Building better product 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.

Listen now on Apple, Spotify, Google, Overcast, and YouTube.

—

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:

(01:10) 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.