1.
www.productschool.com
A Practical Approach to Agile
Methodology by Weedmaps Sr PM

2.
Join 40,000+
Product Managers on
Free Resources
Discover great job
opportunities
Job Portal
prdct.school/PSJobPortalprdct.school/events-slack

3.
CERTIFICATES
Your Product Management Certificate Path
Product Leadership
Certificate™
Full Stack Product
Management Certificate™
Product Management
Certificate™
20 HOURS40 HOURS40 HOURS

4.
Corporate
Training
Level up your team’s Product
Management skills

5.
William Harris
T O N I G H T ’ S S P E A K E R

6.
Museum of Weed SLIDE

7.
Credit where credit is due:
Resources
● Silicon Valley Product Group - SVPG.com
● Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love - Marty Cagan
● Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products - Nir Eyal
● Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action - Simon Sinek
● Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days - Jake Knapp
● The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback - Dan
Olsen
● Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs - John Doerr
● The Lean Startup - Eric Ries
● Zero to One - Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future - Peter Thiel
● The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battled-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything - Guy Kawasaki
● Inside Intercom - intercom.com/blog/product-and-design

8.
How the Weedmaps EPD teams embrace Agile
William Harris, Sr. Product Manager
Steps to success:
WHY
WHAT
HOW
● Set your team purpose (WHY)
● Define Goals + KPIs (WHY)
● Define User Value (WHAT)
● Planning + Agile Process (WHAT)
● Delivering User Value (HOW)
● Iteration (HOW)

9.
Mission, Vision, Strategy, Values
Supplemental: SVPG.com, Inspired
WHY

10.
Mission
To build technology that will lead the cannabis industry forward.
To educate the world on the social and medicinal benefits of cannabis as an
alternative.
To make cannabis use as commonplace and accepted as drinking a cup of coffee.
To Legalize Cannabis Worldwide.
Supplemental: Inspired

11.
Aligning against organizational goals
OKRs
Obj: $100M ARR
KR1: Release top 3 features preventing adoption of pro plan by EOQ
KR2: Increase monthly AOV from $80-$100
KR3: Increase monthly GMV from 15M to 20M
Obj: 30M MAU
KR1: Increase D30 new user retention from 30% to 40% by EOQ
KR2: Release Referral Program and drive 50K referrals by EOQ
KR3: Increase NPS from 71 to 75 by EOQ
Supplemental: Measure What Matters, Youtube: Google Ventures, How Google Uses OKRs

12.
Vision Strategy
To become the #1 cannabis guide and online
shopping experience on planet earth. OKRs
Supplemental: SVPG.com, Inspired

13.
Values
All Voices Matter
Great ideas can come from anywhere. Weedmaps is what it is
today because of the voices of people and of each member of
the company. Every teammate is encouraged to speak up, listen,
be respectful of other opinions, and embrace criticism as just
another avenue for great ideas.
High Velocity, Higher Quality
Quality doesn’t just refer to our software experiences, but to
every aspect of our jobs. We approach each task carefully and
seriously, but with agility. We seek honest feedback and use it to
improve the quality of our work and the speed that we can
deliver value. We strive to consistently improve our process. At
the end of the day, most clients or users won’t remember what
we shipped and when, but they will remember if the work was
high quality.
Responsible Leadership
Our products and practices can affect not only our employees
and users -- but the industry at large. As the world’s leading
cannabis software companies, we’re committed to making
ethical decisions, always keeping the impact on people’s lives
front of mind. We set a strong example of professionalism and
excellence at all times, and do not get distracted by
disinformation, misunderstanding, and the struggles that come
with the changing of tides. We rise above the noise.
Ahead of the Curve
The cannabis industry is ever-changing. Technology improves,
techniques change, and design philosophies become outdated. Since
the founding of Weedmaps, we’ve worked to improve through
experience, teaching one another and cultivating the desire to be the
best at what we do. We must strive to stay ahead of the industry, and
defining the future of online cannabis.
Deliver User Value
For many Weedmaps users, the iOS application is their sole relationship
with our business. We must constantly improve the app experience
and create new user value with every single release to retain and
delight our users.
Maintain Standards
We as a team care about the experience and presentation of our
product. Beyond maintaining a 99.6+% crash-free status, whether you're
a back-end engineer, front-end engineer, QA, product designer, or
product owner, it is all our responsibility to communicate when
something is not up to our standards.
Supplemental: SVPG.com, Inspired

14.
A note on “Roadmaps”
Informing the Roadmap

15.
Ticket types
Initiative
Epic(s)
Feature

16.
Prioritization
40%40%
User requests / feedback*
40%
Engineering priorities
20%
Innovation
Effort
Value
*Feedback should be from both internal / external sources
Supplemental: The Lean Product Playbook

17.
Discovery + Highdeas
Good Ideas come from everyone on a cross-functional
team
● It is not a PMs role to be the “idea person”
● It is their role to aggregate those ideas in to a plan,
and deliver against that plan
Great Ideas come from data / customer feedback loops
● Quantitatively: NPS, AB testing, user journey / data,
fake door testing
● Qualitatively: User testing, surveying, focus-groups,
feedback channels (live chat, feature requests, sales
teams, App Store reviews)
Empower your stakeholders
● Everyone on the team creates JIRA tickets and puts
them in the “HIGHdea Machine” Bucket
● BDFR system (Bugs, Defects + Feature Requests)

18.
confidential
Triggered Notifications
v3
Strains V1
Roadmap - Initiatives
18
Q1 Q2 Q3
News Feed + Inbox
Q4
Revenue
Strategy
User
Retention
Search / Navigation Personalization, ML
User
Growth
CBD
SECRET
SECRET
Map UX
Improvements SECRET
Monetization of
Orders
Feeds, Social, Public
Profile
Analytics - Segment
+ Amplitude
New ad-zones,
homepage
SECRET
Learn v2
Product Categories +
Advanced Filters
cross-sell/up-sell
Referral Program
Loyalty Program -
“Promo Codes”
Braze integration
Regions SEO
CBD SEO

19.
confidential
Social
Sharing
Roadmap Confidence
19
Q1 ‘19 Q2 ‘19 Q3 ‘19
Listing Convergence
Android Application
Q4 ‘19
Revenue
Strategy
User
Retention
Homepage Redesign for Social
User
Growth Connect with other
social networks
AdNetwork
Liking, Following, Direct
Messaging
New Vertical Migrate to React
Notification Feed
New Product B
Deals Push
notifs
Referral
Program
Admin Tools
on iPads
Update Pricing Model +
Payments System
75% 50% 25%95%

20.
The Spec
Source: https://jtbd.info/replacing-the-user-story-with-the-job-story-af7cdee10c27
confidential
confidential
confidential
confidential

21.
The Spec
Source: https://jtbd.info/replacing-the-user-story-with-the-job-story-af7cdee10c27

22.
Defining User Value
WHAT

23.
The “perfect” user story
As a Weedmaps user who is new to a dispensary or delivery service, when I am searching for a new listing to shop at, I want to know if the dispensary or
delivery service offers a First-Time-Customer or First-Time-Patient Deal, so that I can easily find this information every single time, differentiate between
listings, and make more informed decisions as to whether or not I want to take advantage of these offers and visit the listing.
Source: https://jtbd.info/replacing-the-user-story-with-the-job-story-af7cdee10c27

24.
JIRA ticket construction
Card
The user story
Conversation
The discussion
Confirmation
How to determine success

25.
JIRA EPIC construction

26.
JIRA Feature construction

27.
The ceremonies and why they matter
1. Pre-Sprint Planning (Whiteboarding)
2. Grooming / Estimation (A-Sync / Pointing)
3. Sprint Planning (Goal Setting + Commitments)
4. Retro (How Can We Improve)
5. DSU (Remove Impediments)

28.
Why we embrace Agile
Agile is a framework that helps us formulate an
achievable goal, and measure / optimize how
successful we are at delivering against that goals.
The goal is to always deliver user value.

29.
Planning + Process
HOW

30.
A prioritized backlog
Current Sprint
Next Sprint
2 Sprints Out
Prioritized /
to Decomp
Needs
Design
BE / Services
Web
DRD
iOS
Blocked On-
Hold
HIGHdeas /
BDFRs
Backlog

31.
A balanced sprint
The 80 / 20 Rule

32.
INVEST
Source: https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/invest/
I
N
V
E
S
T
ndependent
egotiable
aluable
stimable
mall
estable

33.
Grooming + estimation

34.
What constitutes success
The 90 / 10 Rule

35.
Delivering User Value
HOW

36.
Sprints vs. Releases
Sprints
● Defined goals of the user value you want to create
● Finite window of time
● Measurable results
● Forces an iterative approach to product development
● Allows teams to pivot quickly and effectively
● Accountability
Native - Releases
● Staged Rollout of Features across multiple clients
(Desktop/Responsive Web, Android, iOS)
● Allows you to release a group of features, not a Sprint’s worth
of work
● Cutlines are helpful with Planning and Promising Delivery Dates
● Allows you to account for QA / Performance / Release Testing
as part of a Sprint’s estimated work
● Removes the risks associated with App Store Review
Web - Continuous Deployment
● Continuous release of improvements / value
● Faster iterations
● Doesn’t require a release from other teams
● Feature flags are used to dark-ship features
● AB testing ramping + experimentation

37.
Sprint process
To Do In Progress Peer Review Design Review QA PO Sign Off DoneFailed

38.
Velocity and workflow

39.
Iteration
HOW

40.
Retro + Kaizen
To be Agile means to iterate on:
1. Your Strategy
2. The Product
3. The Process
4. Your Velocity

41.
www.productschool.com
Part-time Product Management Training Courses
and
Corporate Training