6 tools for remote product managers

Product management in a remote setting can be challenging. Since managing products is inherently very cross-functional and requires frequent communication, a remote setting can add barriers. This applies to any remote scenario, including being part of a remote office, being a remote employee, or as part of a fully distributed company. Besides having the right processes in place (a separate post will cover these), having the right tools in place can make a big difference.

Time tracking tools to use in 2020 (updated in 2021)

Many people think that unless they are freelancers and need to charge per minute/hour, there is no point in using time-tracking tools. If you want to become more organized and do better planning, then tracking your time becomes an essential habit. When part of your job is dealing with people, ie resolving conflicts, conducting development interviews, hiring, and overall lots of speaking, by the end of the day you might not remember what you’ve done.

Automatically fill your product roadmap from Jira Epics

Jira integration allows you to automatically create epics when you add new items on the roadmap. However when you just start it is important to have your existing epics on the roadmap to see how shipit works, test the flow, and get started quickly. The current implementation of this feature is still in beta testing and we’re looking for any feedback you might have in terms of improving it. To start, go to the Settings -> Integrations and select Jira:

How to work from home with your children

Who knew that the remote work revolution would happen so suddenly? In the beginning there were just a handful of visionaries who “dared” to hire remote employees, at least some of them. Then there was the nomad movement which also ignited the remote-first startups. But until recently, number of companies working and hiring remote employees globally has been around 2500-6000. It’s hard to estimate now how many people are working from home.

Spring brings new features and improvements on shipit

Spring has arrived, and we have been hard at work improving and extending shipit. Here’s a quick roundup of what’s new: You can now export your roadmap as PNG. For example for using it in presentations. (This is in addition to the existing export functionality for CSV and Excel.) Drag and drop performance for roadmap items is much faster. We also enabled drag-and-drop to support moving items between quarters and tracks.

Prioritise roadmap initiatives by including your team members

Prioritisation of roadmap initiatives is one of the most important recurring activities of product managers. Typically you want to include stakeholders and team members in that process. It is our experience that it can be a practical challenge on how to effectively collect people’s input, normalise their data, and then review it in a meaningful way. Often, input comes fragmented and in different forms and people can be in different locations or time-zones.

OKRs and product roadmaps

OKRs have become a popular way to set and track company objectives and associated results. They have been successfully applied both in large corporates and small startups. And rightfully so: OKRs are a simple, yet powerful way to align teams on company goals. This also applies to product teams. One immediate question that arises often is: how do product roadmaps and OKRs relate? In the outstanding book “Inspired” Marty Cagan suggests that OKRs are to some extent a superior alternative to product roadmaps.

Should you use Gantt charts for your product roadmap?

Gantt charts are one of the most common ways to visualize project plans. Hence they are also frequently used for product roadmaps, and most roadmapping tools offer Gantt chart views. But are Gantt charts the appropriate way to plan and visualize your product roadmap? This article explores alternative ways to show your product roadmap, and how to use Gantt charts without creating conflict with modern approaches such as Agile or outcomes over output.

Using shipit to present your product roadmap in PowerPoint or Keynote presentations

Most product managers have to deal with the recurring task of presenting an updated product roadmap to whoever needs to be informed. I know it was- and still is in all of my cases. Often, these presentations cover more than a roadmap alone and are part of a larger deck using PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google’s Slides. Making a visually attractive roadmap (and updating it manually for every presentation) can be a bit of a pain.

How to embed your shipit roadmap in Confluence

Atlassian Confluence is quickly becoming the standard for teams to share their knowledge, and what better way to inform your colleagues of the future plans than embedding a live roadmap into Confluence. Many Shipit clients are already using Confluence integration to keep their product requirements documents there. Some of the benefits of having a roadmap accessible in your wiki: Easy access where everyone can find it Time saving by not needing to share screenshots or PDF with your plans No need to add extra team members to shipit just to view the roadmap No need to share the public link in chats Here is a step-by-step instruction on how to integrate your roadmap into Confluence:

Building your first roadmap

Building your first roadmap Product roadmap is an important strategic tool that helps you align all of the stakeholders on your direction. It is vitally important for the whole company, including clients, to know where you are heading. Here we will cover the process we have in place and tools we use to build a roadmap. Why you need a roadmap This is a very common question people may ask, especially if you’re trying to build things the agile way.

Thinking in sprints: setting and communicating dates with Agile

“When” often is the word product development teams fear most. When is the release date for this feature in development? When is that feature a customer asked for scheduled on the roadmap? When will that nasty bug one of your investors discovered, be fixed? Giving a confident answer to the question “when?”, is one of the objectives of making a plan. But, in the age of Agile development, is making plans and communicating dates still relevant?