to invest in building such a strategy, you need to be able to explain what good it will bring. Here are three benefits of having a solid product strategy in place.

Product Strategy Iterations

A solid product strategy takes time to build. It usually involves hard decisions and non-trivial questions, which take time to answer well. It can’t be done in a rush, things need to sink in so that you can think it through. Here is the method I use for creating a product strategy that makes sense.

You Can’t Take Everything Upon Yourself

As product leaders, our success depends on others. We are so used to helping people and making sure the company gets what it needs, that we sometimes take it too far. Where is the line that you shouldn’t cross? Here are three examples of things you shouldn’t do.

Strategic Debt Is the Silent Killer of Startups

With everything you have to do every day, it is so easy to neglect strategy. Not because it’s not important, but because it seems less urgent than everything else you have to deal with right here and now. But much like code, your product strategy also requires maintenance. And when left unhandled for too long, you might barely notice, but the impact can be deadly.

Strategic Roadmap Template

So you have done your planning and now want to communicate your roadmap to management or to the team. You know that you need a little more than a timeline with features on it, but what is this more exactly? Here is a template that will help you not only communicate your roadmap better but also build it the right way from the get-go.

Empowerment Is Not the Opposite of Management

In the effort to create empowered teams, many managers struggle with their role in the process. It is easy to think that an empowered team requires less guidance, but it’s far from the truth. It requires a different kind of guidance, but your management and leadership are still required nonetheless. Here is the right kind of guidance to bring to the table.

The Right Priorities for Your Roadmap

Roadmaps require massive prioritization. But prioritizing what exactly? Many people prioritize features, epics, or themes. It’s nice, but there is a much higher level of prioritization that needs to happen and would impact your roadmap much more. Here is how to discuss priorities at the right level.

Bad Feedback Doesn’t Always Mean Your Product Is Bad

Bad product feedback is a bummer. But contrary to what you might think, it doesn’t always mean your product is bad. Products are always meant to serve someone, and if it wasn’t built for the person who gave you the feedback, there is no reason to feel bad about it. Here is a quick guide to strategic thinking about product feedback.

How Product-Market Fit Really Works (Part 1)

If you are on the journey toward product-market fit, you know it’s not easy. Part of it is because it’s really hard. Every new product has its own fit to find. But it gets easier when you understand what this journey should look like, and how to navigate it all the way through. Here is a quick guide to help you understand what to expect.