What's the best way to setup my Products
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Benefit
Got lots of products? Keep your roadmaps easy to understand by targeting them at user value, rather than the internal team structure.
How to do it
When setting up your product lines and products, consider the audience and purpose of the resulting roadmap. It’s not meant to be a release plan, it’s meant to show how your company will provide end-user value - so write it that way! If your app has a front end component and back end component, don’t create a product (and roadmap) for each - create a single product. That’s how your users see it, so that’s how the roadmap should be created.
Top Tip
If your next big change requires changes by multiple teams, create a single initiative that is made up of ideas which will be executed by multiple teams. Tag your roadmap card with the team names involved, so that each team can see which initiatives they’ll be working on.
Product teams come in all shapes and sizes and when it comes to managing multiple products within ProdPad, there are two main options: use the same ProdPad account or have separate accounts.
The main thing to consider is how transparent you need the information to be.
Here is the product hierarchy within ProdPad
Users within a single ProdPad account can view anything within that account, however you can use permissions [link] to restrict certain editing rights.
If you have separate teams with very distinct ways of working e.g. separate business units then it is worth having a different account.
Multiple accounts
Advantages
- Extra level in portfolio hierarchy
- Less filtering required
- Portfolio-specific configuration (workflow stages, tags, integrations etc)
- Data can only be viewed/updated by those working in this pillar
- Possible to “switch” into different portfolios with changed access rights (i.e. Editor in some portfolios, Reviewer in others)
Disadvantages
- Process may be inconsistent with other portfolio
- Reduced transparency across other portfolio
- Requires additional step to show all roadmaps
- Embed published roadmaps on web page (i.e. Confluence)
- Difficult to show dependencies across portfolios
Single accounts
Advantages
- Increased transparency across the organisation
- Consistent process
- Roadmaps from all portfolio available on a single page within ProdPad
- No need to “switch” to view other portfolios
- Easier to show dependencies across portfolios
Disadvantages
- Fewer hierarchy levels
- More “noise” (everyone can see/interact with all portfolios)
- More filtering required to drill into specific portfolios
- Editors can update ideas/feedback for all products
- (Roadmaps can be limited to assigned PMs)
- Note - Our roadmap includes the ability to assign users by product, which would reduce some of these disadvantages
Our team can advise of the best setup for your requirements, contact us via Chat or submit a ticket and we can review with you.