How to Build a Product Roadmap by Walmart Senior Product Manager

Product Management event in San Francisco about how to build a product roadmap.
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It all starts with a product roadmap!
Your roadmap should tell the story of how you’re going to get to your ultimate vision. Getting priority, alignment, and balancing short-term product iterations with long-term strategic disruption is all part of the fun.
Hudson talked about what the road mapping process looks like, how to balance short-term and long-term product/business goals and how various initiatives on a road map get prioritized.
Hudson Levy is currently a Senior Product Manager over Walmart’s entire digital pharmacy, health & wellness business. A Mechanical Engineer turned Brand Manager turned Product Manager, he has over 10 years of experience across product management, marketing, and strategy.
Hudson holds an MBA from Duke University and a Bachelors of Engineering from Vanderbilt University.
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[@ProductSchoolSanFrancisco]

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[@Jack_Nit]

One of the most focused and real PM talks out there in the internet

[@zingledot]

There are a lot of awful product manager presentations on youtube, this is actually useful and applicable.

[@realmahadeo]

My recommendation on key points in the presentation: 0:01 - 2:43 Intro, Where do ideas come from 3:20 - 4:00 Say No 5:10 - 7:00 Roadmap 8:00 - 10:00 Inputs or items to take into account for roadmap 12:10 - 14:10 Roadmap sessions 22:43 - 25:00 Prioritize 26:00 - 26:25 Quick Win area 31:20 - 32:15 - Let's do it area 37:18 - 39:00 Template for Roadmap 59:30 - 1:00:30 Ghant (sic!) 1:10:30 - 1:13:00 Conflict 1:14:09 - 1:14:40 Conflict Marketing vs Core 1:22:20 Conclusions

[@chooksla]

btw, it's not Ghant it's Gantt

[@brunod.3016]

1:00 Where the idea comes from 5:12 What should a product roadmap do? 7:57 Inputs and considerations when building a roadmap 12:11 How do I build one? 21:00 / 22:44 Prioritizing 37:20 DIfferent types of roadmap 59:33 Ghant roadmap (Right name: Gantt Chart*) with teams involved 1:10:33 Possible Conflicts *Gantt Chart isn't agile they are waterfall, I think they are just naming the Roadmap with the wrong idea, just ignore the name, and focus at the solution

[@canan4433]

Appreciate Video! Forgive me for the intrusion, I would love your opinion. Have you thought about - Teannah Psychic Sucker (probably on Google)? It is a smashing one off guide for finding the best project management and business templates minus the hard work. Ive heard some decent things about it and my close friend Aubrey after a lifetime of fighting got great results with it.

[@richamisrasf]

Amazing presentation! Loved how he dug into his experience to give clarity to his points.

[@fidiasdiaz5298]

As a program/engineering manager, this was very beneficial for me to understand what to expect from my great product manager, where I can help in the product road map process, and set priorities with my engineering team, and help with the tough decisions. Thank you so much !

[@AntonioSilva-ld4dq]

Very good tour on what a road map is and how a product manager uses it and work during a year in a large company. Good work. I would watch the other videos on this channel.

[@stanleyuroy]

Hi, you did show the strategy on how to determine a product delivery date. That would really have been nice to see your approach. Finally, thank you for the wonderful tutorial.

[@KL-ii6dt]

Yeah, I agree with the comment below. I think it's a normal reaction to repeat questions that were said quietly from the first row for people in the back, but as virtual attendees everyone without a mic is whispering.

[@thomaspiussan3121]

Great presentation but I am a bit uncomfortable with it. How do you articulate this roadmap regarding the Product Management Workflow? The roadmap talks about features, but that would mean you have already done the discovery about the problems and the solution has been conceptualized (raw idea about the solution, tech feasibility, and rough estimation). I have the impression there is a huge pitfall with the way we work as a Product Manager. At the beginning of a quarter, the company has defined the goals / high-level problems they want to work on, but most of the time the discovery has not been done on those topics. I feel like it is a mistake to already talk about features and deadlines while not knowing the potential impact and feasibility of the feature. And when those roadmaps are made by leaderships and engage the team on solutions instead of problems / needs, most PM ends up being Project managers more than Product Managers

[@PaulOladimeji]

i also thought the same! discovery and figuring out if you're building the right thing at all is a more critical skill as a PM than building roadmaps (even though its also important). how can the roadmap be a "single source of truth" when you're not even sure what the "truth" is?

[@NiaPD]

You have a great point but the it's a challenge to drive agile discovery when the waterfall mindset is deeply entrenched, especially among the leadership. Execs want to see timelines, ROI estimations, growth metrics etc before they put their money on the table. It will be a long time before the discovery becomes agile as well as the delivery. I know this comment is really late but would appreciate your thoughts on some of the questions in my mind: 1- how long should the discovery process take and what do the teams work on while discovery process is still ongoing? 2- do you always prototype the solutions and when you do, how do you fit in the prototyping effort into the roadmap? thanks and appreciate your inputs

[@amitkumsaha]

Good job Hudson. Very well organized.

[@Deltanorth86]

Informative road map presentation. Some of the questions asked are really deductible from your speech

[@reenimehmi6851]

Thanks was a great way to start my World into road mapping.

[@amirfahim5183]

Hi, Thank you for sharing. As a product manager, do you write the product requirements or you have the product owner working closely with you? In what level you write requirements?

[@MichaelIvashchenko]

Such a great talk. Could've been 10x better if the questions were reserved towards the end though.

[@ProductSchoolSanFrancisco]

Thanks for your feedback!

[@ExploreItTogether]

Great content to begin with and understand better. One point though - At 17:10 Hudson is responding to a lady that customer should not be brought for feature prioritization. I think this is just applicable for B2C products, in B2B scenarios - many times customer's has their say in which feature they want first. Though essentially it boils down to the fact of business value, higher it is for a feature, higher is its chances of being at the top in the list.

[@pAv3t0]

Love the specific topic. Very useful. Prefer this to the "shine in an interview" type of videos.

[@ProductSchoolSanFrancisco]

Thanks for watching and for your feedback Pavel!

[@rejeanborgonia5917]

i'm designing a product roadmapping training and found this really helpful. thanks so much for sharing!

[@ProductSchoolSanFrancisco]

Great to hear!

[@abelkrishna6631]

Hi everyone, hoping someone can clarify this question for me from 51:00. When validating if a new feature/idea was successful, how long should the validation process be, before running a PIR? Example, if I roll out a CTA optimisation tactic across site. Should I wait at least 1 month before PIR?

[@PankajMamde]

Great presentation on product roadmap!

[@deutina3805]

Found this very useful. Thanks for all the knowledge shared

[@ProductSchoolSanFrancisco]

Glad it was helpful!

[@resh2302]

Good presentation, great questions:)

[@gankala8]

"Its dangerous to bring customers early" is probably applicable for bigger companies but not really for startups

[@pe6ch]

For all these audience question sessions, can you please have the speaker repeat the question? Can't hear

[@ProductSchoolSanFrancisco]

Will do!

[@MrVirkMedia]

Thanks Very helpful

[@ajecon6849]

Definitely, we need the questions to be shown as subtitles.

[@geethanarasimha8273]

Amazing session ! Thank you sooo much !

[@ProductSchoolSanFrancisco]

Our pleasure!

[@RohitKumarForever]

Good Information!

[@stefanoruns]

Excellent presentation, and very valuable content

[@ProductSchoolSanFrancisco]

Glad you think so!

[@JustBCWi]

Use a 5-scale for both Benefit and Effort. Label Benefit A..E and Effort 1..5. Then, the sequence of working the features is 1A; 1B, 2A; 3A, 2B, 1C; 3B, 2C. Don't waste your time on anything lower than that. Part of valuing the Benefit would be the priority of that Benefit. When you determine the Benefit calculation, weigh based on which is more important of your criteria. Keep the final analysis simple.

[@gankala8]

Would be great for us to listen to the audience question... may be repeat what they have said on the mic

[@adiminsa]

I am confused. This sounds more the job description of a project manager. Product manager won’t get into sprints handling. This is what a project manager does. Another confusion is many companies have product managers, product owners and project managers and then some mix this and one or two people end up doing all thee positions. So by watching this, I am not sure which position you are describing; or, what are the differences of the three mentioned above, at Walmart?

[@pvs108]

what tool you used to create Ghnatt roadmap

[@mohitb5230]

great insightful interview videos. I also conduct mock interviews to help people prepare for their actual interview.. I specifically have Indian context incorporated in my questions and suited for Indian Product Managers

[@Desperado665]

Indian context ?

[@diggitydang]

Great video, good presenter. Could have done without a lot of the random hypothetical questions on minutia

[@mauroinde]

thanks

[@Nik-mv5hr]

Hi Product School. Do you guys have a podcast?

[@ProductSchoolSanFrancisco]

We do! Check us out on Spotify --> spoti.fi/3vqh6dE Apple Podcasts --> apple.co/3dYzYdP Google Podcasts --> bit.ly/3aGMIUn

[@ludovicmanga8241]

Great content ! Would have been good to hear / read the questions better.

[@ProductSchoolSanFrancisco]

Noted!

[@jlancerpaulo]

can't access the slide. it's suspended in Slide share?

[@ProductSchoolSanFrancisco]

Yes, unfortunately our SlideShare account has been suspended. Please give it a few weeks, it should work then.

[@goodbyetube9545]

Very interesting topic. But really long session. I would love to view 30 minute version of this talk.

[@jonathanpolitzki9128]

Walmart brand PM.

[@Salmankth]

Can we have the presentation please?

[@ProductSchoolSanFrancisco]

Hi! Here's the presentation for this event: bit.ly/2rau4fU

[@Abc-uz5gx]

@@ProductSchoolSanFrancisco Hi! I just watched the video and tried to click the link to have the presentation, but it says the SlideShare was suspended. Can I get any help?

[@pamcolechadwell1302]

I am trying really hard to get the Product managers work phone number at Wal-mart, so I can call! I am a product developer, I want to submit my Ideas to your company! Thanks

[@shaleenkachhara6206]

The presentation was really good, but honestly, he did a terrible job answering the questions.