How Haven Life makes product planning less hard

Note: This post originally appeared on the blog of Built In NYC, an organization for tech professionals, and features Haven Life’s own rock star product owner, Meghan Furdyna. As part of our ongoing efforts to introduce you to the people who make Haven Life so special, we wanted to share an edited version of the post, spotlighting Meghan’s thoughts.

“The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”

Product managers know the sentiment of this proverb all too well. Often, clunky execution is a people problem rather than a strategic one, and poor communication can devolve even the most ironclad plans into chaos. Built In NYC recently touched base with our product managers for practical advice on how Haven Life keeps teams in sync, even when things don’t go according to plan.

At Haven Life, Product Owner Meghan Furdyna communicates often and stays realistic about the production schedule. “If my timeline slips due to scope creep or competing priorities, I over-communicate early and conservatively estimate the extra time needed so as not to underdeliver,” said Furdyna.

Furdyna emphasized the importance of two-way communication to avoid any surprises on the development team and to ensure they have the opportunity to be true partners in the creation of the roadmap. Here, in Meghan’s words, are some of the steps she takes to create and maintain alignment throughout the product development cycle.

Ensure there’s alignment across teams from the get-go

I look at our product roadmaps from a yearly and quarterly perspective. For yearly planning, I work directly with my manager to understand the company’s annual goals and how our work supports achieving those goals. At the start of the year, I will work with my team to outline a six-month roadmap. As we are prioritizing the team roadmap, I’ll coordinate directly with my stakeholders to ensure that our priorities align. Since we are building an internal software platform with complex features, I need to consciously be a few steps ahead of new business implementation.

Quarterly planning is then a refinement of the longer-term roadmap. During the last month of the existing quarter, I start to have more detailed conversations with my stakeholders about what’s ahead. We outline dependencies and begin any conversations needed for gathering feedback on the build of upcoming feature work.

As we are prioritizing the team roadmap, I’ll coordinate directly with my stakeholders to ensure that our priorities align.

Maintain alignment throughout the development cycle

We’ve recently implemented what we call a program increment (PI) planning cycle of fully grooming and mapping out three sprints of development work. Our program increments line up with my new business team’s PI, which pushes us to identify our dependencies at a more refined level and raise concerns with scope among our platform team and stakeholders.

A long-term project I’m working on with the new business team is adding an advisor-driven deferred income annuity product to our administrative platform. Each quarter, I work with a new business counterpart to outline our goals. During the PI cycle, we meet as a product team to define where we’ll need to collaborate and what we want to achieve in the next three sprints. To prepare for the next cycle, our development teams meet to outline development dependencies or clarifications needed before kicking off our tasks. If reprioritization of feature delivery is an option, I offer that as a solution.

When (and when not) to reprioritize the product roadmap

If possible, I try not to reprioritize within the PI unless something critical comes up. If something critical does emerge, my first step is to connect with our platform team to determine if the request is something that we can handle. If it does fall on my team, I like to work with my tech lead to fully understand the details of the request, and whether it’s realistic to deliver within the desired time frame. If there is a push from our new business partners to prioritize this new piece of work over what was previously agreed upon, but the timing is not possible, I’ll reconvene with the new business team and ask them to reassess their list and ask where we can deprioritize other items.