"Help, I've fallen behind and I can't catch up." -- Steve Youngblood

3. HELP, I'VE FALLEN
BEHIND AND I
CAN'T CATCH UP!
@newbrew

4. HOW DOES THIS
HAPPEN?
@newbrew

5. WHIRLWIND COMPETES WITH THE ROADMAP
CHAOS, NEGLECT
AND CATASTROPHE
OVERWHELMING ROADMAP
@newbrew

6. • Too much going on
• Ginormous roadmap
• Engineering on their own, Marketing
on their own, Sales on their own, and
so on
• Corporate changes
• Sales opportunities
• Personnel churn
• Life
CHAOS
@newbrew
HOW DOES
THIS HAPPEN?

7. HOW DOES
THIS HAPPEN?
• Too hard to switch architectures
• Convince yourself that customers
are satisfied
• Convince yourself that you are
satisfied
• Happy with "just good enough"
• Slow to fix defects
• Lack of backlog grooming
• No ownership
NEGLECT
@newbrew

8. HOW DOES
THIS HAPPEN?
• Failure of cloud infrastructure
• Hacking/ransomware
• Old backups or no backups
• Loss of domain
• Inability to find source of failure in
software
• Source is lost
CATASTROPHE
@newbrew

9. WHO CAN FIX
THIS?
• End the chaos
• Detail the neglect
• Fix the catastrophe
• Balance development between those
items that end chaos, catastrophe
and neglect between those items
required by customers and the
market.
PRODUCT MANAGEMENT!
@newbrew

10. ENDING THE
CHAOS
• Reset, clear the deck
• Just say NO! to Sales, Professional
Services and even the CEO
• Ignore the watercooler talk and stay
focused on the product and
customers
• Detail technical debt and make it
part of the roadmap and not solely
engineering's problem. Give big
fixes high priority
• Be a company problem solver
@newbrew

11. DETAILING THE
NEGLECT
• Own the failure
• List the company goals and what are
the team is not doing to meet them
• UI/UX, was it "cobbled" together? Is
it "bass ackwards"? Simple things
can go a long way.
• LISTEN to everyone again. Not to
what they asking but to what they're
saying (internal and external). Small
things could have a big impact
• Flush and refill
@newbrew

12. FIXING OR
SECURING
AGAINST A
CATASTROPHE
• If you're in a failure mode. STOP
EVERYTHING, recover, and get your
customers going again
• Put fixes into place right away that
protect against a failure happening
again. Make this the next highest
priority
• Ensure the simple things don't cause
big things later (part of roadmap)
⚬ Setup auto-renewals
⚬ Setup monitors for reaching "high
water" marks
@newbrew

13. WHILE
CLEARING CNC
AND GOING
FORWARD
• FOCUS - Plan to deliver fewer items
with greater quality and impact
• LEAN - Keep a backlog of JUST
those features that REALLY matter
• LEADING KPIS - Put more focus on
those things that help you innovate,
THEN measure with lagging KPIs
• BALANCE - Balance your roadmap
with features, fixes, architecture and
operational updates.
• NO – Say no to those things that
cause CNC
@newbrew

14. EVERY MEMBER OR YOUR TEAM
NEEDS TO BE UNHAPPY IN A
NEGOTIATION ABOUT THE
PRODUCT ROADMAP, EVERYONE
NEEDS TO CEDE THEIR OWN
PRODUCT DESIRES FOR
COMMERCIAL COMMON GOOD"
@newbrew

15. ”FOCUSING IS ABOUT SAYING
‘NO’. YOU’VE GOT TO SAY ‘NO,
NO, NO’ AND WHEN YOU ‘NO’
YOU PISS PEOPLE OFF.
@newbrew
Steve Jobs

16. Steve Youngblood
CTO
Student Recruiting Network
steve@newbrew.com
https://newbrew.com
+1 404 451 3943
@newbrew