AMA: EzCater Director of Product, Fulfillment, Brandon Green on Product Roadmap & Prioritization

Everywhere! Users themselves, colleagues, market research, competitors, randomly in the shower. Generally, I like to consider each idea seriously and work through a few questions to help decide if they are worth building: What, fundamentally is the problem this idea is meant to solve? How worth it is solving that problem vs. others I know about? Does solving this problem create opportunities or risks in any form that I should think about? Is this a problem I need to solve now, in 6 months, in 2 ...Read More

I've found that there are basically 2 levels of detail that matter, with the goal of each being somewhat different: Executive summary (Director/VP/C-suite audience) - which focuses much more on the problem areas to focus on, why, and a high level outlook on the features or impact you aim to ship in that quarter/half/year. Goal is to provide guidance to the exec team on where your product domain is going, make clear where you need support or have cross-functional dependencies or risks. Stakeholde ...Read More

Autonomy is certainly a desirable aspect of product work, but it comes with time. To gain autonomy, you need to first build trust. Start by not assuming your sales team is wrong (I realize this is blunt, but worth saying). They spend their days talking to users and prospective users and probably have a good idea of their pain points. They may not always be thinking about creative solutions to those pain points, or have a good product sense, but it's unwise to assume those ideas are fundamentally ...Read More

A PM's job is to take in a lot of inputs (including the 3 listed in this question) and articulate a compelling strategy and roadmap around achieving the best outcomes for your business. Within those are assumptions, risks, opportunities, etc. that are worth digging into and questioning, and from there you can usually start to get a sense of where to focus. To a certain extent, you'll need to at least focus a little on all of these inputs, just to get a sense of whether they're worth digging deep ...Read More

It depends on the role and problem space, but I try to invite (1) virtually everyone I collaborate with on a regular basis, (2) their management/leadership, and (3) fellow PMs as partners in the roadmapping process. I think it's important to think of stakeholders more as partners in the roadmap creation process, since their ideas and input really shape my POV on what's important there. Influence vs control is interesting. I've been in situations where stakeholders are pushing for specific featur ...Read More

I could give a really detailed answer about my process, but I don't really have one. I've found that my "prioritization process" is actually pretty simple and is about attempting to answer the questions I listed out below (will repeat them here): What, fundamentally is the problem this idea is meant to solve? How worth it is solving that problem vs. others I know about? Does solving this problem create opportunities or risks in any form that I should think about? Is this a problem I need to solv ...Read More

I deal with this a fair emount in my current role - Delivery at ezCater to some degree touches all possible users of our multi-sided marketplace (customers, supply & fulfillment partners, internal staff), and each of those major user buckets contains multiple segments. Here are some things I've found useful in dealing with all these different user segments at once: First, acknowledging to yourself, your team and your stakeholders that there are A LOT of potential problems to solve, and compl ...Read More

I've had to manage a couple different pivots like in my product career. What's worked best in terms of communicating is the following: Making clear the "why" behind the pivot, and the risk associated with not pivoting Stating clearly the underlying first principles or vision for the pivot that exists today (it doesn't have to be super detailed - but this more about acknowledging what you do know or what you believe should be true) Acknowledging clearly that the roadmap will be in flux for some t ...Read More

This is an interesting question, because I think it highly depends on the leadership and culture of the company you work in. I've seen leadership figures have very strong opinions on how much they want to publicly share about the roadmap, and it's anyone's guess as to whether it's to their benefit or detriment. Here's how I've thought about this before: - Your customers benefit from knowing your priorities and what you're building towards. Therefore, being public about mission, vision (to an ext ...Read More

I consider product marketing managers (PMM) part of the core partner group working with Product in roadmap creation (also including engineers, design, analytics, research, and other key functions based on the role). We aim to loop in product marketing as soon as roadmapping begins, and make sure they're aligned with product on objectives for the given quarter/half - this usually involves PMM sharing insights to help pressure-test the objectives, ensure we have a good understanding of customer se ...Read More

I don't have a specific framework I use for determining build vs buy, but I've typically used a series of questions to help evaluate the decision: - What is the problem you're trying to solve by building or buying? - How strategically critical is that solution to your business? Is it something that could create a competitive advantage, help build moat against competitors? (If so, there is probably some risk in relying on a 3rd party.) - What benefits come from buying? Does it significantly speed ...Read More