The Product Manager’s Flowchart: Why I’m a Fan, & You Might Be Too
My latest Medium post on product development tactics got much more traction than I’d expected. I’m inspired to share more thoughts about product management tactics.
At some point, every Product Manager on Earth gets asked:
“How does your company decide what to build? What’s that process? How does the sausage get made?”
We’re asked by colleagues, job candidates, investors, and future employers alike. They ask because they know that the product development process is a system, a product to be managed unto itself. They know how important the answer to this question is.
For better or worse, our response influences the inquirer’s opinion not just of the product org, but also of the company at large.
Yet somehow, if you asked 100 product managers at 100 successful companies, you’d probably get 100 different answers.
Why? Because every organization is different, and there’s no single correct way to conceive of ideas and nurse them into features. That said, not all process playbooks are equal: they range from good to bad to ugly.
I came across these questions early on, and in full character, tried to develop a scalable response: a schematic of the “user journey” of an idea, from its origin, through design & development, into production and beyond.
My current result is below.
It maps four major stages of a feature: Idea, Design, Development, Production, and many of the feedback loops and sub-processes that accompany each stage. The checkered flags represent non-negotiables: other stages are subject to more ad hoc judgment. Each stage and substage is intricate enough to merit their own Medium post (especially: Roadmap Proposal by Product Team, which presupposes alignment on product strategy, goals, and resources). Walking someone through my flowchart with full voiceover usually takes 5–10 minutes, depending on how many questions they ask.
Naturally, because organizations are all so unique, the flowchart is not a template, but an exercise and ultimately a communication asset for the PM who owns it.
I first made mine in Sketch a few years back, but many tools would do, free & paid. Miro, Draw.io, Kumu, Google Slides, Figma, pick your poison.
The flowchart can demonstrate the solidity of the product org’s command of its own tactics.
Like looking at yourself in a mirror, mapping your product process helps you reflect. What are you doing? What’s missing? Which areas are most valuable? Which need optimization?
Have you used anything like this? What does yours look like? Curious to hear what others have to say.
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Photo by Teigan Rodger on Unsplash
