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Product Management 2.0

Using Confluence to drive company-wide alignment and product success

Cory von WallensteinVP Product, Dyn Inc.@cvonwallenstein#summit11 #cvw

Agenda• Where’s the relevancy?

• Our pain: Innovation and the challenges of growth

• Product Roadmap Dashboard in Confluence

• Two examples of how it’s used

• Peek under the hood, and how to get started!

• All plugins, code and setup instructions are shared online.

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Where’s the relevancy?

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• Dyn Inc – Managed DNS and Email for thousands of the biggest and fastest growing brands on the web.

• Doubled in size in 6 months, now 80 employees• Many platforms. Fast-paced and agile teams.• Managing success, stay nimble and competitive.

Innovation: A Zero Sum Game?

5Source: Dealing with Darwin, Geoffrey A. Moore, 2008

Innovation: A Zero Sum Game?

6Source: Dealing with Darwin, Geoffrey A. Moore, 2008

Innovation: A Zero Sum Game?

7Multiple innovation initiatives combined with bubble-up management

Source: Dealing with Darwin, Geoffrey A. Moore, 2008

Departmental Challenges

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Engineering

“Just go look in JIRA”

Departmental Challenges

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Marketing

“Why isn’t it done yet?”

Departmental Challenges

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Product Management

“Like having a hundred children, and only one gift under the tree.”

Departmental Challenges

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Operations

“Needs to be in the loop, but always seems last to know.”

Departmental Challenges

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Sales

“Close the deal – no matter what!”

Departmental Challenges

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Support

“I’ll pass your feedback along.”

Departmental Challenges

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Executive

“What is everyone doing?”

Day to day challenges

• Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?

• Where are we going? Tomorrow? Next week? Next 6 months?

• What has already been committed to that prevents us from taking on <insert cool new idea> now?

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Egads! Gantt Charts!

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Egads! Gantt Charts! Not for us!

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Product Roadmap Dashboard

• Top-down strategic directionand high-level goals

• Bottom-up initiatives and tactics

• Highly transparent, highly flexible

• Iterative roadmap for all to read, write and execute

• Or in geek: $ chmod a+rwx dyn_inc_roadmap

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Product Roadmap Dashboard

• What the “Product Roadmap Dashboard” is

• 2 concrete examples we’ll walk through in Confluence

• How it’s used in action for the 2 examples

• How it works – a peek under the hood

• Free, open-source plugins were used. No magic. I swear.• My blog will give you all the details you need to get started.

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Visualize “flow” and “state”

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What’s Next?

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What’s Active?

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What Just Finished? (But still consuming our time…)

Visualize “flow” and “state”

25Visualize “duration” and “sequence”

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Product Roadmap Dashboard

Visualize “duration” and “sequence”

2 Concrete Examples in Confluence

• Staying in the Know

• A new top-down idea we want to run with

• Empowering Collaboration

• A product release… more than just code

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Concrete Example 1

• A new top-down idea we want to run with

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A new idea we want to run with

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A new idea we want to run with

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Kanban style -> showing “flow” and “state”

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Kanban style -> showing “flow” and “state”

Gantt chart style -> showing “duration” and “sequence”

Key Example 1 Takeaways

• Easy metadata around your existing product process

• Easy aggregation of metadata into dashboards:

• Kanban style -> showing “flow” and “state”• Gantt chart style -> showing “duration” and “sequence”

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Concrete Example 2

• A product release… more than just code

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A product release… more than just code

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A product release… more than just code

A product release… more than just code

A product release… more than just code

A product release… more than just code

A product release…• Easy to sip from the fire hose of ideas

• Easy to get involved in the relevant conversations

• Parallel yet intelligently intertwined conversations on:

• What is it, and how do we build it?• What is our go to market plan?

• One project in “Dynect”, one project in “Product”

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A product release… more than just code

Enable discussion across departments

Enable discussion across departments

Enable discussion across departments

Enable discussion across departments

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Key Example 2 Takeaways

• Leverage collaboration functionality already in Confluence

• Targeted conversation

• Keep in the loop on relevant portions of conversation

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Under the Hood

• Extensive use of labels

• Linking, Scaffolding, Reporting, Composition Plugins – CustomWare

• Table, Cache Plugins – (The man! The legend!) Bob Swift

• jQuery User Macro - Simon Bartlett

• Plugins are free!

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Labels

• “project” – page is relevant to roadmap dashboard

• Team Label – “dynect”, “product”, “dyndns”, “sendlabs”

• Status Label – “staging”, “next”, “active”, “finished”, “archive”

Labels

Labels

Labels

Linking Plugin

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Linking Plugin

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• add-page – Linking Plugin macro

• template=Project – Use the “Project” template

• labels=dynect,project – Auto apply labels to page.

• live=true – If the “Project” template changes, update pages using that template automatically

• parent=Projects – Create the page under this parent page

Scaffolding Plugin

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Scaffolding Plugin

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Metadata Entered

Using Template

Forms

“Project” Template

Defines FormsProject Page

“Project” template details covered in blog entry. Too many details required for this presentation.

Macros: section/column, contentbylabel

Plugins: Reporting, Composition, Table Macros: deck/card, table-plus, and more

64Macros: jQuery

65Macros: cache

How to Get Started

• Full code and details:

http://standingonthebrink.com

• Reach out

•@cvonwallenstein #summit11 #cvw• cvw@dyn.com

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