Building better product roadmaps | Janna Bastow (Mind the Product, ProdPad‪)‬ Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Janna Bastow is a former product manager, and currently the CEO and co-founder of ProdPad. She also co-founded Mind the Product, a community for PMs, which has grown to 300,000 members across the world. In today’s podcast, Janna discusses the limitations of timeline-based Gantt charts and her “Now/Next/Later” framework. She also shares stories about hosting conferences and gives some great tips on how to improve your presentation skills and cope with performance anxiety.
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Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/building-better-product-roadmaps-janna-bastow-mind-the-product-prodpad/#transcript
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Where to find Janna Bastow:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/simplybastow
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jannabastow
• The ProdPad newsletter: https://www.prodpad.com/newsletter/
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible:
• Formsort: https://formsort.com/lenny
• Coda: http://coda.io/lenny
• Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/
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Referenced:
• Mind the Product: https://www.mindtheproduct.com/
• The Trouble with Traditional Roadmaps: https://www.prodpad.com/resources/guides/ditch-the-timeline-roadmap/the-trouble-with-traditional-timeline-roadmaps/
• ProdPad’s Sandbox: https://www.prodpad.com/sandbox/
• Geoffrey Moore’s product vision template: https://www.prodpad.com/blog/product-vision-template/
• The Art of Profitability: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Profitability-Adrian-Slywotzky/dp/0446692271
• The Sandman on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81150303
• Startups for the Rest of Us podcast: https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/
• Christina Wodtke on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cwodtke
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In this episode, we cover:
(01:10) Janna’s background
(05:28) How the community evolved at Mind the Product
(08:22) The tricky logistics of putting together a conference
(10:48) Are conferences profitable?
(13:00) How Janna developed her storytelling and presentation skills
(16:44) How to fight performance anxiety
(19:25) Mistakes are humanizing—how to power through and deliver your presentation
(22:11) The limitations of traditional timeline roadmaps
(25:00) Janna’s Now/Next/Later framework
(28:08) How to work without the structure of dated timelines, and why soft launches are important
(32:57) What great product teams are doing well
(35:05) The importance of retrospectives
(36:45) How to shift the culture at larger companies
(39:43) How ProdPad creates better product management practices
(42:04) How to learn the Now/Next/Later framework
(46:59) Geoffrey Moore’s product vision template
(48:36) Lessons for PMs interested in becoming founders
(50:48) Lightning round
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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.


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