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AMA: Splunk Director of Product Management, Richard Shum on Product Roadmap & Prioritization
January 10 @ 10:00AM PST
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Splunk Director of Product Management, Richard Shum on Product Roadmap & Prioritization
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Richard Shum
Splunk Director of Product Management • January 10
Who to focus on often depends on the maturity of the product. At the beginning stages of the product, we focus heavily on prospective users. When the product is mature, we focus heavily on existing customers (the thinking is -- if you can deliver impact to existing customers then prospective cust......Read More
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1 request
Richard Shum
Splunk Director of Product Management • January 10
In my mind, several groups of stakeholders often influence the roadmap. They include your customers (both internal and external), your product team (e.g., engineering, design, data science), your internal non-product stakeholders (e.g., legal, compliance, sales) and your leadership. From thes......Read More
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Richard Shum
Splunk Director of Product Management • January 10
It's always good to review roadmaps with leadership on an ongoing basis. These touchpoints allow you to keep your leadership informed and give you the opportunity to solicit feedback. At the end of the day, gaining alignment is key to getting funding and resources. The leadership team is ofte......Read More
600 Views
3 requests
Richard Shum
Splunk Director of Product Management • January 10
Say exactly that "We're pivoting our product. There are a lot of unknowns and it's difficult to plan too far out." It's perfectly fine to communicate honestly. If there's a good reason for the pivot, no one will fault you for it. If you're able to have direct conversations with customers, it'......Read More
444 Views
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Richard Shum
Splunk Director of Product Management • January 10
Ideas can come from many places. They include customer feedback calls, customer troubleshooting sessions, customer submitted ideas (at Splunk, we have an idea submission portal called ideas.splunk.com), conferences (at Splunk, we host .conf where we have the opportunity to meet many customers in ......Read More
2464 Views
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Richard Shum
Splunk Director of Product Management • January 10
When I prioritize or stack rank a list of items, I typically find it helpful to understand how each item can (a) deliver customer impact and (b) increase engineering happiness. Additionally, I also find it helpful to understand each item's level of (c) feasibility, (d) urgency and (e) effort. ......Read More
1420 Views
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Richard Shum
Splunk Director of Product Management • January 10
Before jumping into the "must do" work, it's best to understand the reason for doing the work. Sometimes the "must do" work is warranted. For example, compliance could have high customer impact which naturally means that it'll get prioritized anyways. Sometimes the "must do" work is not impac......Read More
876 Views
2 requests
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