The Product Blueprint
An introduction, what it is, why you need it and the benefits you will get in your day-to-day
Brian Lam
5/29/20242 min read
Have you ever been in a situation where you are trying to change the way you deliver? What you need to deliver? The quantity? And the ever growing need to deliver more results? If that is not new to you, chances you are stuck in a vicious cycle of delivering and executing from one priority to the next, doing it all in parallel, and not getting the results you want.
As a Product Manager, you are juggling a lot of the organization's complexity. Balancing the needs of the Product, Customer, Development, Finance, Results, Operations, Etc.
Where do you focus?
We often never feel we spend enough time at any one thing and we never do one thing particularly well either. We are all constrained by Time, Cash, Opinions, Focus and Delivery Pressures, so it is imperative we maximize our ROI.
This is where the Product Blueprint may be able help.
First and foremost, a Product Blueprint provides structure and a common vocabulary which a team can discuss the organization's effort in provide customer solutions.
All organizations may have a different way of representing this, but if you boil it down to a few elements, this is what you need.
Foundational Elements
Organizational dynamics
Environment
Product Lifecycle
Discovery and planning
Execution
Adoption and expansion
The Product Blueprint
Within each of the areas, you can break it down into key types of work that needs to be done.
Organizational dynamics
Leadership
Team structure
Resources
Communications
Environment
Culture
Collaboration
Values
Discovery and planning
Customer needs
Market research
Business planning
Product planning
Portfolio management
Execution
Architecture
Design
Build
Release
Feedback and iterative loop
Adoption and expansion
Launch planning
Marketing
Sales
Organizational dynamics
How our organization structures, coordinates and enables people to work together to solve problems.
Structure, looks at how people are grouped together. Focusing on areas of accountability, dependencies and areas of heavy collaboration.
Leadership, the degree in the people at the top buy into the potential of our goals and strategies.
Resources, covers the capacity, intents and outcomes required to execute on the strategy through the enablement of knowledge and training
Communication, delivery of transparent, broad and and contextual information around goals, learnings and decisions.
Environment
The human factors and interactions that determine the organizational potential to succeed.
Culture, comprises of the human qualities and emotions that allow honest and transparent approaches to the mission.
Collaboration, quality and efficiency of interactions both internally and externally.
Values, organizational compass that teams and team members share every day.
Resources to start your Product Management Journey
Need something to get your career started in Product Management? These helped me, so hopefully they can help you.