We're excited to welcome Janna Bastow and James Mayes from Mind the Product to Toronto for this month's discussion. We'll be discussing how to move to a theme-based roadmap by 2017 and learning more about Mind the Product's global product community. Janna Bastow is co-founder of ProdPad, product management software that helps product managers build a product roadmap everyone understands and solve problems flexibly. She's also co-founder of Mind the Product, a global community of product managers, and the ProductTank series of meetups. She likes to inspire great product conversations by asking: “What problem are you trying to solve?” James lives at the intersection of Product, Startupsand Talent. As one of the Co-Founders of Mind The Product, he has specific remit now for partnerships throughout the product world in order to ensure the sustainability of the events. He’s always looking for new ways to add value to the community and while not always being a product person historically, loves the opportunity to experiment! James is a dad, gadget-geek, and frequent flyer. Thanks to Shopify for hosting us!

1. @ProductTankTO | #ProductTank |
SPONSORED BY
TWEETS AWAY! producttankto.com
A MEETUP FOR PRODUCT PEOPLE,
BY PRODUCT PEOPLE

2. #ProductTank
TWEETS AWAY!
@James_Mayes
ProductTank as a Product
or…
A brief history of Mind The Product
or…
Seven Lessons in Product

3. Follow your users

5. Give your users a voice

6. Speak at a ProductTank!
producttank@mindtheproduct.com

7. Let them record detailed feedback

8. Write for the blog!
editor@mindtheproduct.com

9. Keep your users up to date

10. Weekly newsletter
http://mtp.io/mtpnewsletter

11. Consider an interactive user group

12. Keep the conversation going
http://slack.mindtheproduct.com

13. Listen to feature requests and
discover new sources of revenue

14. Need a new gig? New hire?
http://jobs.mindtheproduct.com

15. Reflect your own passion in
the product

16. Come together
http://mtpcon.com

17. #ProductTank
TWEETS AWAY!
@James_Mayes

18. HOW TO
🎆 Kick off 2017 🍾
with a
THEME-BASED
ROADMAP

19. I’m Janna Bastow
I talk a lot about product management.
Say hi at @simplybastow or janna@prodpad.com!
😃
Hello!

20. How’s 2016going for you?

21. I used to do this

22. Everyone else is doing it...

23. And it’s partly my fault 😫

24. What’s wrong with a
timeline roadmap?
🍾

25. A timeline roadmap is....

26. … waterfall!

27. Over planning… or making it up

28. Release plan != Roadmap

29. What could possibly go wrong?
🍾 Made up release dates
☠️ Death marches
🍾 Mismanaged expectations
💸 Missed market opportunities
💩 Building the wrong thing
😓 Sad product managers

30. What’s the new way
of doing it?
😎

31. Time horizons

32. Objectives / Themes

33. Theme based roadmap

34. “If we had a quarter for every time
someone asked for a Gantt chart,
we’d be rich.

35. ““One of the things we really appreciate about
ProdPad is that there is a strong vision for what is
best practice for Product Management. There were
times for us where we’ve felt a bit uncomfortable
about why ProdPad does things the way it does, but
having adapted to ProdPad philosophies about
theme-based roadmapping etc…
we are much better off for it.”
× Jason H, a ProdPad customer

36. Getting your boss
on board
💪

37. Step One
Separate the roadmap
from the release plan

38. Step Two
Wean them off the
timeline format

39. Step Three
Construct your counter-
arguments

40. “This is the only way we can actually be Lean.”
Argument One:

41. “We’re wasting time and duplicating work.”
Argument Two:

42. “We don’t even know how big the team will be by
then.”
Argument Three:

43. “Let’s stop setting unrealistic expectations.”
Argument Four:

44. “Let’s stop building the wrong things.”
Argument Six:

45. “Let’s just try it” / “Sure, here’s the roadmap.”
Argument Five:

46. As product manager, you
communicate the vision,
set priorities and ask the
right questions.

47. As product manager, you
communicate the vision,
set priorities and ask the
right questions.
You’re NOT a glorified
Gantt chart jockey!

48. Here’s to 2017! 🍾

49. 😃
Thank you!
Any questions?
Let’s do coffee or chat:
@simplybastow // janna@prodpad.com