Random Musings - Mar 2025
This is a series to share my thoughts on various product/program management articles for the month. Mind you, that these are just my thoughts only!
AI & Product discovery
Many people are visual and so drawing your thoughts on paper is very effective. Even with AI, it is important to have the problem statement defined, data, subject matter experts and establish a discovery process.
Given that our teams are spread out across locations, we need a great tool like MIRO AI. I love the tools like “Research Synthesis”, “Product Brief”, which helps us write this up easily.
JIRA Product Discovery
As product managers, we land up with many opportunities/ideas when we talk to stakeholders. While these are not solidified ideas, they need to be tracked. I initially used to track them with Microsoft notes but found them to be ineffective because the ideas keep developing and it takes a while for them to be solidified. That’s where JIRA Discovery comes in. I find the “Now/Next/Later” effective. If your company follows SAFE then you might have to categorize ideas into “Program Increments”. So, you ’d need a different view of the ideas. This tool can help you with the same i.e. have a different view of the ideas.
Sprint planning
Once the ideas are solidified, we need EPICS to develop the same. Within the Epic, you might have Spike to come up with the design and figure out the unknowns. Stories/Tasks are commonly execute the same. Based on the requirements, you can come up with an estimate for every story/task/spike etc.
Initially, you will not know your velocity (i.e. how many story points will you complete per sprint) because you ’d realize that it takes two to tango! Team work is fascinating. It isn’t truly the sum of everyone’s points. This is because you might need your team member’s help to complete your task (another team member might have the skill). Over time, you ’ll realize how much you can accomplish as a team.
You can use MIRO or JIRA for planning!
Sprint retrospective
In my previous team, all members were colocated and so we used a physical white board and a post-its so that we can complement each other better. In other words, work better as a team.
However, we now have team members are remote or not colocated, so we need a tool that will be good for retros. We used [MIRO Retros] (https://miro.com/templates/retrospective/)
Final Thoughts
Regardless of what industry (medtech/fintech etc.) and what methodology (agile/safe/waterfall) you use you are working on, you still need good product planning. As a product manager, you ’d need to save your ideas for the strategic picture and also think about how you will store short-term picture. You need good tools in the light of how your team is located.