Whether you're a product manager, product owner, or a cat herder, creating a stellar product takes skill. The list is endless—from aligning stakeholders to creating a clear vision and specifications, planning sprints, measuring success and everything in-between. In this session, we'll share how to extend the power and flexibility of Atlassian tools for your team. From inception, to planning, to building, learn the battle-tested tips from our own Atlassian teams to ensure that you not only build the product right, but also build the right product.

1. PHIL OYE • PM • ATLASSIAN • @PHILOYE
Product Manager Superpowers
Trello, Confluence, and Jira

2. © DC Comics

3. Professional meeting (goer)?
Product owner?
Product manager?

4. The product manager is
responsible for defining
why, when, and what to build.
A DEFINTION

5. What do PMs do?
Rollout plans
Researcher
Cheerleader
Stakeholder management
Sprint planning
Sprint planning Competitor analysis
Manage budget
Product marketing
Interface design
Roadmap
Firefighter
Firefighter
Customer support
Inspire the team
Estimating
Define scope
Documentation Requirements
Timeline
Shield the team
Decision maker
Strategy

6. Product managers do
whatever is not being done
by the rest of the team.
UNKNOWN, MAYBE ME

7. Mix and match
There is no one right way to
do things. Use what works,
leave the rest.
What I’ll talk about today
Cloud or Server*
Most tips will work in either
Cloud or Server
(except Trello!)
Super practical
Will focus on tips & tricks
using our tools that you can
use on Monday

8. Mechanics of agile
Scrum vs Kanban, how to
plan a sprint, do retros,
standups
How to become a PM
There’s plenty to talk about,
but this isn’t that talk
What I’m not talking about

9. INSPIRED:
How to create tech
products customers love
Marty Cagan
Silicon Valley Product Group

10. Let’s do this

11. Leads &
inspires
PM
mastery
Delivers
outcomes
Great
communicator
Atlassian’s pillars for product managers

12. Leads &
inspires
PM
mastery
Delivers
outcomes
Great
communicator
Atlassian’s pillars for product managers

13. FALL IN LOVE WITH THE
PROBLEM
CREATE A PROJECT POSTER

14. Leads & inspires / Project posters
THE SITUATION
• Hard to get everyone to agree on the
problem you’re solving?
Arguing over solutions?
• Research, docs, ideas are scattered?
No single point of reference?
YOUR SUPERPOWER
Use the Project Poster play:
atlassian.com/team-playbook/plays/project-poster
Grab the “Project Poster” Confluence
template for Cloud or Server.

15. https://www.atlassian.com/team-playbook/plays/daci

17. Leads & inspires / Project posters
TIPS & TRICKS
• It is a living document
Update it as you explore the problem space,
challenge assumptions, gather feedback, and
learn.
• Involve the whole team
Confluence comments are your friend
• Identify what you aren’t doing
What problems are you not solving?
What solutions are not providing?

18. Leads &
inspires
PM
mastery
Delivers
outcomes
Great
communicator
The four pillars

19. YOUR IDEAS ARE
PROBABLY WRONG
TRY A LEARNING BACKLOG

20. PM mastery / Learning backlog
THE SITUATION
• Most startups, features, ideas fail
Except for your own, obviously. Or not.
• Figuring that out after shipping is
the worst time to find out
Fail fast, spend time on the winners
• Most “MVPs” are neither
minimal nor viable
They build too much and are just a guess
YOUR SUPERPOWER
Instead of backlog of features, it should
be a list of hypotheses, assumptions,
and risks. Then test those.
Create a Jira project or a Trello board
that outlines the build / measure / learn
loop.

21. Build
MeasureLearn
PM mastery / Learning backlog
Experiment / Test
Results
Idea / Risk / Assumption

24. PM mastery / Learning backlog
TIPS & TRICKS
• Be honest with your risks, and
assumptions, hypotheses
What do you hope to be true?
• Force rank these
What is the biggest risk?
• Do the smallest possible thing
You are not building products, you are building
experiments
• Find a way to test it
Paper prototypes? Click tests? Landing page?

25. The Lean Startup
Eric Ries

26. YOU HAVE CUSTOMERS,
RIGHT?
COLLECT FEEDBACK

27. PM mastery / Collect feedback
THE SITUATION
• Flying blind
It can be hard to get insight from customers
• Finding research participants is tricky
Do you have permission to contact them? How do
you know they use your feature?
• Support tickets can be slow
Can they find support? Can support find you?
YOUR SUPERPOWER
Create a Service Desk and insert a
Widget in your app.
Or use the Jira issue collector.

31. PM mastery / Collect feedback
TIPS & TRICKS
• Insert the widget contextually
in your app
• Get a bug report?
Move it to your Jira project
• Talk to your customers!
Do research!

32. EVERYONE WANTS A PONY,
TRACK YOUR
FEATURE REQUESTS

33. PM mastery / Feature requests
THE SITUATION
• Feature requests comes from many
channels
How can you keep track?
• Tracking non-roadmapped items
How can you share with others?
• People keep asking for the same
stuff?
YOUR SUPERPOWER
Create a simple Trello board
and share it!

35. PM mastery / Feature requests
TIPS & TRICKS
• Include instructions!
Set expectations
• Make sure you have an “Inbox” list
for new requests
That way un-triaged requests are clearly
separated
• Consider adding the voting power-up
Be wary! This isn’t a popularity contest…
• Encourage subscribing
They can be notified of the status of their request

36. Leads &
inspires
PM
mastery
Delivers
outcomes
Great
communicator
The four pillars

37. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE
TOP PRIORITY
BUILD YOUR ROADMAP
© 20th Century Fox

38. Delivers outcomes / Roadmaps
THE SITUATION
• Everyone asks, when will ___ ship?
No one is aligned
• You have a 1000 competing priorities
Backlog is a mile deep
YOUR SUPERPOWER
• Create your Roadmap in Trello, or
build your own!
bit.ly/trello-roadmap-template
• Jira Power-up for Trello
bit.ly/trello-jira-powerup
• Confluence Power-up for Trello
bit.ly/trello-confluence-powerup

44. Delivers outcomes / Roadmaps
TIPS & TRICKS
• Force rank everything
Don’t cheat with multiple happening at the
same time.
• Link your to cards to Jira tickets and
Confluence pages
Use the power-up!
• Aggressively share your roadmap
Embed it everywhere.
• Encourage subscribing
People can sign up to be notified on a card, a list, or
the entire board when there are changes.
• Share what you’ve shipped
Once you’ve shipped a card, move it to your
“Shipped” board

45. BIT.LY / BUILDINGROADMAPS
“The art of building a roadmap”
TALK

46. PRODUCTS ARE A
COLLECTION OF DECISIONS
A LOT OF THEM

47. Delivers outcomes / Decision making
THE SITUATION
• Hard decisions are, well, hard
Delaying, deferring is dangerous
• One-way doors
Paralysis!
• No record keeping
Why/when did we decide that??
YOUR SUPERPOWER
Use the DACI play:
atlassian.com/team-playbook/plays/daci
Use the built-in “Decision” template in
Confluence to drive decisions.

48. https://www.atlassian.com/team-playbook/plays/daci

51. Delivers outcomes / Decision making
TIPS & TRICKS
• Decide something in real-time?
Consider creating a DACI after the fact for record
keeping.
• Close. Off. Your. Decisions.
Indecision is the enemy.

52. Leads &
inspires
PM
mastery
Delivers
outcomes
Great
communicator
The four pillars

53. WHAT IF EVERYONE IN THE
BIG MEETING WAS
ON THE SAME PAGE?

54. Great communicator / Pages over presentations
THE SITUATION
• Important information is conveyed
via PowerPoint presentations
Easy for presenters, hard on the audience
• Decisions are being made
without data
Bullet points over data
• Detail is just skipped over
Attendees have more questions than answers
YOUR SUPERPOWER
1. Create a page in Confluence
2. Write a multi-page narrative
explaining your ideas/PoV
Use. Actual. Words.
3. Present the page itself

55. © Amazon.com Inc.

56. Great communicator / Pages over presentations
BEFORE THE BIG MEETING
• Write down your narrative using
complete sentences.
Provide data, link to resources for more detail.
• Team should collaborate on the page
Comments! Sharing! Real-time collab!
• Share it ahead of time
Forget the big reveal, get questions early if
possible.
• Let people read it in silence
Not everyone has read it? Give people time to
read it and jot down questions.
• Ask “What are your questions?”
Instead of talking through stuff everyone agrees
to, you can skip directly to the hard stuff.
DURING THE BIG MEETING

57. MEETINGS ARE
UNAVOIDABLE
MAKE THEM AWESOME

58. Great communicator / Awesome meetings
THE SITUATION
• Useless meetings
No agenda, no outcome
• Nothing is captured
Miss the meeting? Too bad.
• No accountability
Action items lost to the wind
YOUR SUPERPOWER
Use the built-in “Meeting Notes”
template in Confluence.

61. Great communicator / Awesome meetings
TIPS & TRICKS
• Link the agenda from the invite
Encourage people to add to it beforehand
• Recurring meeting?
Aggressively cancel if there is no agenda
• Open the page on the big screen
Capture in real-time
• @mention the attendees
Everyone will get an email at the end of the
meeting.

62. SHIPPING IS NOT EASY,
YOU NEED A
ROLLOUT PLAN
© Hasbro

63. Great communicator / Rollout plans
THE SITUATION
• Understanding your blockers is hard
• Releasing software is more than just
shipping code or toggling a flag
Docs, giving support a heads up, stakeholders
• People are unaware when things
are going out
YOUR SUPERPOWER
• Outline your plan using Confluence
• Use the Jira macro

66. Great communicator / Rollout plans
TIPS & TRICKS
• Rollout plans are based on blockers
Would you delay launch for it? Then yes, it is a
blocker.
• Breakup your plan into clear
milestones
Milestones should stack
• It is a living document
Learn something new, adjust your blockers
• Keep state in one place
Use the Jira issue macro

67. Leads &
inspires
PM
mastery
Delivers
outcomes
Great
communicator
Atlassian’s pillars for product managers

68. Suggested talks here at Summit
Smart Silos:
Behind the Scenes of Building the New Jira
Thursday @ 10:30am, Oceanside C
James Rotanson
Product Designer
Atlassian
Concept to Launch:
The Ultimate Confluence Guide for Software Teams
Thursday @ 2:40pm, Oceanside C
Sherif Mansour
Product Manager
Atlassian

69. PHIL OYE • PM • ATLASSIAN • @PHILOYE
Thank you