These techniques are especially useful for Product Managers (PM), Product Owners (PO), and User Experience Designers (UX). Many of these have descriptions on pdmethods.com.
- Strategy. Make sure to focus on the highest-impact targets. Including techniques like: Business Model Canvas, Competitive Analysis, Stakeholder Interviews, Stakeholder Mapping, SWOT Analysis, “Outcomes, not Outputs”, and Success Metrics.
- Understanding Users. Focus on who you’re building for. Including techniques like: Personas, User Journey Map, Storyboarding (drawing), Brainstorm Sketching (problems or solutions), Ethnographic Field Studies, Co-designing with users.
- Prioritization. Deliberately and transparently choose what you’re working on. Including techniques like: Matrix-Based Prioritization, 2x2 matrix (impact by effort, etc), Stack Ranking, Planning Poker, The Kano Model.
- Iteration and Feedback. How do you know if you’ve hit the mark? Including techniques like: Prototype Testing, “Wizard of Oz” Testing, Card Sorting / Grouping, A/B Testing, Defining Assumptions, Validating Assumptions.
- Marketing. How do we make sure people want what we’re making? Including techniques like: The Core Idea, Pitch Refinement, “Release Notes Driven Development”.
- Looking Ahead, Looking Behind. Learn from the past, and plan for the future. Including techniques like: Possible Futures (Hopes and Fears), Sprint Retrospective, Project Retrospective, Incident Retrospective.
- Expectation Management. Keeping everyone happy. Answering questions like: What should I be focusing on in my role? How can I get the team to buy-in to our plan? How can I get upper management to understand why we want to change the top-down plan? How can I effectively communicate our plan/direction to stakeholders?
- Team Culture, Inclusion. How do I make sure to incorporate everyone’s perspectives? Including: Fostering Psychological Safety, Aligning with Company Strategy, Working with Developers, Working with Designers, Working with other departments.
- Project Management. How to help the team execute effectively, including: Backlog Grooming, Unblocking Team Members, Fostering Open Communication.