Building better roadmaps | Janna Bastow (Mind the Product, ProdPad)

Janna Bastow is a former product manager, and currently the CEO and co-founder of ProdPad. She also co-founded Mind the Product, a community for PMs, which has grown to 300,000 members across the world. In today’s podcast, Janna discusses the limitations of timeline-based Gantt charts and her “Now/Next/Later” framework. She also shares stories about hosting conferences and gives some great tips on how to improve your presentation skills and cope with performance anxiety. Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/building-better-product-roadmaps-janna-bastow-mind-the-product-prodpad/#transcript — Where to find Janna Bastow: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/simplybastow • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jannabastow • The ProdPad newsletter: https://www.prodpad.com/newsletter/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible: • Formsort: https://formsort.com/lenny • Coda: http://coda.io/lenny • Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/ — Referenced: • Mind the Product: https://www.mindtheproduct.com/ • The Trouble with Traditional Roadmaps: https://www.prodpad.com/resources/guides/ditch-the-timeline-roadmap/the-trouble-with-traditional-timeline-roadmaps/ • ProdPad’s Sandbox: https://www.prodpad.com/sandbox/ • Geoffrey Moore’s product vision template: https://www.prodpad.com/blog/product-vision-template/ • The Art of Profitability: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Profitability-Adrian-Slywotzky/dp/0446692271 • The Sandman on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81150303 • Startups for the Rest of Us podcast: https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/ • Christina Wodtke on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cwodtke — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Janna’s background (05:28) How the community evolved at Mind the Product (08:22) The tricky logistics of putting together a conference (10:48) Are conferences profitable? (13:00) How Janna developed her storytelling and presentation skills (16:44) How to fight performance anxiety (19:25) Mistakes are humanizing—how to power through and deliver your presentation (22:11) The limitations of traditional timeline roadmaps (25:00) Janna’s Now/Next/Later framework (28:08) How to work without the structure of dated timelines, and why soft launches are important (32:57) What great product teams are doing well (35:05) The importance of retrospectives (36:45) How to shift the culture at larger companies (39:43) How ProdPad creates better product management practices (42:04) How to learn the Now/Next/Later framework (46:59) Geoffrey Moore’s product vision template (48:36) Lessons for PMs interested in becoming founders (50:48) Lightning round — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.