Have you switched out your project managers for product managers and started “doing agile”, but you’re not feeling like you're winning yet? Would you like to develop more product management practices at your organisation? In this session, Ross Stanley (curr: Xero, prev: Vend) will describe the changes he’s seen in the industry as product management and associated practises have matured, identifying along the way the things that often go hand in hand with making great software products. Spoiler: there’s probably more to it than just hiring product managers.

1. 10 signs you’re actually a
project manager
(and what you can do about it)
Ross Stanley
rossgstanley
Product Director @ Xero

2. Ross Stanley
rossgstanley
Product Director @ Xero
10 signs you’re actually a project
manager (and what you can do about it)
Hello

3. 10 signs you’re actually a
project manager
(and what you can do about it)
Ross Stanley
rossgstanley
Product Director @ Xero

4. Ross Stanley
rossgstanley
Product Director @ Xero
10 signs you’re actually a project
manager (and what you can do about it)

6. 10 signs you’re actually a
project manager
(and what you can do about it)
Ross Stanley
rossgstanley
Product Director @ Xero

7. 1 You’re
managing
BIG releases

8. Like it’s the 1990s

10. - Continuous delivery: CI/CD
- Feature flagging
- User behaviour metrics
- DevOps

11. But: Isn’t it dangerous?
Not with feature flags!

12. Rowan Simpson
I’d add the corollary that if you launch without first
involving a designer you should be embarrassed
for different reasons.
http://blog.onemetric.io/post/2018/06/17/purple-is-a-colour/

16. What you can do about it...
● Measure deployment frequency (into
production)
● Encourage a move to CI/CD (or find other ways
to accelerate learning and reduce risk)
● Start collecting user behaviour metrics
● Share a reading list with your technology
leaders
1. You’re managing BIG releases

17. 2 You work
with program
managers

18. 3 Your
roadmap is a
Gantt chart

19. One
Gantt to
rule
them all

21. What about innovation &
experimentation?

22. Build - Measure - Learn

23. We don’t know everything

24. WIP management

25. My kind of roadmap

27. Delivery dates
Delivering value
>

28. Output
Outcomes
>

29. What you can do about it...
● Document high level outcomes in long-term plans
● Get your key stakeholders into workshops and
discovery sessions. Make them part of the team.
● Advocate for timeboxed experiments
● Get set up for monitoring and measurement of user
behaviour
● Challenge deadlines that seem artificial
3. Your roadmap is a Gantt chart

30. 4 You don’t
meet your
customers

31. XERO LEARN EDUCATORS AT XEROCON!

32. XERO LEARN TEAM + AUT!!

34. You’ve got to
start with the
customer
experience and
work
backwards to
the technology

35. Devising Solutions
Understanding Problems
>

36. Meeting deadlines
Meeting customers
>

37. Don’t stop reading the
feedback tho!

38. What you can do about it...
● Organise field trips to customer sites. Take the whole
team! Keep a visual record to inspire others.
● Create a user advisory council
● Quote the sh*t out of Jeff Bezos. Amazon are doing
okay.
● Reference Steve Jobs and maybe wear black turtlenecks
in the office (I think people still love Steve Jobs even
after that movie that showed that he wasn’t always nice
4. You don’t meet your customers

39. Your boss thinks
“Jobs To Be Done”
is something about
to Steve Jobs
5

40. Your boss
thinks JTBD
are TODOs
5

41. You defer to
“ The
Business ”
6

42. WE ARE THE BUSINESS

44. WE ARE THE BUSINESS

45. https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/double-diamond

46. What you can do about it...
● Get your product delivery teams close to the
commercial stakeholders. Just like you do with
customers.
● Earn the right to own the customers’ problems
to be solved, by knowing more about your
customer than anyone else in the business.
6. You defer to “The Business”

47. No link to
vision
7

49. Simon Sinek Start With Why

50. What you can do about it...
● Help your company build the mission, vision
and strategy.
● Help your leaders to communicate this to
your teams.
● Keep telling the story every day!
● Be the team coach
7. No Link to company vision

51. You budget
in deliveries,
not teams.
8

52. #oneteam

53. My kind of team

54. #oneteam

55. What you can do about it...
● Set up durable teams focussed on
customers problems to be solved.
● Don’t forget the UX designer!
● Feed your teams goals, not solutions.
8. You budget in deliveries, not teams.

56. You talk
about
resources
9

57. Resources -> People
Project -> Product
Feature -> Initiative
Output -> Value
Guys -> Literally anything

58. What you can do about it...
● Consider the power of language to
forge a compelling narrative about
the outcomes you want for your
customers.
9. You talk about resources

59. You love it
when things
add up
10

60. Joshua J. Arnold - Adam Wright - Nitin Prasad
Sean Sampayo - Dhaya Sivakumar - Adrian Wills
Audrey Cheng - Ramanan Moorthy - Mark Smith
Thanks!
Laura Cardinal - Anthony Marter - Sue Pak
Jerry Hart - Mark Pinder - Matthew Court
Rohan Agarwal - John Thompson - Amy Xia

61. ● Small frequent iterations
● Plan for build-measure-learn
● Get out and meet your customers
● You *are* your business. Bring everyone in!
● Organise teams, not deliveries.
● Tell the story, sell the vision.
Ross Stanley
rossgstanley
Product Director @ Xero
10 signs you’re actually a project
manager (and what you can do about it)