Templates and methods and best practices are everywhere. Most teams are dealing with a chaotic process that few understand. And yet, every organization is unique—so your planning process should be too. If it’s too complex to understand then it’s simply too complex. Most organizations need a small number of living documents to guide product innovation and provide consistency in process. Simple one-page slides and spreadsheets result in a nimble planning process. You don’t need 100 tools; you need only a few. You should be able to define a vision, share a plan, tell a story, and prioritize a backlog. Steve Johnson from Product Growth Leaders discusses the templates he uses with every product team — from vision canvas to roadmap to problem story and prioritizing with the IDEA method. About Steve Johnson Steve Johnson is a product success coach focused on removing the chaos from product planning. He uses modern methods to guide product teams from idea to market in only a few weeks. His approach is based on the belief that minimal process and simple templates result in a nimble product team. Steve is a former instructor and executive at Pragmatic Marketing and the co-creator of the popular QuartzOpen framework. Learn more at http://www.under10consulting.com About ProductCamp DC ProductCamp DC is a meetup community of over 740 product professionals that organizes monthly gatherings focused on product-related topics and best practices for designing, building, launching and marketing great products. We host monthly gatherings to connect, learn about leading methods and tools and share the latest techniques and experiences with like-minded product professionals. ProductCamp DC was created to build our capability to conceive, build, and market great products through an open and collaborative community. Whether you are in a large enterprise, small business, startup, non-profit or government agency, this is the place you want to be to interact with the region's best and brightest product professionals. Get involved and get active! We inspire modern product professionals to massively improve companies through the better management of their products. Join us to connect, learn and grow from like-minded product executives and leaders. For more information, contact Hector Del Castillo here: https://linkd.in/hdelcastillo

6. © Product Growth Leaders LLC
Product
Management
Tools You’ll
Actually Use
PRODUCTCAMP DC
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7. All product managers should
be able to define a vision,
share a plan, tell a story, and
prioritize a backlog

8. Product Vision
canvas
1

9. © Product Growth Leaders LLC
PROBLEM VISION
BUYER PERSONA OPPORTUNITY
KEY METRICS
OUR ADVANTAGE
SOLD VIA
ANTICIPATED SOURCES OF COSTS ANTICIPATED SOURCES OF REVENUES
ALTERNATIVES
USER PERSONA
PRODUCT EXECUTIVE SPONSOR
Written by:
Date:
OPPORTUNITY SCORE
RISKS
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
Product Vision Canvas
from
Fundamentals
of Managing
Products

10. © Product Growth Leaders LLC
PROBLEM VISION
BUYER PERSONA OPPORTUNITY
KEY METRICS
OUR ADVANTAGE
SOLD VIA
ANTICIPATED SOURCES OF COSTS ANTICIPATED SOURCES OF REVENUES
ALTERNATIVES
USER PERSONA
PRODUCT EXECUTIVE SPONSOR
Written by:
Date:
OPPORTUNITY SCORE
RISKS
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
Product Vision Canvas

11. Prioritize with the
IDEA method
2

12. © Product Growth Leaders LLC
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
IDEA or
STORY
MARKET ORGANIZATION
Impact of
Problem
Dissatisfaction
with current
situation
Evidence
Advantage
to us
Effort to
deliver
PRIORITY
Use 1-5 or
Fibonacci
sequence
where 1 = low
impact
where 1 = low
dissatisfaction
where 1 = few;
5 = all
where 1 = low
advantage
where 1 = easy
(or small)
I*D*E*A/E
Prioritize with IDEA/E

13. Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

14. © Product Growth Leaders LLC
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
IDEA or
STORY
MARKET ORGANIZATION
Impact of
Problem
Dissatisfaction
with current
situation
Evidence
Advantage
to us
Effort to
deliver
PRIORITY
Use 1-5 or
Fibonacci
sequence
where 1 = low
impact
where 1 = low
dissatisfaction
where 1 = few;
5 = all
where 1 = low
advantage
where 1 = easy
(or small)
I*D*E*A/E
Prioritize with IDEA/E
Avoid talking
while on mute
Obscure my
background
Graphic in front
of video
Noise
canceling
2
3
2
2
5
2
3
5
5
3
4
2
2
3
3
2
1
1
1
2
100
54
72
20
ZOOM
feature
requests

15. Roadmap
3

16. © Product Growth Leaders LLC
PRODUCT MANAGER:
EXECUTIVE SPONSOR:
NOW SOON NEXT LATER
WRITTEN BY:
DATE:
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE
Public Roadmap

17. © Product Growth Leaders LLC
PRODUCT MANAGER:
EXECUTIVE SPONSOR:
NOW SOON NEXT LATER
WRITTEN BY:
DATE:
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE
Public Roadmap
Product
Vision statement
Significant items that have
recently been completed,
whether available to
clients or not.
Significant items being
worked on today for
delivery soon (typically 2
to 6 engineering cycles)
Significant items ready for
development to begin as
their bandwidth allows.
Significant items in
planning pending further
investigation and
validation.

18. © Product Growth Leaders LLC
PRODUCT MANAGER:
EXECUTIVE SPONSOR:
NOW SOON NEXT LATER
WRITTEN BY:
DATE:
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE
Public Roadmap
Significant items that
have recently been
completed, whether
available to clients or
not.
Significant items being
worked on today for
delivery soon
(typically 2 to 6 cycles)
Significant items
ready for
development to begin
as their bandwidth
allows.
Significant items in
planning pending
further investigation
and validation.
65 52 154 517
#
of
stories

19. Problem story
4

20. As a user,
I want this feature
so I can have the feature I want.

21. © Product Growth Leaders LLC
As a user, I want to export a
final artist package so I can
complete the project.

22. © Product Growth Leaders LLC
As a sound engineer, it takes me
hours after each session to
create and deliver the “artist
package” (the final mix plus
stems of each instrument).
These high-fidelity files are
multiple megabytes each.
Once this is complete, I can
invoice the artist.

23. © Product Growth Leaders LLC
PERSONA
NEEDS
What MUST occur to address this
problem
CONSTRAINTS
What MUST NOT occur in the
implementation
OUTCOMES
What this capability will do to
improve the customer situation
NOTES
Other requirements and insights
WRITTEN BY:
DATE:
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
SCENARIO
Problem Story
written with creation teams

24. Run a retrospective
5

25. © Product Growth Leaders LLC
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
Subject PRODUCT MANAGER:
EXECUTIVE SPONSOR:
START CHANGE STOP PARTICIPANTS
CONDUCTED ON
Retrospective

26. Redefine your
process
6

29. CONNECT
DISCOVER
DELIVER
CREATE
COMMIT
DESCRIBE
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

30. CONNECT
DISCOVER
DELIVER
CREATE
COMMIT
DESCRIBE
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
What is your process?

31. CONNECT
DISCOVER
DELIVER
CREATE
COMMIT
DESCRIBE
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
Discover
problems
Connect with
the market
Prepare the
organization
Commit to
solve them
Describe
the problems
Design and
develop solutions
What is your process?

32. CONNECT
DISCOVER
DELIVER
CREATE
COMMIT
DESCRIBE
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
Review market feedback
Conduct problem discovery
Isolate problems and personas
Create product vision canvas
Monitor success metrics
Monitor market feedback
Monitor customer usage
Perform process retrospectives
Engage go-to-market teams
Determine launch activities
Develop readiness plans
Prioritize deliverables
Engage leadership team
Create business deliverables
Define success criteria
Get go-ahead for next steps
Engage technical teams
Describe personas and problems
Define acceptance criteria
Roadmap initiatives or epics
Prioritize deliverables
Formalize acceptance
Communicate status
Minimize interference and change
for Fundamentals

33. © Product Growth Leaders LLC
Our goal is to
systematically
turn good ideas into
successful products.

34. © Product Growth Leaders LLC
Don’t forget:
You’re UNIQUE.
Common practices aren’t best
practices until you’ve adapted
them to your people,
products, and processes.

35. © Product Growth Leaders LLC
Product Management
Tools You’ll Actually Use
Steve Johnson
Product Growth Leaders
/in/sjohnson717
@sjohnson717
GET THE TOOLS