The Handy Guide

for Product People

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whole team.

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 1

Hello there!
This is a helpful little guide for
product managers.

Shh, here’s a little secret: Behind every successful

product is a tough and tireless product manager.

They’ve tamed chaos, customer demands and

internal pressures as they lead their teams on a
journey to the best possible product.

Inside this book, you’ll find well-worn models and

exercises taken straight from the back pockets of
the world’s best product managers (along with a
little inspiration from our product superheroes)!

The road to great product management starts here!

2

The Seven Pillars of

Product Management
At the heart of customer, business and technology is
you, the product manager. And you have just one
question to answer: “How do we bring the best
product possible to market?”

Idea Management
Good idea management is about capturing every
idea and growing the ones that can move your
business forward.

Product Specs
Product specs help you communicate what's
important to build. They tell devs who and what
they’re building for, so they can make the right call.

Roadmapping
A roadmap outlines the problems you need to
tackle to reach your product vision. Use it to get a
shared understanding of your product strategy.
 3
Prioritization
The market is always changing, and your priorities
will change with it. Listen to the data, your
customers and your gut, and review your priorities
early and often.

Delivery
Small, fast delivery wins! Be available to answer any
questions, provide guidance around unexpected
changes and test the final release.

Analytics & Experimentation

Always be testing. Hypotheses will help you
discover whether your changes have made a
difference to your users.

Customer Feedback
Ask questions. Seek out feedback at every possible
opportunity to learn about what's working and to
discover new problems you weren't aware of.
4

Inside this guide

The best product people thrive by observing and
learning, and have tips and tricks in their back
pockets to get them through the day-to-day
challenges.

Product management is more of an art than a

science, and having the right framework on hand, or
asking the right questions of the right people, can
make all the difference.

In the following pages, you’ll find a series of step-

by-step exercises to use on your journey to building
products people love.

6
Think Big: Build Product Vision 6
8
Brainstorm: Make A Product Tree 8
12
Be Visual: Prioritize Your Roadmap 11
16
Build Inputs: Product Specs For The Team 16
18
Get Personal: Meet The Personas 18
20
Set Up: Set Objectives 20
22
Get Out: Ask For Feedback 22
6 - Think Big

Build Product Vision

Stop everything. Do you have the answers to the
following three questions?

• Who is the customer and the end user?

• What’s in it for them?
• How do you stand out?

A good product vision captures your raison d’etre -

and will ultimately be the basis for every product
decision you make. You can’t do this without your
exec team. They need to be there to link your
product vision back to the wider company goals.

This is also for your own good. If you’re ever in a

disagreement over your product, you can point back
to the product vision to keep the conversation
heading in the right direction.

What you’ll need:

• Whiteboard with plenty of markers
• Attention and buy in from your execs
• PRO TIP: Use ProdPad’s product canvas tools
 7
This template is a good starting point for your
product vision. Work with your team to fill it in, and
then craft it into something compelling and
memorable.

For target customer

Who statement of need or opportunity

The product name is a product category

That key benefit, reason to buy

Unlike primary competitive alternative

Our product statement of primary differentiation

Template from Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore

Make sure your product vision passes the elevator

test. Can you pitch it in 30 seconds? If not, go back
and find a way to refine your vision statement to be
more focused and punchy.
8 - Brainstorm

Make A Product Tree

The Product Tree exercise is the perfect starting
point if you’re trying to ditch your timeline roadmap.

This visual format allows you and your team to see

the bigger picture of how each strategic step plays
out, in the form of branches, roots, and leaves. After
all, your products evolve more organically than
linearly, as you evolve and iterate on them. At the
end of the session, you’ll have a representation of
your product portfolio aspirations, complete with
your team’s shared understandings of the scope of
the canopy and the depth of the root systems
needed to hold it up.

Our friends over at Innovation Games came up with

this excellent technique, which is both productive
and fun for any team. It translates well to your
Now/Next/Later format of roadmap, so that when
you are ready to present it back to your team,
you’ve got their full buy-in and you can move
forward with confidence.
 99

What you’ll need:

• Mini sticky notes
• Whiteboard pens
• PRO TIP: Grab a free product tree template at
prodpad.com/product-tree
10

Step One: Print Your Product Tree

Or if you have a white board just draw one.

Step Two: Prepare Your “Leaves”

Write down on sticky notes all the key features you
already have in your product, or want to add.

Step Three: Get Your Group Together

Invite people from teams across your company.
Aim to have between four-to-ten people per
session.

Step Four: Grow Your Tree

Have them add features and ideas to the tree.
Leaves on the trunk are existing features, while
leaves on the outer edges represent the long-term
future. Expect dissent. Encourage it. Take pictures
throughout.

Step Five: Discuss Your Tree

Compare the photos of your product tree against
your current product roadmap. What will it take to
reach consensus?
Be Visual 11

Prioritize Your
Roadmap
Your roadmap is the best way to get to a shared
understanding of your product strategy. Use your
Product Tree (page 8) as a kicking off point for your
roadmap, or start fresh with collecting information
about the biggest obstacles in your product’s path.

Good product roadmapping means that you’re

collecting this information from both the top down
(your company-level objectives and your vision), and
from the bottom up (customer feedback and insights
from across the team).

A roadmap is a prototype for your product strategy.

It’s not meant to be a perfect, unchangeable plan, but
instead is a starting point for conversations around
what’s important to the business, what’s useful for
your customers, and what’s technically feasible.
12
Roadmap Essentials:
• Time Horizons: Now, Next, Later
• Objectives
• Initiatives/problems to solve
• Product areas/components
• One or many products

Enterprise Engagement

iPad and Mobile Apps

Create a native iPad app for estate agents to use before,
during and after viewings.

iOS Apps Needs more info

Mobile

6 comments Internal

What you’ll need:

• Colored stickers and whiteboard pens
• PRO TIP: Use ProdPad to build a quick & flexible
product roadmap that you easily print or share
online
 13
Step One: Prepare Your Roadmap Essentials
Divide your whiteboard into three time horizon
columns: Now, Next and Later. On index cards,
write out a handful of initiatives, in the form of
problems to be solved.

Don’t worry about getting this perfect - you’re just

setting the stage for the discussion at this time.

Step Two: Define Scope and Set the Order

Summarize each card out loud. Keep it super short -
you don’t need to agree on actual solutions or
features at this point.

• Now: Being worked on imminently

• Next: Move on to these priorities once Now is
complete
• Later: These are leftover cards that still add value
to the vision. These items will be broader in scope
than more immediate initiatives
 14

Step Three: Add Color and Context

Use colored dots or stickers to identify cards that fit
your specific strategic objectives (i.e. green for
‘Revenue’ and blue for ‘User Growth’, etc.).

Add mini sticky notes to ‘tag’ your cards with

product areas or components. Take a step back now
and discuss with your team about how it can be
balanced or reordered to give a more realistic view
of how you’ll tackle your product vision.

Now Next Later

ProdPad roadmap example

 15

If I’ve learned anything about managing

product expectations in startups, it’s this.
It’s our job to deal with the uncertainty.
It’s our job to find the right path.
Teresa Torres
Product Discovery Coach, ProductTalk.org
16 - Build Inputs

Product Specs For

The Team
As a product manager, it's not your job to have all of
the answers. After all, your colleagues are meant to
be specialists in their areas. It's your job to ask them
the best questions!

As you write out product specs, take some time to

ask the people working with you for their expert
advice. What do they think belongs on those specs?
Each of them brings perspective and experience
that can help fill in gaps, both big and small.

Here are a few quick and effective ways to make the

most of your team’s knowledge and skills when
creating product specs.

What you’ll need:

• Max two-to-three people at a time
• PRO TIP: Use ProdPad to link ideas, customer
feedback and designs to your specs and push
straight to development
 17
Rule One: Don’t Ask for Blanket Advice
Your colleagues are much more likely to give useful
input when it’s relevant and targeted to them.

Rule Two: Make Choices Simple

Which one do they like better? Get them to vote
between two ideas. Then you to establish relative
priorities and motivate people to get involved.

Rule Three: Focus on Impact and Effort

When deciding whether you have all the input you
need, think about two things:

Impact: What value does this bring to the company

(Eg. new users/extra revenue)?

Effort: What resources will this require? What does

this mean for team members across the company?

Based on input from the team, give each idea a

rough score out of 100 for both impact and effort.
Gut feel and guesstimation is fine at this point - you
can change this as you nail the details.
18 - Get Personal

Meet The Personas

User personas have a name, a face and personal
details, but they aren’t real people. They’re fictional
representations of your users that help your team to
understand who they’re building for.

Building user personas allows you to do product

management grounded in user needs, without
getting bogged down in the detail of specific
customers and all their anomalies.

A great user persona is realistic, easy to visualize,

and tied into your day-to-day decisions and
processes. They should also be flexible, as you’ll
adapt your user personas as you learn more about
your users!

What you’ll need:

• Sketchbook and pens
• Team and user input
• PRO TIP: Use ProdPad to link ideas in your product
backlog directly to user personas
 19

Follow this template to build user personas for three

to five key people from your user base.

Profile Picture: Give them a face! This can be a real

picture or just a simple cartoon sketch.

Name: Give your persona a descriptive name to help

it catch on - something like Barry Buyer or Sally
Spendthrift (definitely helps if it’s alliterative).

Description: This should be a short profile, including

job title, age range, gender, lifestyle and (relevant)
beliefs.

Frustrations/Limitations: What’s frustrating them or

otherwise slowing them down or keeping them from
reaching their goals?

Behaviors: What do they do in their day-to-day lives,

what are their likes and dislikes?

Goals: What are their jobs? What does your user

persona want to achieve?
20 - Set Up

Set Objectives
Never push an idea to development without
deciding what success looks like first.

Not only does setting objectives help you win

support for your initiatives, it helps you align every
team you work with to the same outcomes.

The paper trail of hypotheses, data and test results

pays off in dividends.

Some product managers might let pride and

emotions influence their product decisions. But not
you.

You will always have the numbers to back you up.

What you’ll need:

• Analytics software and a spreadsheet
• Clear understanding of company goals
• PRO TIP: Use ProdPad to establish your vision,
goals and success criteria for every product
 21

Think you already have great success criteria lined

up? Well, here’s a little stress test for your tests:

Does your success Are you sure your success

criteria: measurements are not:

Use numbers? Are they Driven by the data you

calculable? already happen to have?

Compare easily across Geared up for another

different experiments organization’s strategy
and over time? rather than your own?

Give you results that Vague actions, milestones

help you to make a or goals?
decision?
Ambiguous or shrouded in
Give someone enough business speak?
details to execute?

Reflect your real

objectives (acquisition,
retention, engagement,
etc.)?
22 - Get Out

Ask For Feedback

There are many different ways to approach
customer feedback, but we particularly love
usability testing.

Usability is an incredibly important measure of

success both before, during and after new releases.
Capturing customer feedback gives you a pile of
insight that you just won’t get by staring at your
own product. This feedback is critical to continuous
product discovery, and will help you make sure that
you’re working on the right ideas and your
roadmap is heading in the right direction.

This particular approach is so easy, you could start

tomorrow.

What you’ll need:

• Pocket-sized notebook
• Incentives for participation
• PRO TIP: Use ProdPad’s Customer Feedback Portal
to capture their comments on your site or app
 23
Step One: Identify Your Guinea Pigs
Think about where the users you want to speak to
hang out. You could find them through online
forums and communities, but consider meeting up
with them in real life too. That’s right, put your shoes
on and find them.

Step Two: Devise Your Tests

When you’re out in the field you need to be able to
show participants your product and conduct your
tests on a laptop or tablet; so keep your test simple.
Plan out your questions in advance and practice to
be sure it takes no longer than 20 minutes.

Step Three: Offer a Simple but Effective Incentive

A small, on-the-spot incentive will go a long way in
your recruitment efforts. Everyone loves to be
treated! Offer them a coffee or a gift certificate so
there’s something in it for them.

Step Four: Show, Don’t Tell

You’re not here to make a sale. You’re here to listen
and learn. So let them do the talking. Control the
conversation with questions and gentle prompts.
 ProdPad is the world’s most loved product
management software.

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Priority Chart Tool

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Idea Management
Grow ideas into product specs ready for development
Thousands of cool companies ProdPad.

"ProdPad allows us to have one centralized place all

colleagues can go to and drop ideas in. Whether
that’s the sales person that just came from a client
meeting, the finance department or a developer who
discovered a new tool which would be awesome to
implement. It helps the product team build a better
business case in order to improve prioritization.”
- Ruben van den Heuvel, Eventbrite

"The ProdPad team is super-responsive to any

questions - they really care about their product and
about the success of their customers. To be honest,
that last item alone would suffice for me to justify
why I would recommend ProdPad."
- Mathieu Ayel, HP Software
This well-worn handy guide sits on the desks of the
world’s top product managers, and it’s about to
take its place on yours too. Inside, you’ll find a
selection of tried and tested exercises that have
resulted in some of the world’s most-loved
products.

ProdPad is product management software for your

whole team. Our toolkit supports every stage of
product management, from vision to specs to
roadmapping, and helps you communicate better
with everyone that your product touches.

Start your free trial today at

www.prodpad.com