Product Roadmap Scalable Communication

Question

We are struggling to keep up with communicating our upcoming planned features and features we are releasing in a scalable way and in an engaging way.  Some of the features we release for business software are not always immediately obvious so some galvanizing needs to take place to get them to use since old habits break hard.

When I ran across Atlassian's roadmap, https://www.atlassian.com/roadmap/cloud, I thought wow, this is so well laid out and exactly what we need.

Have you thought about tying this type of interface into JPD, where a Product is a first class citizen and we can tie public descriptions of ideas to them along with estimated release date and status.

Then end users could subscribe to the updates and be notified via email!  This would be unbelievable.

One might argue these should be Atlas projects but that is way to heavyweight for every feature we release.

Tanguy Crusson · Answer

Thanks a lot @Brent Vierling , that means a lot!

I totally get it by the way, it's part of how we think about how to approach this as a new product: the biggest risk is trying to do too much at once, doing a half baked job, and losing everyone along the way. So we hand picked a few battles and kept the team small to be able to go fast (which may seem counter-intuitive). But that means that JPD will not be enough for a few teams until later down the track, and it's OK, it's about "finding a spot in the market and wedging yourself in" and it's a fine balance to find what enough is enough, what "good enough" means for every feature we focus on, etc.

But also, it's the nature of product work, which is like this famous children's book:

If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to ask for a glass of milk.

When you give him the milk, he'll probably ask you for a straw.

When he's finished, he'll ask you for a napkin.

Then he'll want to look in a mirror to make sure he doesn't have a milk mustache.

When he looks into the mirror, he might notice his hair needs a trim. So he will probably ask for a pair of nail scissors.

When he’s finished giving himself a trim, he’ll want a broom to sweep up. He’ll start sweeping. He might get carried away and sweep every room in the house. He may even end up washing the floors as well!

When he’s done, he’ll probably want to take a nap. You will have to fix a little box for him with a blanket and a pillow. He’ll crawl in, make himself comfortable and fluff the pillow a few times.

He’ll probably ask you to read him a story. So you’ll read him one from one of your books, and he’ll ask to see the pictures. When he looks at the pictures, he’ll get so excited he’ll want to draw one of his own. He’ll ask for paper and crayons.

He’ll draw a picture. When the picture is finished, he’ll want to sign his name with a pen.

Then he’ll want to hang his picture on your refrigerator. Which means he will need…scotch tape.

He’ll hang up his drawing and stand back to look at it. Looking at the refrigerator will remind him that he’s thirsty so…he’ll ask for a glass of milk.

And chances are if he asks for a glass of milk, he’s going to want a cookie to go with it.

Brent Vierling · Answer

Thanks @Tanguy Crusson  My post can be interpreted as kudos to JPD and Atlassian.   JPD is well on its way to solving a pain point for product managers and we are just bringing up other gaps in our software lifecycle stack AND the fact we are impressed with how Atlassian handles these gaps.  We of course could go buy another vendor's software but there are significant benefits to being in the same stack.

Thanks for how active a product manager you are and really putting yourself out into the community.

Tanguy Crusson · Answer

Thanks @Brent Vierling , that's great feedback. For that, we use Atlas internally at Atlassian - but that's internal, not with end users. We aren't really tackling the jobs of communication with customers and users today. It's a good topic for us to sit down and think about for the next stages of the product.