Knowledge-sharing sessions to develop product management skills
Product Matters is a knowledge-sharing and learning session that I’ve been running at NHS Digital. It’s for product managers to come together to discuss aspects of their craft, from problem statements and product visions to roadmaps and stakeholder engagement.
Skip ahead to read about how the sessions work.
The sessions are designed to promote discussion. As the facilitator, I give everyone opportunities to contribute. I pose the questions and I move everyone through the activities but I try to leave the actual discussion to others.
The sessions work best with 6–12 people. They last 55 minutes so they don’t require a large time commitment from attendees.
I’m sharing the structure and content here under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License in case anyone wants to copy or adapt it. If you do — and especially if you adapt or improve it — please let me know (Twitter, Mastodon).
What inspired it
I was prompted to start these sessions after this piece of feedback from a product manager colleague:
This isn’t necessarily your sole responsibility … but keeping the enthusiasm for our profession through knowledge sharing and profession meet-ups would be great to see.
Other product manager colleagues have told me that one of the downsides of our new mostly-working-from-home culture is that there are fewer opportunities to learn by seeing or hearing others go about their work. Before the pandemic they would regularly observe other product managers in action, and they would pick up tips or tricks by doing so.
I was also inspired by:
- the self-managed learning courses developed by Rose Waite
- a couple of courses I attended recently which (with no offence to the organisers) made me think, “I could do that”
- journal clubs, which are popular among health professionals.
How the sessions work
I choose the topic a week or two in advance. I have a long list of possible topics and I run a quick poll on Slack to see which one there is most interest in.
I send some links to blog posts on the topic a few days before each session, along with a summary of the activities we’ll be doing. I like to give people the chance to think about the topic before they attend.
I run the sessions on a video call using Mural but they could also be done in-person.
At the start of each session, I run through a quick spiel about the purpose of the sessions and how they work:
These sessions are to help improve our craft by learning from one another. We’ll talk about how we do things and share examples of good practice from inside and outside of NHS Digital.
We may disagree with one another, but that’s a good thing as long as we do in a respectful and constructive way.
Cameras on if you can — especially if you are speaking.
Hands up if you want to come in on something. Mute if you’re not talking to reduce background noise.
We run through 2–3 activities.
I ask for feedback: what went well? What could be improved? And will you attend again? 100% of respondents so far have said they will come again.
Finally, I write up any conclusions from the discussions into a wiki of product management practices and principles.
These are the 4 sessions I have designed and run so far:
Product Matters #1: problem statements
Pre-reading
Activity 1: What is a problem statement for?
- Everyone writes a short answer (2–3 sentences) to the question.
- We vote for the answers we’d like to discuss.
- We discuss the answers.
Activity 2: What should (and shouldn’t) be in a problem statement?
- We discuss what should (and shouldn’t) be in a problem statement.
- Facilitator captures key points from the discussion.
Activity 3: Examples of problem statements
- We look at a few examples of problem statements and discuss their pros and cons.
- Facilitator notes down the observations.
- Attendees are invited to bring along their own examples but this doesn’t often happen, so I have a few ready to go.
Product Matters #2: product visions
Pre-reading
- Christian Strunk: How to define a product vision (with examples)
- Robbin Schuurman: 10 Tips for Product Owners on the Product Vision
Activity 1: What is a product vision for?
- Everyone writes a short answer (2–3 sentences) to the question.
- We vote for the answers we’d like to discuss.
- We discuss the answers.
Activity 2: What are the characteristics of a good product vision?
- We discuss what makes a good product vision.
- Facilitator captures key points from the discussion.
Activity 3: Product vision examples and templates
- We look at a few examples of product visions and templates for creating them, and discuss their pros and cons.
- Facilitator notes down the observations.
- Attendees are invited to bring along their own examples or templates but this doesn’t often happen, so I have a few ready to go.
Product Matters #3: product roadmaps
Pre-reading
- Janna Bastow: The birth of the modern roadmap
- Product Experience Podcast: Roadmaps are Dead. Long Live Roadmaps!
- Andrea Seaz: How To Build A Product Roadmap Everyone Understands
Activity 1: What is a product roadmap?
- Everyone writes a short description of what a product roadmap is, and what it is for.
- We vote for the descriptions we’d like to discuss.
- We discuss the answers.
Activity 2: Product roadmap examples
- We look at a few examples of product roadmaps and discuss their pros and cons.
- Facilitator notes down the observations.
- Attendees are invited to bring along their own examples but this doesn’t often happen, so I have a few ready to go.
Product Matters #4: stakeholders
Pre-reading
- Roman Pichler: 5 Tips for Saying No to Stakeholders
- Matt Knight: Right question, wrong answer: agile stakeholder management
Activity 1: Why do we engage with stakeholders?
- Everyone writes a short answer (2–3 sentences) to the question.
- We vote for the answers we’d like to discuss.
- We discuss the answers.
Activity 2: How do we say ‘no’ to stakeholders?
- We discuss our tactics and experiences of saying ‘no’.
- Facilitator captures key points from the discussion.
Activity 3: Mapping stakeholders
- We look at a few examples of stakeholder maps and stakeholder engagement plans and discuss their pros and cons.
- Facilitator notes down the observations.
- Attendees are invited to bring along their own examples but this doesn’t often happen, so I have a few ready to go.
Product Matters #5: prioritisation
Pre-reading
- GOV.UK service manual: deciding on priorities
- Roadmunk: 9 product prioritization frameworks for product managers (in particular the sections on RICE, Value vs Effort and MoSCoW)
- Folding Burritos: 20 Product Prioritization Techniques: A Map and Guided Tour (in particular the section on Scorecard)
Activity 1: What factors might we take into account when prioritising?
- We list all of the factors we can think of, eg user satisfaction, reach or cost savings.
- Facilitator captures answers.
Activity 2: Pros and cons of different prioritisation methods
- We discuss 4 different prioritisation methods, eg Value/Effort, RICE, Scorecard and MoSCoW, and the pros and cons of each.
- Questions to ask include ‘What types of things would this be best at prioritising?’, ‘In what situation or product lifecycle stage might this be most useful?’ and ‘Who would contribute to the discussion/decision?’
- Facilitator captures key points from the discussion.
Plans for the future
I started running the sessions with NHS.UK and NHS App colleagues. I’m now offering the sessions to all product managers at NHS Digital.
The time commitment isn’t huge: 1–2 hours to design a new session, 1 hour to run it, 30 mins admin. Sessions can be repeated with different groups of attendees.
I’m lucky to have the time to do this at the moment. I would like to find more facilitators though to help scale it up and to bring a different perspective to session design. I’m also interested to see if other professions at NHS Digital would like to use the structure with different topics and content.
As I design more sessions I’ll add an overview of them here.
