Product people, what are your best practices for managing a backlog or roadmap?
Sharath Kuruganty
41 replies
Replies
ozzik@ozzik
Emerald 2.0
Trello board with lists of top product themes/domains (working on a personal finance product, so themes are "insights", "entry", "growth"...). Each list is organized by important and nice-to-have's items, separated by a fake "------" priority line. Every new release I pick up the important items from the themes I want to focus on ✌️🥸
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AudiowaveAI
Avoid having a long backlog of things. Keep it simple and review it, if it won't be done in the next 2 quarters, get rid of it.
Be aggressive and review tasks weekly/every sprint. Review tasks every quarter on bigger things.
A roadmap in product management serves as a visual bridge connecting the company’s vision with the tasks required to lead that brand to the market. With its help, your development team will be able to better understand how their work contributes to the bigger picture, helps to make more intelligent prioritization decisions, and assists in persuading stakeholders.
A well-prepared roadmap will demonstrate all your initiatives related to launching a new software solution.
If you are looking for a intuitive roadmap template, consider GanttPRO template https://ganttpro.com/roadmap-tem.... It will help you to organize different components that go into your software solution launch.
Snov.io
Online whiteboarding really helps. I perform my tasks really great on digital boards.
I can recommend my friends that launched today http://meow.ph/weje :D
@valeria_andreevna @erika_buiraI would also recommend the online whiteboard, but it is even better if it can be combined with more serious features, eg version management, etc ...
AI Chatbots in Messengers
@valeria_andreevna @erika_buirai @klajko_dora Version management for backlogs? not sure. Back log is a kind of storage of ideas what would be good to have in future. Version management is more for the actual work on the projct
@valeria_andreevna @erika_buirai @medik Yes, you are right. I was just thinking of online whiteboard tools that is more complex and usable already in the planning stage with visualization of different versions (MVP, etc..) of a product. I think it is a great solution in agile product management process. You can see for example StoriesOnBoard, which is based on user story mapping method.
Productool
Hi all, there are three sides of this.
Feedback, internal requests, product roadmap. We focus on prioritizing what users really want in one place as a Producter.
Also, We provide a shared place for tech and non-tech teams to make product management more visible. Producter both helps product and customer-facing teams to make informed decisions backed by customer feedback.
For next-generation product companies: https://producter.co/
Product Hunt
Backlogs should be sparse. Try to clear them out at regular intervals — at least once a year, ideally sooner. If a feature suggestion has been sitting in there for a long time and gets deleted, it will get re-added if it's important enough. Otherwise, you know that it was probably written in response to a particular situation. As a PM, you should be focusing your team on the long term, high value work.
Roadmaps have to exist for a variety of different stakeholders (and sometimes the same stakeholder needs to dive in), so you need to be able to roll up and unfurl your plan given the situation. So my advice here is to make sure that you've organized your tasks as much as possible upfront. Otherwise, you're in for a world of pain later when someone has a question about status.
Between
@product_at_producthunt Thanks for sharing Michael. Gotta admit that our backlog can get dirty sometimes.
I do have a question for you if you don't mind: how long is your detailed roadmap? Not the high level vision stuff, but the roadmap that has lots of detail.
Product Hunt
@between_team Since I'm still fairly new at PH, I'm not that far ahead yet here. In past lives when I'm using a two week sprint cycle, I like to be 2-4 weeks ahead of development. That means I'm honing upcoming tasks with design and giving myself some buffer so I can focus more on the strategic vision. It also means I'm not so far ahead that shifting priorities based on current development makes me feel bad that I've mapped out too much.
Between
@product_at_producthunt Interesting, thanks for sharing Michael, we personally have a roadmap mapped out 1-2 months and it's a pain because of how much you have to change based on unforeseen variables.
Product Hunt
@between_team For sure, that's why I'll have a lower fidelity roadmap for further out. I'm less precious about changing or deleting a few bullet points, rather than some fully fleshed out stories.
Product Hunt Launch Checklist
Excellent question. Looking for expert tips.
Usersnap
Map your ideas with customer feedback/requests, this helped us to weigh the impact and urgency as well as evaluate how we're solving customer needs and if that fits the strategic direction.
But first you do need some customer insights, which you can check out this tool for collecting different types of feedback http://usersnap.com/
Build two backlogs; one for your long-term roadmap and one for your current sprint. The long-term roadmap should include high level problems to be solved or planned product evolutions while the sprint backlog should include single-function features.
We build our long-term roadmap backlog every year based on our annual goals and we build our sprint backlog every six weeks based on our quarterly objectives and key results.
Our company has software called "Bizixx" (https://bizixx.fatbit.com/?=pc) This helps in maintaining a track of all the tasks. You can set a task as a priority and manage your dashboard. You can mark a task as complete or put it on hold. It's an amazing Software by FATbit Technologies for employees as you can mark your leave and do much more to manage your work.
The Basecamp strategy of not have a backlog (https://basecamp.com/shapeup/2.1...) is intriguing to me. I agree with the book that backlogs get stale and your team ends of spending a tremendous amount of time keeping things organized that may be out of date. Do others follow this methodology?
Oh, this question is really interesting for me too. Personnaly I wait for answers
Subma Beta
Hi, For me this are the top 4 👇🏽
👉🏼Always prioritize.
👉🏼 Review your backlog periodically.
👉🏼Keep items you are not ready for off the backlog.
👉🏼 Add only tasks you plan to do.
Second Brain for Engineering Managers
The best practice is to have a system that allows work to flow in the right direction towards an impactful outcome. Let me share with you an outline of what this system looks like. It is broken down into three parts. It’s based on an OKR (Objectives and Key Results) system that is widely used amongst tech companies in Silicon Valley like Google.
Top-level Goals
Key Results
Tasks List
Then go by the following cadence.
Top-level Goals are created yearly.
Key Results are reviewed quarterly.
Tasks List is updated monthly.
Tasks List, therefore, serves as your To-Do list while making sure that you are only putting an effort into activities that are aligned with my top-level goals.
You may check out the system I’ve personally used here on Product Hunt - I name it the Creator System but it's good for businesses too https://www.producthunt.com/post... I’ve populated the system with relatable goals, key results and tasks, as well as great resources for creators. You can see the outcome of the system by checking out my social media and website.
Using story mapping is really useful to get everyone on the same page and understanding the big picture of what's being built.
@khabaznak Totally agree with your point of view! Do you know StoriesOnBoard?
@klajko_dora No I haven't used it yet! Thank you for the recommendation! And the integrations seem awesome!
hm u r very interesting people!
Focus on goals, not features, Think product strategy first, Create a narrative your team buys into, Leave the details for the product backlog, Stay flexible and many more.
Side Project OS
Using agile methodology within Notion databases. Works like a dream!
I think FigJam is a great tool for this