Spark your product success
with an impact-first focus
Annie Dunham
VP of Product Management, ProductPlan
Table of Contents
I
Introduction
1
What is IMPACT?
4
Product Processes
7
Prioritization
15
Building a Roadmap
19
Hiring
24
Career
31
Everything Can and Should Matter
38
Copyright © 2021 ProductPlan, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Introduction
I love product management and feel lucky showing up for work every day. Over a decade
ago, I stumbled into this world and was pleasantly surprised to discover a purpose that
aligned so well with my values and skills.
I’m organized (borderline meticulous), and I’m motivated to find the most efficient
way to solve big problems. It’s reminiscent of my childhood love of logic puzzles and
brain teasers.
Today, there’s nothing that I enjoy more than talking to customers and identifying
a significant problem that sounds impossible to solve, and then bringing it to my
engineering and design peers. I find the ensuing conversations energizing as we look at
the pain point from different angles before ultimately finding the first impactful step.
However, there are parts of product management that I like substantially less. In
particular, the feeling that “there’s never enough time” or “there are hundreds of things
I could do better.” It can wear on me. Haven’t we all started our days with good intentions
but then got home questioning if anything actually got done? I know we’re making
progress, but I also believe that we’re not using the right measuring stick to determine the
impact we’re making.
Prioritized to-do lists can keep us on task, and there is a lot of advice about creating
to-do lists to ensure you pick the most important thing first. But I have found there’s less
advice around how to actually know what is most important. Sure, there are some
no-brainers—if the Board presentation is next week, those slides must get done. But, how
do I choose between updating a value proposition for Marketing and reviewing the latest
slew of feature requests? I have found myself wanting an objective way to look at where
I could be spending my time that will have the most significant impact on our business
and customers.
At the same time, imposter syndrome still runs rampant among the product community
because we tend to be generalists. It makes me wonder if we’re thinking about this all
wrong. Being a generalist isn’t our weakness but our superpower. I think we need to
Introduction
|
1
reframe the conversation and look at how having a breadth of skills and interests makes
product people better at their jobs and is an indicator of success.
Being able to see the big-picture vision and have versatility is what enables product
managers to make an impact.
Impact itself is a buzzword of its own. We all know it’s essential while also nebulous. In
a world that feels chaotic and disjointed, it’s essential to remember the larger context to
honestly evaluate the meaning and repercussions of our choices, strategic directions, and
judgment calls. We must connect the dots from each isolated item to its knock-on effects
on the product as a whole.
For the last 15 years, I have watched product management continue its rapid growth into
an assertive discipline. As frameworks and methodologies evolve and more enterprises go
through digital transformation, the roles and responsibilities of product managers grow by
leaps and bounds. Every time I attend a conference or join a panel, I’m energized by the
breadth of suggestions and approaches to modern product challenges.
There are a plethora of references on product best practices, from discovery through life
cycle management. So much so that the sheer volume and variety can be overwhelming.
Many product people I routinely talk to struggle with adjusting methodologies. There is
uncertainty about whether a framework is the right solution for them or how to move
forward if one of the framework’s elements doesn’t align with their organization.
Take roadmapping as an example. You can put forth a best practice that starts with the
company’s mission and vision. However, when many organizations aren’t great at strategy,
I frequently see product managers get stuck with making the next step. With everything
product managers know, there has to be a way to prioritize, even in the absence of all
best practice elements. With an evolving discipline, it can be difficult to move forward
with confidence.
This led me to create a framework that thinks through all elements of my role from
hiring, to processes, to roadmaps, my career, prioritization, and more with an impact-first
approach, called IMPACT.
Throughout this book, I will share how IMPACT is a mindset, or an overarching set of
principles, that provide the foundation for evaluating processes and removing barriers.
With IMPACT, it’s easier to determine where you need to invest in process change and
adapt best practices to fit your needs.
2 | Introduction
You’re never going to do all of it or even half of it right. In fact, part of being great at
product management is constantly adapting and learning from our mistakes.
The best products make a real difference for their users. They address significant pain
points, solve real problems, meet an acute need, and delight the customer while they do
it. In short, they make an impact on customers, improving their lives, their jobs, or their
businesses.
As product professionals, our number one goal for any product should be making an
impact, and so we can use this powerful word as a guide for everything we do, first and
foremost. Ensuring every decision we make, every feature we scope, every enhancement
we add, and every message we deliver increases the meaningful value of the product
experience is essential. It can be daunting when we want them to make a material
difference to our customers and the business.
Ambitious product managers might always be shopping for new paradigms, introducing
the latest process or best practice they picked up from blog posts and webinars, but that’s
not always the best use of that energy. Brainstorming with peers using the latest exercises
and techniques is exciting and invigorating at the moment. Still, it often leaves you
overwhelmed when you get back to your desk, unsure how that all translates to the core
elements of your job. It can ultimately end up distracting us and causing our focus
to stray.
Evaluating those activities in terms of their true impact on the customer and business
can corral that enthusiasm and redirect action toward creating and delivering
meaningful value.
Determining what truly makes an impact isn’t easy. That’s why I came up with a quick
way to put each move through its paces to maximize its significance to the parties we
care most about. By judging impact based on the six quick “IMPACT” tests I’ll cover in this
book, I believe we can significantly increase those odds.
Annie Dunham
VP of Product, ProductPlan
productplan.com
Introduction
|
3
What is IMPACT?
What is IMPACT?
There are already plenty of frameworks and methodologies, complete with checklists and
diagrams of how to do specific parts of product work best. But those models
aren’t always so flexible and versatile, making them hard to use outside of their
original context.
IMPACT isn’t as much a framework or a methodology as it is a mindset. It keeps the
customer and business at the center of everything we do, providing a quick sanity check
that our efforts and resources are devoted to the right things.
The most effective teams I’ve worked with understand individual motivation and how
they plug into the organization as a whole because they’re driven to make an impact
and understand what kind of thinking supports that. With this IMPACT mindset,
businesses and teams have an overarching umbrella underneath which they can
evaluate frameworks and processes, all with the end goal of identifying their greatest
opportunities to make a meaningful difference.
I believe the most critical aspects of product management are storytelling. What are you
doing? How are you empathizing and connecting with the customer problem, balancing
a huge range of requests, including evaluating technical feasibility, even your career?
From there, I distilled each area down into its root. Good stories must be interesting, and
customer empathy demands the creation of meaningful solutions, etc.
I also looked at common failure points, such as talking in circles, or holding too many
meetings in failing attempts to create alignment around a problem or investing too much
in a solution while not making space to learn along the way. Things like this get in the
way making broad, profound impacts.
When hard things are done right, they look effortless. So how do you make creating an
impact look easy? Clearly explain what you’re doing throughout the IMPACT-first mindset
while showing incremental movement instead of a grand reveal.
What is IMPACT?
|
5
I - I nteresting: Does the product address the things our customers really care
about? Can we tell a story how the product creates positive change for them?
M - Meaningful: Are we moving the business forward toward measurably
reaching its goals? Are we providing real value to our users?
P - People: Who is impacted by our product? Who uses it, who sees the benefits,
and who pays for it?
A - Actionable: Are we coming up with ideas that can be implemented and
realized? Do we have the resources, budget, and expertise to execute?
C-C
lear: Do we truly understand what we’re trying to do? Can it be concisely
articulated so even a child could get it?
T -Testable: Can you try things out before making a major commitment?
Are there ways to experiment and measure success on an ongoing basis?
The ideas above may not be revolutionary, but they’re all worthy of keeping in mind
during every phase of the product life cycle. Confirming your product decisions through
an IMPACT mindset ensures that the “why” of what you’re doing always remains in focus.
The goal of delivering customer value never falls by the wayside.
In the following chapters on product processes, prioritization, building a roadmap,
hiring, and careers, we’ll illustrate how an IMPACT mindset can be applied in many
scenarios product managers encounter. Referring back to this concept on an ongoing
basis is a continuing opportunity to level-set decisions and ground them in the bedrock
of your overall objectives.
6 | What is IMPACT?
Product Processes
Product Processes
Whether you love processes or find them constraining, we can all agree that any process
is superior when it adds value and connects back to customer value and the user
experience. Most processes are implemented with the best of intentions—this will make
us faster, more profitable, more responsive, more customer-centric, etc.
Other than possibly putting in some stage gates to ensure alignment and buy-in, the wellmeaning intent of any new process is creating a greater focus on what’s important and
getting it into customers’ hands quickly because it’s all about adding value. But processes
only work when two critical components are in place—a logical order of operations and
universal compliance.
In plain English, this means that the overall path from ideation to shipping follows a
circular path of natural progression. Customer and market research identifies
opportunities, which are then viewed within the business’s strategy and objectives. Next
comes validation of the subset of opportunities that align with that.
Then items get prioritized, slotted into the roadmap, further specified, built, tested,
shipped, and sold. The resulting data and analytics measure what worked and continue
iterating and enhancing to achieve their goals.
No one will typically argue with this logical method of ensuring resources are expended
on what matters and diverted from areas that don’t. However, there are many
opportunities to circumvent these steps and take shortcuts.
Steps and shortcuts
Let’s take the case of a product manager at a SaaS company in the financial services
space. They identified a core customer problem that’s preventing customers from
investing with their tool because of flaws in the workflow. After doing their due diligence
and discovery to validate the issue, they come up with a solution that will increase
customer investments by 45%, which would significantly help the business meet its goals.
8 | Product Processes
With that no-brainer business case and the supporting user stories in hand, the product
manager takes the specifications to Engineering, expecting they’ll be seeing increased
revenues in just a few weeks thanks to their plan. But instead of high-fives and green
lights, the product manager meets silence and doesn’t understand the resistance
and pushback.
While the stereotypical “meh” response from Engineering is deflating, a little more
digging reveals the crux of the problem. The engineering team has already begun prep
work at the behest of the CTO, a previously prioritized item they’re excited to work on.
They’ve been brainstorming ways this infrastructure will contribute to future product
development, and this new request from the product team doesn’t map to their
current plan.
The root of the problem is that, although the product manager has great processes,
they’re not tied together, so they optimize the entire workflow as a whole. The value of
the new project is entirely clear to her. Include the engineering team in the journey and
get the engineers excited about the impact of this new project.
Without that larger context, engineering can’t correctly assess and react to this new
information. They want to make their boss happy, so they’re not going to independently
preempt that work for something coming from outside the group without proper
motivation and clearance.
Now, if both the product manager and the CTO had followed the same processes from
soup to nuts, a few things would have happened.
There would have been a broader awareness of the AI infrastructure prep work. But,
just as importantly, both projects would have been evaluated based on the same criteria,
approved by the same stakeholders, and resided on the same roadmap.
When everyone doesn’t have the same information or perspective, these conflicts and
bottlenecks are inevitable. It’s easy to see why the CTO—who doesn’t need anyone else’s
input or resources for their project—would direct their staff to work on what they think
is most important. But the CTO shouldn’t be the lone judge of what warrants engineering
resources, nor should they be exempt from the same rigorous research and analysis,
review, prioritization, and approval steps the rest of the organization follows.
Product Processes
|
9
A common lens
One way to make the most of a universal set of product processes as a positive value-add
versus an onerous obstacle is framing them in IMPACT (Interesting, Meaningful, People,
Actionable, Clear, and Testable). This lens should be the first bit of scrutiny applied to
any potential project, as it ensures everything is evaluated using the same measuring
stick.
By creating alignment around an IMPACT mindset from the start, every part of the
organization can operate more effectively. With the right information and context,
everyone who has a relationship with the product—whether they’re building, selling,
supporting, or marketing it—can be significantly more effective.
Think about Amazon’s tradition of writing the press release for a product before a line of
code has been written. This working backward method puts the end goal in writing for
all to see and sign off on. Suppose that press release doesn’t get everyone excited. In that
case, the initiative probably won’t make enough IMPACT worth the effort and expense.
It gives everyone a common understanding of the intended outcomes and rationale for
commencing the work.
Benefits of aligning the team according to IMPACT
Alignment isn’t just to get everyone nodding their head when things kick-off. It’s a
constant touchstone for all involved parties with numerous benefits:
• Speed of delivery: When engineering knows what you’re trying to accomplish
and why the hundreds of decisions they make each day are made with a common
outcome in sight. Fewer distractions, more innovation, faster throughput.
• Delivering value: The IMPACT framework ensures the most valuable, urgent
functionality is in customers’ hands first.
• Unified communication: Customers have many touchpoints with their vendors,
from sales to marketing to account management to customer support. When
they’re all singing the same tune and touting the same capabilities, customers
are continually reminded of the value the product delivers. Colleagues are armed
with the most valuable information and an existing, interesting story that can be
reinforced and repositioned for maximum effectiveness.
10 | Product Processes
• Promotion and visibility: A story rife with IMPACT is easy to tell, excites the
audience, and propagates widely to create momentum and buzz.
Taking the long view
It’s easy to be sucked into the present. There are always new customer requests, sudden
crises, and unexpected market disruptions demanding our attention. But great products
aren’t built with knee-jerk reactions and desperate catchup measures.
IMPACT is a holistic approach, and the timeline should correspond to that view. A
one-year timeline is typically the right horizon when building out or refining product
processes since it’s enough time to do significant work but not so far in the future that
you’re guessing about what might come to pass.
Interesting
By relying on customer and user stories, you give everyone a reason to care. You’re not
just building a bridge; you’re letting people get home from work faster and increasing
business at local stores.
Keeping those people who will be impacted at the heart of the narrative, your job shifts
into a compelling and convincing storyteller hammering home the need and value-add
opportunity. These real stories are even better than personas since there’s an actual
person for stakeholders to relate to or sympathize with.
For example, I worked at an infrastructure monitoring company, which sounds pretty
dull and boring to most people not obsessed with logistics and efficiency. Using stories
brought the capabilities and functionality to life.
During new hire orientation, I would use the office kegerator as an example. We
monitored it, and it had its computer and data, which we then applied our rules engine
to so we could avoid any unfortunate beer shortages during company happy hours.
Instead of waiting until it was empty, as soon as things got low, it automatically texted
our supplier, so a new keg was on its way before anyone had to go home thirsty. This
was a relatable story that saved people time... and ensured there was always a cold beer
waiting for them.
Product Processes
| 11
I could also relay similar tales of restaurant refrigerator temperature monitoring sparing
business owners from spoiled supplies and system administrators avoiding sleepless
nights dealing with money-losing downtime by using our products.
These stories achieve multiple goals. People could wrap their heads around what our
tech could do for real people, not just the specs on a sales sheet. It was also motivating
and humanizing, with anecdotes that could be referred back to in the future when people
doubted why something on the roadmap was so important.
Meaningful
What you build must matter not necessarily to you but the business. You won’t always
be correct, but when you present a plan or idea, or suggestion to stakeholders, you can
figure out if it matters to them.
In those cases where it doesn’t mean all that much, the information is just valuable
information. It means you can adjust priorities before devoting any more resources to
something unable to make a meaningful impact. The goal is to maximize the ROI of the
resources you have, so it’s always good when you learn the answer to questions such as
“Why is this problem the most important thing you can solve right now?” and “What is
the most impactful thing you can do in service of this customer?”
People
There are two primary cohorts you’re worried about here. The first is your internal teams
and whether you can convince them you’re solving a meaningful problem.
If you can pass that test, the next question is who’s willing to pay for it. You’re not just
trying to solve a problem for a single customer; that’s likely not enough revenue to
warrant the effort.
Instead, the proposed solution should be validated as a business opportunity. You need a
large enough target market to make it worth its while for the business.
Actionable
Big problems need big ideas to solve them, but not every company has what it takes
to solve every solution. You must match your capabilities to the opportunities and set
realistic goals.
12 | Product Processes
A few years ago, I had dreams of using natural language processing to aggregate all
product feedback—from sales calls to website reviews—into meaningful product data. It
was interesting and would be exceptionally meaningful (at least to me).
But as I dove into the details, it was clear technology hadn’t reached a place where it
could deliver meaningful results. Natural language processing wasn’t in my skill set, nor
was it a core competency of the company.
There was no actionable plan that was also competitively viable or fiscally responsible.
That wasn’t the outcome I hoped for, but I’m glad I reached it as early as possible.
Clear
We’ve all been there. Someone rattles off a highly complex scenario—throwing in some
jargon and acronyms for good measure—and when they finish up, we have no real idea
what they’re talking about. It might have been clear to them, but the audience was lost.
This is when you kindly ask them to “explain it like I’m five.” ELI5 is shorthand for “I
fundamentally do not understand what you’re talking about,” which is different from
“I’m confused about this one thing” or “I didn’t get that part.” You need a complete reset.
As a product manager, you’re living, eating, and breathing customer pain points, then
you go to sleep and dream up solutions. Not everyone in the business has that same
experience. Their job doesn’t require that level of comprehensive customer-centricity
on a daily basis. They have tasks they can work on discretely that aren’t so uncommon
or specific.
That’s why things must be boiled down into simple problem statements anyone can
understand without a crash course in the particular subject matter. So keep it simple, and
make the payoff clear.
“We do these two things to speed up transactions, and we make an extra $3 million next
quarter” or “Customers can’t complete this essential task without removing this barrier,
and that stops us from hitting our revenue target.” Anyone even vaguely familiar with
the business can see the opportunity and compare it with competing priorities described
using similarly simplistic problem statements.
Product Processes
| 13
Testable
Product management needs validation. It’s not because product managers are wildly
insecure, but we do need to know our assumptions are correct and there’s data to back it
up. This helps us build trust and credibility in the organization but, more importantly, it
assures everyone that what we want to build will actually solve the problem.
Netflix Party offers a great example of finding something testable. During the COVID-19
pandemic, Netflix realized people were consuming entertainment differently, using it as a
platform for social interaction.
The streaming giant wasn’t sure if they could tap this market, so they debuted Netflix
Party to find out quickly. When they learned it wasn’t the right direction for them, they
didn’t pursue it further, instead opting to reinvest their resources into their core offerings.
Once again, the faster you get to “no,” the quicker you can move onto something else.
14 | Product Processes
Prioritization
Prioritization
I have a vivid memory of walking into my first prioritization meeting in a former role. I’d
done all my prep work, entering the session with a cleaned-up backlog and opportunity
list along with a prioritization framework I’d created for the occasion, pre-scored and
ready for review and debate.
I opened the door feeling great and then looked around the table. I found the CEO lost in
his phone, the CTO giving me a look that said, “you’re in my way, let’s get through this so
I can work on the projects I believe in,” and the Founder finishing up one of his typical,
mildly inappropriate jokes.
My heart sank, smacked in the face with the reality of the situation. No one was taking
this meeting seriously. It was an annoying obstacle standing between them and getting
other work done. We stumbled through some numbers for half an hour, making no
meaningful progress.
I’d handle things differently today by shifting the focus to IMPACT. I would have walked
in to understand what each found interesting and meaningful, using that lens to present
the opportunities.
I’d begin with a customer story capturing our opportunity before walking through our
decision’s impact on our trajectory. I wouldn’t repeat the mistake of focusing on process
over outcomes or bother with details the team wasn’t ready for.
The problem with frameworks
There are countless prioritization frameworks, but they’re not one-size-fits-all affairs.
Some rely heavily on customer surveys, while others require a well-structured strategy
or explicit key performance indicators (KPIs).
Too often, I see product managers held hostage by the framework itself, trying to force a
square peg into a round hole just to get a number. They lose sight of what matters most
16 | Prioritization
or try to force the difficult conversations needed to foster strategic alignment, which
must happen before the team starts making judgment calls and prioritization decisions.
Without an agreed-upon and well-understood strategy, there’s no way to honestly assess
the significance any particular item might have on the business making progress toward
its goals. IMPACT sets the stage for better prioritization conversations, moving the team
past the “why” and focusing on specific trade-offs and expected outcomes.
Interesting
As a storyteller, prioritization must begin by acquiring customer stories and reframing
them so other people engage. These stories should permeate the video meetings and oneto-one sessions serving as discovery reviews.
The team’s excitement about solving those particular problems can factor into what
makes it to the top of the list. But the focus must remain on solving customer pain
points and not how cool the solution looks or what tech it uses. It’s not about how the
problem gets solved, but the burden the problem has on customers and its prevalence in
the market.
Meaningful
Does solving this problem move the business forward? You can’t answer that if you don’t
know the vision and strategy. Just as importantly, how much will the customer value this
problem being solved for them?
People
The only people that matter in this process are the customers. To quiet naysayers or
those lobbying for other items to be prioritized first, shift the conversation to how
pervasive this problem is by objectively speaking to the customer market. This
quantification sidelines pet projects, shiny objects, and recency bias.
Actionable
Great idea, but is it actually doable? Measure if the team can move forward. Do they
have the skills, technology, and infrastructure to get started and bring a solution to the
market in a timely fashion?
Prioritization
| 17
The answer may be no, or the investment required may not be worth the reward. It’s
better to know that upfront than after it starts showing up on the roadmap.
Clear
The problem should be fully understood and the opportunity validated; otherwise,
conduct more research before it comes up for evaluation. Every question won’t be
answered, but the team should fully grasp the situation before moving forward instead
of presenting an incomplete business case.
Testable
Even though the internal team views an item as a priority, it’s essential to validate
assumptions. Is the problem actually fully addressed (or addressed enough) with the
proposed solution?
Whether it’s a full proof-of-concept or just a wireframe mockup, the sooner you can get
it in front of actual users for feedback, the better. If that’s not an option, then the team
risks making a significant investment in something that may not pan out as expected.
Incorporating IMPACT into the prioritization process
Rank each item up for discussion based on all six of the above elements. For example,
using a five-point scale, a potential development item’s meaningfulness could be judged
accordingly:
• 1 - It’s cool, but it doesn’t help us achieve larger business objectives.
• 3 - This is valuable. It’s within the realm of what we do today but only
partially improves things or solves the problem.
• 5 - Total game changer—Investing in this not only meets a current
customer need but sets the stage for success in the years to come.
18 | Prioritization
Building a Roadmap
Building a Roadmap
IMPACT can help you create better processes and evaluate items during prioritization,
but it plays a more minor role in the roadmap precisely because it played such a big role
in the previous steps. There shouldn’t be any swimlanes dedicated to each letter of the
acronym, nor should “Clear” or “Actionable” appear in the legend.
IMPACT’s value comes into play in a few other ways. First, by utilizing the IMPACT
scoring approach during prioritization, there will be far more confidence that what
makes it into the roadmap is a worthy endeavor, with stakeholder alignment already
baked in for anyone who participated in prioritization.
The roadmap’s overarching themes should also stand up to the IMPACT test. Each
major goal and the desired outcome should meet the same criteria that any individual
development items have already attained.
If a theme isn’t “meaningful” or doesn’t benefit the “people” using the product, then
it’s likely undeserving of hogging up development bandwidth. And if a theme is still
important enough to remain without being impactful, it warrants some deeper scrutiny
of its overall strategy and goals.
The roadmap as a whole can also be judged based on its IMPACT. Looking out six, nine,
or twelve months, will the planned themes and projects deliver results that adhere to this
credo? If not, then what’s driving the prioritization of work that doesn’t improve things
along these lines?
Elevating above the noise
It’s far too common that product roadmaps are viewed as glorified status updates to
some stakeholders. “What’s being built?” “When is it coming... or is it done already?”
“Did my thing make it in there?”
Of course, this is not the primary purpose of a product roadmap. Lists of deliverables
and delivery dates are fodder for project plans. Product roadmaps are supposed to be as
20 | Building a Roadmap
much about why you’re doing something as much as they explain what it is and when it
might show up.
Changing the internal conversation around roadmaps is a tricky but necessary step in
evolving an organization’s product culture. And here’s one more opportunity for IMPACT
to play a role.
Presenting the roadmap can be a nerve-wracking, fingers-crossed experience. Did all the
groundwork pay off? Did those conversations, meetings, and exercises adequately set
the stage?
As product managers, the roadmap is a canvas to tell a story, not a checklist or Gantt
chart. And that story is laced throughout with IMPACT. Everything on there should fit the
narrative, benefitting users while advancing the corporate strategy.
When the value created by the roadmap’s contents is evident, the pushback ebbs. Instead
of “why this versus that” interactions, discussion and debate can be held around timing,
trade-offs, and expediting delivery of customer value.
I personally structure our roadmap by value areas—the value we want to deliver to
create that impact. I then structure the legend to reflect our differentiators.
Before I actually put anything on the roadmap, its bones already indicate what’s most
important for our business. This facilitates stakeholder buy-in, keeping the conversation
on how we’ll impact the market before getting into any details of how we’ll do it.
With that foundation, I can start looking at opportunities, resources, and investments.
Combined with using IMPACT for prioritization within each area, I know the product
delivers value in all of the most impactful areas.
Interesting
Creating a roadmap is telling your story visually to ensure your audience connects with
the journey and walks away with the most pertinent information. This sometimes feels
harder, specifically if you’re addressing technical debt or working on the backend
architecture, but it all comes back to why you’re prioritizing that work.
Building a Roadmap | 21
Maybe that technical debt cleanup has a positive impact on engineering velocity. Then
you can tell a story about how much more value can be delivered in subsequent quarters
thanks to this investment of resources.
Meaningful
Your roadmap’s audience will dramatically influence the level of detail you share,
specifically because you want it to be relevant to their perspective and interests. You can
leave out anything that distracts from the story you’re trying to tell.
For an external customer, what may be meaningful is how your roadmap sets you up
to solve better problems you anticipate customers will face in the coming year.
Meanwhile, internal stakeholders can connect to a roadmap that relates to OKRs or
business metrics. In either case, your roadmap should help you communicate why the
work matters to them.
People
Once again, there’s much variation between what works for internal versus external
audiences. Your colleagues should see which parts of your market will be positively
impacted by the plans. This enables stakeholders to communicate upcoming changes to
their teams with the right value in mind.
For external customers, you need to put yourself in their shoes and embrace their own
needs and concerns. With this relevance top of mind, you can decide which parts of the
roadmap you want to share, how far into the future it should go, and which methods are
most effective to communicate your plans.
Actionable
I take a slightly different angle when it comes to roadmaps and “actionable.” I ask
myself, once I share this, what do I expect the audience to do with the information
they’ve just received?
I expect customers will help me validate the direction or be excited about the planned
changes and additions. I expect sales and marketing to use the roadmap to update their
latest sales collateral and pitch decks, and value propositions.
22 | Building a Roadmap
Customer success can begin creating a list of customers they’d like to proactively contact
about the changes and update their own protocols and best practices. And for
engineering and QA, I anticipate they’ll begin discussing the feasibility of these plans,
the technical challenges, the test environments they’ll need, and that sort of thing.
That means I must ensure my roadmap has the necessary information and context to
enable these behaviors and actions.
Clear
The last thing I want is people walking away from a roadmap review with more
questions than they came with. My goal is to build excitement and trust between the
product team and the rest of the organization.
So I must not only clearly state what we’re doing but, more importantly, why these are
the most important things for us to do now. You can gauge their engagement with and
understanding of the roadmap by the questions people ask. This validates their
comprehension or signals that they’re already thinking about the next big thing.
Testable
Roadshow your roadmap. When you’re plotting significant changes, socialize them in
small groups first to make sure you’re communicating well and haven’t overlooked
something big.
At the same time, call out learning points along the way. You’ll have the most impact
if you create space for failure and opportunities to make a change. This doesn’t mean
your roadmap is a pass/fail affair. Instead, you need to recognize the “ripcord moments”
when you can course-correct based on what you’re learning, along with an open
acknowledgment that things get a little fuzzier the further into the future you venture.
Building a Roadmap | 23
Hiring
Hiring
You’ve clawed your way up the corporate ladder. You shepherded your product from an
MVP, and now paying customers are clamoring for new functionality while stakeholders
lobby for horizontal growth into new industries.
With additional headcount approved and budget dollars carved out, it’s time to add to
your team. But you now face the unenviable task of hiring a product manager. Why is
hiring product management talent so tricky?
I often envy my counterparts in engineering. They have a deterministic technical test
indicating who has the base skills to succeed in our environment. They can test
candidates qualifications and then subjectively measure how their demeanor meshes
with the culture.
I have yet to find a test like this for product people. While you can certainly incorporate
some standardized evaluations into the hiring process, there’s no equivalent for
measuring emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, and people skills. Even worse,
there’s no great way to filter applications since we’re not just looking to check a few
boxes or spot a specific set of experiences and expertise.
We recently had a product manager opening here at ProductPlan and, as a remote-first
organization, the role was open to anyone working standard U.S. hours. I decided to
test the waters with a free posting on LinkedIn, receiving hundreds of applicants a day,
adding up to more than a thousand in the first week alone.
I would have loved having a five-minute conversation with every applicant to get to
know what lights them up—because so much of being a great product manager doesn’t
come across on paper—but that wasn’t an option. So I came up with a quick rubric to
find the top 50 applicants I wanted to interview.
This was hard because “product” means something different everywhere. I had to do my
best Nancy Drew impression and try to figure out what “product” really meant at the
organization each applicant worked and determine how that might apply to ProductPlan.
Hiring | 25
I ended up hiring someone who came in as a reference, not because she had the
strongest resume but because I was directly clued into how her experience translated
to our needs. Someone did the hard work for me with that introduction, which is why
networking is so important. It’s also an excellent reason to spend a little more time on
cover letters and direct messages that might separate you from the pack.
Finding a great product manager is tricky because what makes them great is their whole
being. With no ideal checklist or blueprint, it’s as much about curiosity and passion as it
is their previous successes and failures.
You need to see that drive and desire to make an impact by learning about their business
and customers. This isn’t easy to measure because “the right things” aren’t consistent
across all industries, companies, and products.
A founder-run, early-stage startup needs very different things than an enterprise-
grade outfit with hundreds of product managers. The common thread is impact, which
transcends the details.
Resume clues
While resumes aren’t ideal, they’re the most common starting point for evaluating who
makes the cut and warrants an interview. I look for several things as I peruse candidate
resumes:
• Verbs: The words they use to describe what they did matter. We all know you
“managed” a product, but did you “drive growth” by doing something in particular
or “solve” a critical problem for your customer?
• Defining success: Can you link your actions and decisions to a particular
outcome, or are you taking credit for some considerable revenue number that
is relatively meaningless without any context? And if it’s only about growth and
dollars, how much is customer satisfaction part of your definition? I want details
and specificity.
• Career path: I’m not necessarily looking for a rapid string of promotions, but I do
want to see signs of curiosity, growth, and ambition. I’m looking for indications a
candidate took on additional responsibilities, expanded their areas of expertise,
and learned about new industries and markets. That doesn’t always require job-
26 | Hiring
hopping. But I prefer a logical upward trajectory that shows previous employers
have recognized and rewarded your competence.
• Customer-centricity: More than 50% of the resumes I review do not mention
the customer… at all. This is a huge red flag. You can’t make an impact without
clearly understanding the customer problem and why it matters to them and your
business. So, if that’s the most important thing you’re doing, why is it missing?
That may not be part of a standard resume template, but if your success in
satisfying customers doesn’t warrant a bullet point or two, I’m likely to move on to
the next one in the pile.
IMPACT can help candidates understand what hiring managers are looking for, but it
can also help the hiring manager find common threads across a candidate’s breadth of
experiences to identify the best fit for the role.
Interesting
Who is the candidate, and what lights them up? Is this something you can glean from
their resume, executive summary, cover letter, or even a direct LinkedIn message?
You’re hiring a person for this role, not just a collection of skills and experiences. Is this
person interesting enough that you want to work with them, and are they interested
enough in the world to be curious, ask good questions, and probe deeper to really
understand customer problems?
Meaningful
Great people care about doing what matters. This sometimes comes through in their
volunteer work or personal interests, but it can just as easily shine through in how they
phrase and describe their work.
I love seeing bullet points bringing this to the fore, such as “Delighted our customers by
decreasing time spent doing X” or “Made lives better by decreasing load times by 50%,
so users spend time doing what matters” or “Brought a new technology to market that
changes the world.”
These claims might overstate the significance of their achievements, but it shows their
innate belief that what they’re doing matters and they’re invested in those outcomes.
Hiring | 27
People
The verbs candidates use can be a great tip-off that they approach their work with a
similar mindset. Do they talk about “collaborating” and “partnering,” or are they just
“leading” and “running” things?
You’re looking for signs they view things as a team effort and can point to examples
where they’ve had a positive effort on their colleagues and their customers. You want to
make your team better, stronger, and more versatile, and they must fit into the culture
you’re building.
Audience
When someone applies and interviews for a job, they have the job description in hand
and know who is hiring. That should give them enough information to tailor their pitch
for the audience, which in this case happens to be you.
Their resume, pitch, and interviews should reference what they know about the role,
reflecting their ability to apply their analytical skills and discern exactly what you’re
looking for. If there were three bullet points in the job description about data needs, but
they never mention it, they’re unlikely to make it into the “keeper” pile.
Clear
If a product manager can’t articulate things, then what’s left open to interpretation could
negatively come back to haunt everyone. There’s no excuse for not exhibiting those same
communication skills during the hiring process for a job candidate.
Boiling down an entire career into a resume and an “elevator pitch” during the interview
is a prime opportunity to put those skills on display. Isolating relevant previous
experience and articulating how it applies to the job in question is a must to make it
through my screening process.
Testable
There are a few ways to test out a candidate during the hiring process. One is looking
at their resume and seeing if there’s any evidence of the impact they’ve had in previous
roles and how that might translate to this opportunity.
28 | Hiring
You are also running a comfort test. Does their background indicate they’ll push the
team’s boundaries or help the organization get better in certain areas? You’re looking for
incremental value-add here and not just clones of current staff members.
And there is, of course, the test themselves. Asking a candidate to complete a small
project during the interview process to see an example of their approach and their work
output is one of the best ways to see if their actions match their words. But this should
be reserved only for the few potential hires that made it through a couple of interview
rounds, so you’re not wasting their time, either.
Here are a few different examples of tests product management candidates can be run
through:
The Sneak Attack:
Partway through the interview process, put the candidate into a conference room with a
project around product and written communication. In this scenario, the product manager was responsible for something well understood—such as building an app for task
management—and must document how they would begin within a set amount of time.
Then, halfway through, the interviewer comes back in with an urgent email from QA
stating that the project is behind schedule and it’s the candidate’s fault. Responding
to this email is the other part of the exercise. In a fast-paced environment where fires
pop up often, you must make sure this hire can communicate clearly under stress while
building trust among their peers even in high-stakes situations.
The Ego Trip:
Set up a product discovery test that’s intentionally vague and relies on the candidate
contacting other team members to be truly successful. Give them access to the team and
clearly state that they’re expecting questions.
If they reach out, you get insight into how they engage and get some 360-degree
feedback from the team members who interact with them. If the candidate tries doing it
all themselves, they’re likely a little too confident and cocky (or too much of an introvert)
to mesh with the rest of the team and truly embrace collaboration.
Hiring | 29
Due Diligence on Their Due Diligence:
Sometimes you’ve got a great handle on how a candidate will fit in with the culture but
are still uncertain how well they pay attention to the details and believe in thorough
processes. To increase your comfort level, put them through their paces.
Set up a product process project that includes details around the business objective and
customer problem. Then ask them to recap the other information they would need to
move forward confidently, what assumptions they’re making to move the project
forward, and how they’ll proceed after the customer problem and solution were defined.
This test grounds the conversation in a specific scenario where the details do matter. They
have to take a bit of a risk and make a judgment call, as well as “showing their work.”
30 | Hiring
Career
Career
Being good at your job and being good at managing your career are two very different
things. Product management is a relatively selfless profession where we put the interests
of customers and stakeholders above of all else.
If we’re doing our job well, we’re present and respected but not hogging the spotlight.
We might occasionally get opportunities to promote ourselves at an industry event, or a
company all-hands meeting, or maybe a blog post or thought leadership piece, but our
“brand” seldom extends beyond our companies’ walls (be those physical or virtual).
As such, we’re less likely to be headhunted, recruited, or “discovered” by a hiring
manager for a great opportunity than other, more prominent types of roles. This means
we must be intentional in our approach to our careers.
I sometimes joke that my “next gig” will be raising goats. I’d take comfort in the routine
and limited scope of the job while putting my creativity into whipping up goat milkinfused recipes and wear way fewer hats than I have in the past. Knowing exactly what
you’ll have to do that day—and being surrounded by cute, furry creatures that jump
around and bleat—might be an upgrade over some of my peers.
But I don’t really want to trade in my laptop for a pitchfork just yet. Like many of us, I’m
just intimidated about what that next move might be (although I totally swear I love my
job here at ProductPlan!).
Product is so different from one company to the next. Some companies are bought in
and see it as an equal peer to Marketing, Sales, and Engineering. Others think it belongs
safely ensconced under a VP of Product Marketing or a CTO.
Many companies value and respect the role, while some still treat us like unwelcome
babysitters and buzzkills. Plus, what they actually expect you to do all day can vary so
much that two roles with the same title could have wildly different responsibilities. Some
32 | Career
places want you to code and run SQL queries, while others expect you to provide firstline customer support, not to mention the companies that expect you to create marketing
campaigns or go on every sales call.
No one can afford to ignore their career. We can’t expect it to take care of itself or leave
it up to fate. Promotions and raises aren’t automatic, nor do the new job offers magically
appear when we’re ready for a change.
Applying the IMPACT mindset to our careers can be just as beneficial as other aspects of
our current jobs. We know product management can look wildly different from one
organization to the next. Those differences range from the terminology they use to where
they want product staff to focus on the product development methodologies they employ.
This increases the degree of difficulty to:
• Identify growth opportunities and spot which areas you must improve upon.
• Translate a written job description into what it would mean for your career
aspirations and how it maps to your current experience.
• Tailor your resume, cover letter, and personal pitch to fit a particular
job opportunity.
Using the IMPACT approach, you can perform a deep dive on yourself and tease out what
it is you do and how to best articulate that:
Interesting
How can you describe your career to date in an interesting way? Our resume lists the
jobs, the degrees, and a few details in bullet points, but it doesn’t necessarily tell a compelling story.
There may be a natural progression of a small company to a bigger company to a startup
or your titles moving up the ladder from associate product manager to senior product
manager. But sometimes they don’t.
Career | 33
Merely perusing your resume or LinkedIn profile might leave people wondering:
• Why did you leave Microsoft for some startup that failed?
• Why did you quit your job at a unicorn and throw in with a medium-sized firm?
• What made you stay at the same company in the same role for six years?
• How come you were once a Director, but now you’re a Senior PM?
• Why did you bounce around between product marketing and
product management?
Of course, there’s likely a good rationale for why you made each of those moves, even if
some didn’t pan out. But no list of job titles will do your narrative justice, which is why
you’ve got to put on your storytelling hat and provide some context.
Your story also might not have a great ending yet, but that doesn’t mean it’s not
intriguing. In these cases where your aspirations are still, well, aspirational, your story
can be as much about the future as it dwells on your past.
What you want to do and how the steps you’ve taken so far are getting you there is just
as important and what’s already in your rearview. But only your storytelling skills can
weave that all together and convey your passions.
Meaningful
Writing a user story, running a prioritization meeting, and creating product roadmaps
demonstrate facility, but they don’t communicate purpose. The blocking and tackling of
product management are essential, but what matters much more is why you bothered
and achieved.
When it comes to your career, that means illustrating the (lower-case) impact your work
has made. Were those accomplishments meaningful to you? To your company? To your
users and customers?
Almost everyone has a job, but what gets me out of bed is making a meaningful
difference in the lives of the people who use and interact with my products. When
sharing your exploits, expressing why they were important and how they improved
things, fixed problems, and addressed pressing needs is more relevant than what you
actually did.
34 | Career
People
There are two parts of “people” for this particular context. There are the people you
made a meaningful impact upon, as we just covered, and the people you work with. Let’s
concentrate on the second part.
Companies certainly want to hire people who are capable of executing and completing
the tasks on their plate. But there are softer skills at play as well.
Are you a good teammate that people enjoy working with? Do you make life easier and
better for your colleagues? Are you a great mentor or a devoted protégé?
And, when it comes to customer interactions, your people skills are also at a premium.
Can you speak in a language they understand and connect with them where they’re at?
Can you engage them in deeper conversations to uncover the root issues and not just the
surface-level gripes and wish lists?
A product manager will only go as far as their people skills take them. While bravado
might fly on sales teams and introversion tendencies may be tolerable in Engineering, no
one wants a product manager who isn’t approachable, personable, and perceptive.
Actionable
If you’re shopping yourself around as a candidate for a product management position,
the ideal action is simple—hire me! But what we’re really looking for in this case is
illustrating how you not only synthesize and present information well but also provide
your audience with something actionable at the end of it.
Use this opportunity to recount anecdotes or success stories where you either took action
or set the stage for stakeholders to do so. You didn’t just “survey users,” you used those
survey results to make recommendations, and one of those recommendations improved a
KPI or led to a big deal.
Clear
Communication skills are essential to product management, and they must be on display
when you’re speaking with a potential employer. If you don’t understand your successes,
your aspirations, and your strengths, you can’t communicate them clearly. And if you can’t
communicate them to yourself, you can’t demonstrate your successes to someone else.
Career | 35
Brevity, relevance, eloquence, and confidence are good traits to show off during those
interactions, but you should also point to real-world examples of how you bridged gaps
and built consensus by creating clarity among stakeholders. Did you inspire the masses
with your oratorical prowess? Did you slice and dice the data and create dazzling visuals
or unignorable metrics that won people over?
Showing off your skills and touting what they’ve done for you in the past are both keys
to convincing folks you’re worth adding to their team.
Testable
We never know how competent we are at something until we put it to the test. That
means pushing boundaries and getting outside our comfort zone to discover whether
we’re a great product manager or just adequate.
Taking on new challenges is one way to reflect on your talents. This often requires
learning new skills and understanding different technologies or industries. For some,
this might lead them to pursue an MBA or enroll in an accelerated product management
program. In fact, our recent State of Product Management Report found that 45% of
product people have a Master’s or Doctorate.
But you can start smaller. Pick up a book, subscribe to a podcast, or attend a conference
that forces you to learn and extend. Commit yourself to follow through and not just quit
when it gets a little trickier or boring.
36 | Career
Putting IMPACT into action on a job hunt
Much of what we just covered is applicable during a job search. You’ve got to know
yourself and refine your own elevator pitch, ensuring it hits the talking points while also
imparting your passion and curiosity, including relevant non-work experiences such as
volunteering and community involvement.
As someone on the hunt for a new position, dissecting the job description can tell you a
lot about the opportunity. These aren’t just ads; they’re problem statements you’ve yet
to unpack.
• What problem is this company trying to solve?
• Where can someone add value and make an impact?
• Are they mentioning customers and data?
• Which verbs do they use?
• Are they super specific in what they’re looking for or searching for
an athlete to grow into the position and evolve with it over time?
Of course, that job description is what they’re asking for, not necessarily what they
actually need or want. Think about how many times a customer asked you for a button
or a setting when they wanted something completely different that they couldn’t quite
articulate.
A job description is a sneak preview of how they view product management today. That
doesn’t mean it’s right or that you can’t change it, but it does give you a good glimpse of
their current mindset.
It’s a starting place for you to learn their language, their needs, and how you can
position the impact you have had elsewhere to help them meet their goals. You can then
show them what you’ve done to move your teams, product, and business to successful
outcomes and explain how you can do something similar for them.
Career | 37
Everything Can and Should Matter
Everything Can and Should Matter
The number one takeaway anyone should get from this book is that every person and
organization has limited resources, time, and bandwidth—we must be selective. We
all only get so many chances to capitalize on opportunities, deliver value, and capture
market share.
This might sound intimidating. And it is true that if you misstep, there may be no coming
back from it. But that’s why we put in the work upfront, so we’re pursuing paths with the
best odds of success.
It all starts with a common understanding, a shared mission, and clear, attainable, and
measurable goals. Without that underlying alignment, it’s nothing but uphill battles,
internal arguments, and disgruntled customers.
Ideas are easy, developers will code what you need, marketing can spin anything,
and salespeople will sell what’s in stock. The hard part is narrowing things down and
queueing them up in the proper order.
I didn’t write this book because I think everyone is wrong in their approach and
execution—people are generally doing a great job much of the time! I want to help
people spend their limited time as efficiently and effectively to maximize their impact on
their businesses, customers, and peers. An IMPACT-first mindset can be used just as easily
to recognize what you’re doing right and own that success.
Using the IMPACT approach, organizations can both quickly get to that common ground
and ensure they’re continually checking themselves to not stray from their shared
objectives. Running everything through those six axioms ensures that your plans are
well-plotted and poised to make a real difference in the lives of your customers and for
the business itself.
Everything Can and Should Matter | 39
Solve Interesting problems that are Meaningful to the People you care about. Create
Actionable plans Clear to everyone involved and Testable before committing too many
resources.
Your products can make a difference. They can save time, help people make money, bring
joy, and ease suffering. But only if we ensure they’re focused on what matters most to the
people we care about.
40 | Everything Can and Should matter
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About ProductPlan | 41