1️⃣ 𝐊𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐉𝐢𝐫𝐚 𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠.

▶ Doing that will result in so much noise that it will make you lose track of what's most important to your customer right now.

✅ Regularly clean up your backlog If it’s not a priority in the upcoming three months, remove it; you won't do it, trust me.

2️⃣ 𝐀𝐝𝐝 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭ℎ 𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐨 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐚.

▶ The result is, for sure, many miscommunications and lots of rework, which destroy your relationship with engineers and designers, and delay your timeline.

✅ Clear, detailed collaborative user stories. Make sure everyone knows what’s expected.

3️⃣ 𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦.

▶ Treating your team only as implementers reduces team buy-in and ownership, potentially missing valuable ideas they can contribute.

✅ Involve the whole team in backlog grooming sessions and ask questions, to engage them, not only about the feasibility of the solution but also to make them wear your hat for a few minutes.

4️⃣ 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐞-𝐭𝐨-𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬.

▶ This can lead to a fancy, feature-packed product with poor functionality and a delay in delivery due to using too many workarounds to add features in a hurry.

✅ Focus on critical tasks first. The glitter can wait 😁.

5️⃣ 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐬𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐨𝐠, 𝐟𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐬𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠-𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠.

▶ Your team will miss the bigger picture and long-term goals that they should work on and plan, Non-scalable technical solutions may also be another side-effect.

✅ Prepare at least three sprints ahead, the content of these sprints should be relevant and serve a clear business goal, with enough details about what you need to build.
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💡 𝑃𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑖-𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑟 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑜𝑛 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑣𝑒 𝑜𝑏𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑃𝑀 𝑜𝑟 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑎 𝑃𝑀.

🍏Get inspired by Steve Jobs, you are exceptional! You have a fantastic vision, and everyone else should just follow. Don't acknowledge your shortcomings yet.

🅱️ You are the CEO of the product. So, use the CEO red button in every opinion conflict (shut up it’s a business decision).

👨‍💼Spend less time with your team and more time with C-level executives.

❌ Don’t listen to your customers. You know the way and have a solid vision that no other voice can change or override.

👨‍🎨 The UX designers are just tools. Use them cautiously to design what you've seen in other apps no one knows about, after all, you have a taste for design.

🏭 Quantity over quality and numbers! You don’t need to set metrics or go through a discovery phase. Just copy and paste from your competitor so quickly, leave the dust under the mat, no one cares.

👨‍💻You know everything. You should be involved in the tech solution, not just state the problem. Instruct the team to opt for the fastest solution, if we fail, it’s their fault the server goes down.

🐢Tell management that the team is too slow and you need more resources. Overpromise instead of setting realistic expectations.

📢 Ask for updates every couple of hours, the tech team must know you are watching.

😎Hide the big picture from your team. They need just a list of tasks to work on daily to stay focused, not because they haven’t planned at all.

🫡 Control your product tightly. Everyone must get your approval before making any decisions, even if it means being a bottleneck. It's worth the wait because every tiny detail must be as you wish.

🕵🏻‍♂️ Don’t document what needs to be built; just leave empty tickets with short titles. Turn the sprint into a Q&A session between you and the team.

Adopting an agile mindset goes beyond just doing agile practices, it’s about fundamentally transforming how we deliver value to our users swiftly and efficiently.

This article, drawing from my journey for 13 years in Software Development and then as a Product Owner and Manager, aims to share practical insights and lessons learned that intertwine with broader skills in product management.

1. Prioritize Ideas Effectively

Not every idea carries the same weight. Overloading your engineering team with an extensive backlog can be counterproductive unless each item is critical for business success. Prioritizing ensures focus and efficiency.

2. Drive Outcomes, Not Just Features

When developing your backlog or roadmap, adopt an outcome-driven approach. Before moving items into a sprint, changing their rank, or discussing them with the team, highlight the intended outcome to ensure everyone understands the goal.

3. Focus on Quick Wins

Targeting quick wins and low-hanging fruits can prevent overwhelming your team with overly complex features.

These smaller, impactful tasks immediately benefit your product and accommodate unforeseen changes.

4. Minimize Context Switching

Frequent shifts between user stories can lead to inefficiencies. Reducing context switching saves time and helps maintain focus, as constantly adapting to new requirements and tools can be time-consuming.

5. Make Grooming Sessions Productive

Efficient grooming sessions are vital. Learning to work effectively with user stories, such as using the INVEST method, streamlines the process, making tasks easier to estimate, execute, test, and deliver.

Always encourage your team to ask questions! Any inquiry that comes to their minds can help reduce ambiguity.

I’ve found the following questions often spark productive discussions:

• Why do we need to implement this story now?

• What tasks do we need to complete for this user story?

• Can we split the user story into smaller ones and still add value?

• How would we test this user story?

• Are there alternative implementations that meet the requirements but differ from our preferred approach?

• Where do we create technical debt if we implement this user story as planned?

• Where do we see dependencies with other user stories or teams?

• Do we know any other implementation of a similar solution?

6. Prioritize User Stories Within Features

Even within the same feature, some user stories are more impactful than others. Prioritize those that deliver the most value, and consider deferring less critical aspects to future releases.

7. Encourage Technical Exploration

Allocate time for your engineering team to uncover technical challenges ahead of each sprint. Time-boxed spikes can reveal essential insights, ensuring that chosen solutions align with your business objectives and integrate seamlessly.

8. Write Concise, Clear User Stories

A user story should initiate discussion, not end it. Include just enough detail to spark productive conversations, focusing on the “why” and keeping the “‘how” flexible for team input.

9. Define Clear Boundaries for Each User Story

Clear and well-defined acceptance criteria help scope user stories effectively, simplifying testing and ensuring alignment with project goals.

10. Slice User Stories Vertically for Manageability

Avoid assigning large-sized user stories to your team.

If a story exceeds, say, 8 points, it’s a signal to reassess and slice it into smaller, more manageable segments.

Read my article about Vertical Slicing

This vertical slicing allows the team to implement, manage, and test each part effectively, without the delays often associated with larger tasks.

It’s about breaking down the work into smaller chunks that deliver value while remaining feasible and coherent within the agile framework.

Conclusion

Agile practices in product management are not just about frameworks and methodologies, they’re about fostering a mindset that prioritizes collaboration, efficiency, and value delivery.

By applying these tips, you can enhance your team’s agility and drive more impactful results.

In product management, one rule is key: always base your decisions on solid data. Whether we’re building new products or improving old ones, we need to make sure our reasons are backed up by clear facts and figures.

Regularly launching new features isn’t enough for success, what matters is measuring and improving their effectiveness.

Product Managers need to consider development costs, potential delays, and market opportunities. Effective use of data is key to navigating these factors and optimizing new features for success.

Past Experience: Simple Tools, Full Control

When I first ventured into the path of data-driven product management, my toolkit was uncomplicated but remarkably effective.

I primarily used Redash, which I had connected to a variety of data sources, including our main product database and an events warehouse.

This setup provided an essential level of control over the data, which is a cornerstone for making well-informed decisions.

The advantages of this approach were immediately apparent: it allowed for customized reporting, facilitated faster decision-making processes, and provided the flexibility to blend object data with event data seamlessly.

Such a configuration underscored the value of a tailored data toolkit in product management, emphasizing not just the collection of data, but its strategic application in shaping product direction and innovation.

Transitioning to Google Analytics 4: A New Perspective.

Lately, due to not having the same setup, I shifted to Google Analytics 4 (GA4), a leap from my preference for raw data and SQL.

GA4 brought new dimensions to data analysis with its user-friendly interface and a suite of powerful features such as:

Visual Purchase Funnel

This tool provides an intuitive understanding of customer behavior throughout different stages.

User Exploration

The User Explorer in GA4 offers detailed insights into individual user activities, akin to what I valued in Mixpanel.

Custom Audiences

Powerful for marketing, this feature enables the creation of audiences based on specific events and values.

The Ever-Present Love for SQL and Raw Data

Even with GA4’s capabilities, my fondness for SQL and raw data analysis remains.

While GA4 offers a streamlined, efficient way to handle analytics, the depth and flexibility provided by SQL queries are unmatched.

They allow for a granular level of analysis, often crucial for complex decision-making processes like mixing and relating events data to object data.

Is GA4 Enough for Your Product?

The effectiveness of GA4 significantly hinges on the specific stage and size of your product.

For small to medium-sized products, GA4 offers impressive functionality, striking a fine balance between user-friendliness and comprehensive data analysis.

However, when products scale and their data requirements become more intricate, there’s a noticeable shift towards a need for deeper, SQL-based analysis.

This is particularly relevant for those handling larger and more complex products, where advanced event data utilization becomes crucial for tailoring recommendations and personalized experiences.

On the other hand, Google Analytics does not provide you access to your raw data, Unfiltered, raw analytics data is available on Google Analytics 360 via Google BigQuery, and is quite a bit pricier.

Own Your Data and Use Your Favorite Tool!

To streamline this process, it’s beneficial to unify your event collection. Tools like Segment.com are invaluable in this regard, simplifying the integration of events data without the need for constant rewriting of your events for each destination.

They also facilitate the distribution of data to various analytics tools and event warehouses, making the entire process more efficient with more options.

While GA4 stands as a robust tool for many product managers, particularly in the realm of less complex products, the requirement for SQL capabilities and deeper data analysis is undeniable in the context of managing larger, more nuanced products.

Remember, in the dynamic world of product management, selecting the right data tool that aligns with your product’s current stage is crucial.

As a wise man once said, “Data is the new oil.” Clive Humby

It’s the resource that fuels informed decision-making and strategic planning.

Now, I’d love to hear your perspective. What are your thoughts and preferences when it comes to your Product Analytics Stack?

User Storie’s isn’t just documentation!

User stories are not just documentation of works to be done; it’s an invitation to discussion and to be delivered in a way that adds value to the products they should be Small enough to fit in one iteration (in a way that solves a customer problem), estimatable and can be tested independently.

Here comes the need to split the user story into other chunks so it can fulfill the mentioned points.

Let’s dive into the difference between Vertical vs. Horizontal User Story Slicing!

Vertical User Story Slicing 🍕

Dividing a feature into smaller, complete functionalities that cover all layers (UI, business logic, database).
So you can deliver end-to-end functionality in each slice.

Example: In an e-commerce app,

Slice#1: “As a user, I can browse items in a category.”

Slice#2: “As a user, I can sort items in a category.”

This includes UI, services, and database for each slice separately.

Horizontal User Story Slicing 🍅

Breaking down work by architectural layers (UI, database, etc.), focusing on one layer at a time.
Each slice focuses on a specific technical aspect.

Example: In the same app,

Slice#: “Develop the database schema for product categories,” focusing only on the database.

Slice#2: “Develop the Front-end for the product categories.

Key Differences 💡

1- Completeness: Vertical slices are complete features delivering value to the user, while horizontal slices might not be valuable on their own. 🚙 🍰

2- Integration: Vertical slicing ensures regular integration and helps in identifying issues early, whereas horizontal slicing might delay integration. 🚀

3- Feedback: Vertical slicing allows for faster feedback from users as each slice is a functional piece, unlike horizontal slices. 🛴

4- Risk: Vertical slices help in managing risk better by delivering small, complete features. Horizontal slices can sometimes hide risks until late in the project. 🚨

5- Focus: Vertical slicing keeps the focus on user needs and business value, while horizontal slicing is more about technical implementation. 🙋

In practice, most agile teams prefer vertical slicing as it aligns well with agile principles of incremental delivery and user-centered design. 🪜

However, horizontal slicing is often needed in situations where establishing a strong foundation for the application is critical, especially in the early stages of development.

Jira Product Discovery is a tool that helps product managers capture, organize, and prioritize ideas, as well as build and communicate roadmaps.

It provides a central place to manage the entire product discovery process, from gathering and evaluating ideas to creating, and sharing roadmaps with stakeholders and finally linking the product initiatives with the delivery tasks.

Why Prioritization is Important in Product Management

Prioritization is one of the most important tasks of a product manager. It involves deciding which features and initiatives to work on, and in what order. This can be a challenging task, as there are often many competing priorities.

Some of the challenges of prioritization include:

Limited resources: Product teams have a limited amount of time and budget, so they need to be careful about how they allocate their resources.

Competing priorities: There are often many different stakeholders with competing priorities for a product. Product managers need to balance the needs of different stakeholders and make decisions that are best for the overall product and business.

Uncertainty: It can be difficult to predict which features and initiatives will be successful. Product managers need to make decisions based on the best available information, even when there is some uncertainty.

Using the RICE Framework for Prioritizing Your Product Roadmap

The RICE framework is a simple but effective way to prioritize your product roadmap. It stands for:

• Reach: How many users will be affected by this feature or initiative?

• Impact: How much value will this feature or initiative deliver to users?

• Confidence: How confident are you that this feature or initiative will be successful?

• Effort: How much effort will it take to develop and implement this feature or initiative?

Check my previous article about how to use RICE in detail Click Here

Let's first, See how we can capture ideas into our Product Discovery Project.

To add an idea to Jira Product Discovery, simply create a new issue. You can provide a description of the idea, as well as any other relevant information, such as the problem that it solves, the target audience, and the value that it will deliver.

Another way to create your ideas on the go, If you are a Chrome User, you can use Jira Product Discovery Chrome Extention

Creating a RICE Custom View

One of the most powerful options of Jira Product Discovery is it gives you the flexibility to customize anything you want to match your way of work.

So you can tailor the tool as you wish and according to any approach, project, or framework you prefer.

Step 1: Create your Custom View

• From the list on the left sidebar, click on ‘Create a view’

• Select a New list view and give it a name.

• You will notice, that by default all your added ideas are inherited.

Step 2: Add custom fields for the RICE framework.

• from the ‘+’ icon on the table header, when you click on it, the list of current fields will appear to select from or you can create a new field.

• By default, you will find both fields exist, Impact and Effort. so you are going to create new fields for Reach and Confident.

• Click on the Create field, the creation form will slide from the right of the screen.

• Type your new field name and select field type. In our case, we are going to select “Rating”.

Step3: Calculate the RICE Score

• Once you finished creating the new fields needed for the prioritization formula, then the next step is to create the field that will show the RICE score.

• Create a new field, but this time select the type “Custom Formula”

• Add the expression for RICE the same as the following example
  Note: Make sure of field names.

{Reach} * {Impact} * {Confidence} / {Effort}

• Sort your idea by RICE Score Field Descending, that’s it all.

Conclusion

In summary, Jira Product Discovery provides a robust platform to ideate, prioritize, and build roadmaps to determine what features to develop next.

The RICE prioritization framework complements Jira Product Discovery by offering a methodology to evaluate potential initiatives based on their reach, impact, confidence, and effort.

Together, these tools enable product teams to make data-driven decisions about where to focus their limited resources for maximum benefit.

By aligning development efforts to high-value outcomes, organizations can deliver the innovations users want and move their business strategies forward. The combination of Jira Product Discovery and the RICE framework offers an effective way to manage the product discovery process from initial ideas to launch.