From Stakeholder to Time Management A Guide for Product Managers Becky Yelland

1. From Stakeholder to Time Management A Guide for Product Managers Becky Yelland

2. BACKGROUND • 13 years of delivery & team management experience • 8 years in product management role, 4 senior level • EXPERIENCE • Interactive TV/Gaming and Betting • Broadcast Media • Personal Media/Publishing • SaaS/Mobile in Digital Marketing • Financial Services/News

3. What are the keys to being a successful product manager? Communication Relationships

4. You are only as good as your last delivery..... If your team look good – YOU look good Looking busy does not mean you are being productive!

5. Product Manager Tool Kits for success: #1 – Stakeholder Management #2 – People Management #3 – Time Management

6. Stakeholder Management People Management Time Management SH: Top Tips SH: Engagement Cycle SH: Managing SH SH: Analysis • Identifying your Stakeholders: All stakeholders are individuals or organizations that are actively involved in the product, or whose interests may be affected as a result of the product or feature launch. • Document Needs: Knowing what all your stakeholders need in terms of reports/updates/information in order to gain and retain their buy in • Analyse SH influence/interest: Do a RACI or similar • Manage SH expectations: in terms of what will be delivered and when and how thy will be kept informed and influence. • Review and Repeat: don’t sit on your laurels with this approach continue to assess if it’s working for the product team and for all your SH

7. Stakeholder Management People Management Time Management SH: Top Tips SH: Engagement Cycle SH: Managing SH SH: Analysis What is RACI and how to use Different Stakeholders Why do Analysis? WHY DO A STAKEHOLDER ANAYLSIS? • A stakeholder analysis can help a product team to identify: • The interests of all stakeholders, who may affect or be affected by the product or feature • Potential issues that could disrupt the product delivery • Key people to engage during rollout • Individuals and groups that should be encouraged to participate in different stages of the product delivery • Communication planning & stakeholder management strategy should be done up front • Managing negative stakeholders • Engaging stakeholders throughout the project life cycle is a key to (but not a guarantee of) success. Key: Monitor, Minimal Effort Keep Informed Keep Satisfied Key Players, Manage Closely Link to tools: www.pragmaticproducteer/stakeholder-planning-template

8. Stakeholder Management People Management Time Management SH: Top Tips SH: Engagement Cycle SH: Managing SH SH: Analysis What is RACI and how to use Different Stakeholders Why do Analysis? RACI DEFINITIONS: • R – Who is Responsible The person who is assigned to do the work • A – Who is Accountable The person who makes the financial decisions and has ultimate ownership P&L owner of the product • C – Who is Consulted The person who MUST be consulted before a decision is made or an action is taken • I – Who is Informed The person who MUST be informed before a decision is made or an action is taken

9. Stakeholder Management People Management Time Management SH: Top Tips SH: Engagement Cycle SH: Managing SH SH: Analysis What is RACI and how to use Different Stakeholders Why do Analysis? WHERE CAN MY STAKEHOLDERS COME FROM? • It is invaluable to know who ALL your Stakeholders are some will have more involvement than others: • All external stakeholders should be managed as much as possible in terms of their expectations • Customers as stakeholders still need to be kept informed/have their expectations managed • Vendors/Partners that will be impacted by your new product/feature also need to be kept informed or be involved depending on their relationship with your company.... • ...and so on

10. Stakeholder Management People Management Time Management SH: Top Tips SH: Engagement Cycle SH: Managing SH SH: Analysis Supporters/Opponents Managing Expectations • It is key to your success that you are active in managing your stakeholders expectations & ensuring their active involvement is crucial to the success of your product adoption: • It is indispensable for continuation of the product or feature launch • It gives opportunities to individuals or groups to express their ideas/issues/concerns • It gives all Stakeholders a sense of accountability and enhances their responsibility and positivity towards the product • It enables effective risk assessments • It opens up excellent communication channels between the product team and stakeholders • Regular reports/status updates and meetings are crucial to ensure SH are informed and always have the latest information relevant to them. • If you remember one thing it should be this: • COMMUNICATION • COMMUNICATION • COMMUNICATION

11. Stakeholder Management People Management Time Management SH: Top Tips SH: Engagement Cycle SH: Managing SH SH: Analysis Supporters/Opponents Managing Expectations • Managing your supporters and opponents differently is important to get right. • For each type of stakeholder, there is a different set of strategies for gathering information, maximizing support and minimizing opposition Key: Ensure they do not become active opponents Maintain their support Do what you can to lessen their potential opposition Mobilise their support, use them as champions Note: There is a difference between an opponent and a blocker. The former has a high understanding but low agreement on the product and the latter has low understanding and low agreement There also exists a s

12. Stakeholder Management People Management Time Management SH: Top Tips SH: Engagement Cycle SH: Managing SH SH: Analysis • TIP #1 • When planning a sign off meeting or gate meeting ensure you have engaged with all SH individually before the group meeting so there are NO SURPRISES for any of the SH, get their individual buy in, and update the deck according to their input/advice/concerns etc • TIP #2 • If you are doing a presentation at a gate review or update, consider including individual SH views or opinion (or sound bites) in one of the slides – see this work it’s magic! • TIP #3 • Create regular 1:1 catch ups with your SH to inform them specifically of the product status (this should be on top of regular reports/emails you send to all SH • If you do these your SH will all feel: • Engaged • Informed • & part of the process

13. Stakeholder Management People Management Time Management PM: Trust & Influencing PM: Top Tips PM: Delivering TRUST • The best way to ensure that people trust you, is that you trust them • Do not assume if you are product owner people will automatically trust that you know best – you need to work hard to know your product better than anyone else. • You need to trust others to do the job they’ve been employed to do INFLUENCING • In your product teams, as product owner you may by default have a level of influence. Never misuse this. • If you are struggling to maintain a level of influence, ask yourself why? Have you written clear specifications? Have you built up and are you maintaining your keyrelationships adequately?

14. Stakeholder Management People Management Time Management PM: Trust & Influencing PM: Top Tips PM: Delivering DRIVING DRIVING DRIVING • As product owner you need to be the one driving things forward, pushing and cajoling where necessary to keep the energy going. If you lose the energy you not only lose the control but risk the timely delivery of the product/feature CONTROL • There are many ways you can maintain control: • WRITE YOUR OWN SPECS/REQUIREMENTS – DO NOT be tempted to let your dev lead do these for you.... • The Devil is in the detail – as soon as you lose sight of the detail – you lose an element of control • Meeting Minutes: it sounds boring, but if you take minutes/send out minutes and control the actions and flow of information – you are in the driving seat • NB – Control is not about ownership it’s about accountability – if you are accountable for the delivery of a product then you need to be in control .....there is no use blaming getting lost on the back seat driver you are both the navigator and the one driving the car!

15. Stakeholder Management People Management Time Management PM: Trust & Influencing PM: Top Tips PM: Delivering TIP #1 Be on time to meetings, prepare before meetings, take minutes and send out notes/actions to all present as well as any necessary no shows/stakeholders TIP #2 Take the time to know your product better than anyone else, both in terms of what you are delivering, what your competitors are delivering and what your customers are asking for.... Your influence as a product owner should be from ALL perspectives that matter TIP #3 Build up and maintain your key relationships in your product team but also beyond. Take the time to get to know the support team, sales teams the people on the front line – get invited to customer meetings, spend the time looking at the BUGs and ERs coming through the support team

16. “If you can’t explain it simply, then you don’t understand it well enough” Albert Einstein “The secret of my influence has always been that it remained a secret.” Salvador Dali “It’s not that I am so smart, it’s just I stay with problems longer.” Albert Einstein

17. Stakeholder Management People Management Time Management TM: Top Tips TM: Self Mgt TM: Prioritisation TM: Meeting Mgt LISTS LISTSLISTS: • Write everything down – no one can remember everything! • Make daily to do lists and categorise them: Must do today, do today if have time, only do if finish everything else or can stay late! • Review your daily to do list at the start of the day, or the end of the day before. TOOLS FOR THE JOB: • Use a tool for all your actions is a great/free online tool for this. • You can also consider using or other online collaboration tools to manage your time and your product teams workload • Set reminders in Outlook or your email/meeting tool to ensure you don’t miss a deadline • Block time out in your day to complete critical tasks, spec writing, SH presentations etc

18. Stakeholder Management People Management Time Management TM: Top Tips TM: Self Mgt TM: Prioritisation TM: Meeting Mgt MEETINGS FOR MEETINGS SAKE: • Consider all your meetings carefully. Do not book meetings for the sake of having a meeting • All meetings should have a clearly defined purpose and agenda • Only invite essential people to the meeting • If you need a decision made in a meeting make sure you make this clear in the invite and up front in the meeting, review that you have the right decision makers present – if not don’t be afraid to cut the meeting short and re arrange • If you finish early then call end to the meeting don’t fill the full time allocated as a matter of course MEETING LENGTH IS KEY: • Don’t over estimate time needed for meetings and don’t be afraid to call 15 minute meetings • Stand up meetings are a great way to cut out the chit chat – not all meetings are about relationship building • If you do not have a stand up meeting room/area in your office then create one by the water cooler/printer/reception area etc • Start the meeting on time, and try not to play catch up when people come in late – tell them anything they missed will be in the meeting notes including any of their actions! They will soon learn and turn up on time...

19. Stakeholder Management People Management Time Management TM: Top Tips TM: Self Mgt TM: Prioritisation TM: Meeting Mgt PRIORITISE YOUR TIME: • Every day as your review your to do list make sure you prioritise your tasks in accordance with: • Quick Wins – High Impact • More involved tasks – High Impact • Quick Wins – Mid Impact and so on.... (Impact on product delivery and stakeholder expectations.... • Move unfinished tasks to the top of the next days queue and always review the urgency day to day. TOOLS FIT FOR PURPOSE: • Use online tools to prioritise your work load e.g. • Use Outlook to prioritise emails you need to respond to. • Create rules to put into folders or colour emails from stakeholders differently • Have a folder ‘Respond to Today’ make all emails ‘unread’ as you move them into here so you have a full tally visible • A ‘Read Later’ or ‘Respond to this week’ for less urgent tasks can also help

20. Stakeholder Management People Management Time Management TM: Top Tips TM: Self Mgt TM: Prioritisation TM: Meeting Mgt TIP #1 Don’t let your day be dictated by ad hoc requests – if they come in then put them into your prioritised list along with everything else....(so easy to NOT do this!) TIP #2 Everything in time management will go off kilter if your stakeholder management is not best practice. If you have not managed your stakeholder expectations well then your day/week/month could be adversely impact and spiral out of your control if you have to jump to respond to unreasonable requests or unplanned work TIP #3 Don’t be afraid to say no, as long as there is good reason people will understand and if not explain what you are doing takes priority and why

21. Any Questions? Thanks Becky Yelland www.pragmaticproducteer.com becky@pragmaticproducteer.com