1. Epic Alignment
How the best product managers
work with feature documents
with Nils Janse

2. INTRODUCTION
Briefly about me
● Author of "Epic Alignment - How the
best product managers work with
feature documents"
● Founder of Delibr, a startup that helps
Product Managers.
● 8 years on board of directors at
Storytel
● 6 years as management
consultant at McKinsey
● MSc in Engineering from
KTH, Stockholm
Nils Janse

3. INTRODUCTION
Let me get to know you
1. What is your role?
2. How long have you been
in product management?
3. What is the size of your
current company?

4. The presentation will be based on the book I wrote...
WHAT WE WILL COVER TODAY

5. ...and we’ll go through the main chapters of the book
WHAT WE WILL COVER TODAY
Drive towards
impact, base it on
research
Use a single
source-of-truth to
create shared
understanding
Expose micro-
decisions through
questions
What it can look
like in practice
Embrace user
stories as a shared
language
Meet the
complexities of
Product
Management

6. Meet the
complexities
of Product
Management

7. MEET THE COMPLEXITIES OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
The PM role
* From “The High Growth Handbook” by Elad Gil
One definition* states that the PM is responsible for:
1. Product strategy and vision
2. Product prioritization and problem solving
3. Execution: timelines, resources, and removal of
obstacles
4. Communication and collaboration (across 1-3)
That is quite good. But to understand why the role is
so hard, we must dig deeper
Who is the
Product
Manager?

8. MEET THE COMPLEXITIES OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
Why the PM job is so hard
● All knowledge workers handle a
set of decisions, made together
with other people, in some kind
of process
● The complexity of a role comes
from the aggregated complexity
across these aspects
● In comparison, the PM job stands
out as very difficult

9. MEET THE COMPLEXITIES OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
The archetypal
PM process

10. Drive towards
impact, base it
on research

11. DRIVE TOWARDS IMPACT, BASE IT ON RESEARCH
How the best PMs manage to say ‘no’
● PMs face a lot of pressure
from stakeholders across
the organization to put
things on the roadmap
● In the worst case they feel
forced to put more things
in the roadmap than can
actually be delivered
● Great PMs are able to
overcome this pressure by
doing three things

12. DRIVE TOWARDS IMPACT, BASE IT ON RESEARCH
Align on business impact
● Think about impact like
top management
(e.g. using AAARRR)
● Define impact clearly
(e.g. with OKRs)
● Master upward
management
(i.e. make sure no one
important is surprised)

13. DRIVE TOWARDS IMPACT, BASE IT ON RESEARCH
Build a knowledge base
through research
● Link your research to
impact
● Conduct different types
of research
● Combine your research
into a knowledge base

14. 1. Differentiate between
output, outcomes, and
impact
2. Prioritize business
impact
3. Translate down to
feature outputs
4. Focus actual work on
customer outcomes
DRIVE TOWARDS IMPACT, BASE IT ON RESEARCH
Prioritize business impact, but focus on customer outcomes
improvement in A3R3
other financial
improvement

15. DRIVE TOWARDS IMPACT, BASE IT ON RESEARCH
Prioritize business impact, but focus on customer outcomes
1. Differentiate between
output, outcomes, and
impact
2. Prioritize business
impact
3. Translate down to
feature outputs
4. Focus actual work on
customer outcomes

16. DRIVE TOWARDS IMPACT, BASE IT ON RESEARCH
Prioritize business impact, but focus on customer outcomes
1. Differentiate between
output, outcomes, and
impact
2. Prioritize business
impact
3. Translate down to
feature outputs
4. Focus actual work on
customer outcomes

17. DRIVE TOWARDS IMPACT, BASE IT ON RESEARCH
Prioritize business impact, but focus on customer outcomes
1. Differentiate between
output, outcomes, and
impact
2. Prioritize business
impact
3. Translate down to
feature outputs
4. Focus actual work on
customer outcomes

18. Embrace user
stories as a
shared
language

19. EMBRACE USER STORIES AS A SHARED LANGUAGE
Express features as user stories
● Be aware of the different
perspectives
● Find your own pragmatic
user story format
● Think “user stories”,
not “requirements”

20. EMBRACE USER STORIES AS A SHARED LANGUAGE
Do joint user story mapping sessions
● Combine the user stories
into a map
● Only map the steps you need
to tell the story
● Tell the smallest story that
gets the desired outcome for
the customer
(max: outcome/output)
● Involve your team and
stakeholders in user story
mapping sessions

21. EMBRACE USER STORIES AS A SHARED LANGUAGE
Capture the conversation triggered by the user story
Conversation
Card
Refers to all communication among the
stakeholders and the different parts of the
team relating to the user story.
Refers to the user story, as sometimes written
on index cards. The cards are not supposed
to contain all the information, just enough text
to identify what is talked about.
Refers to the set of tests that must be
passed for the feature to be considered
completed: acceptance criteria or reference
designs - used to remove ambiguity
● A user story is a promise
to have a conversation
● Continue adding details to
that conversation
Confirmation

22. Use a single
source-of-truth
to create
shared
understanding

23. USE A SINGLE SOURCE-OF-TRUTH TO CREATE SHARED UNDERSTANDING
Five practices to create a shared understanding on
what to build among team and stakeholders
1. Unless you share pizzas, write things down
2. Capture most details in epic documents
3. Make epic documents live across stages
4. Use a template that can anticipate topics
5. Get the structure you need with an outliner

24. USE A SINGLE SOURCE-OF-TRUTH TO CREATE SHARED UNDERSTANDING
Unless you share pizzas, write things down
1
● The two-pizza team
● Trouble capturing the
conversation
● Avoid disconnected
conversations, write
things down
or

25. USE A SINGLE SOURCE-OF-TRUTH TO CREATE SHARED UNDERSTANDING
Capture most details in epic documents
2
● Write in one place, and if
needed, refer to it
● The epic is the right level
of scope for the
document
● Strive towards a single
source of truth

26. USE A SINGLE SOURCE-OF-TRUTH TO CREATE SHARED UNDERSTANDING
Make epic documents live across stages
3
Work with the same epic document for all
steps of the process
● Create the epic document early on
● Write discovery notes in the epic
document
● Make user stories your requirements
● Technical details are also welcome

27. USE A SINGLE SOURCE-OF-TRUTH TO CREATE SHARED UNDERSTANDING
Use a template that can
anticipate topics
4
Principles for a good template
● Epic level
● User story-focused
● Both discovery and delivery
● Structured for stakeholder
readability
EXAMPLE

28. USE A SINGLE SOURCE-OF-TRUTH TO CREATE SHARED UNDERSTANDING
Get the structure you need
with an outliner
5
SAME EXAMPLE
IN AN OUTLINER
● An outliner is a type of word processor where
the document is represented as a tree
structure with bullets.
● In combination with a template, an outliner
brings three benefits:
○ PMs can add all the details they want,
without Stakeholder being overwhelmed
○ Stakeholders can collapse and navigate
fast among template headings
○ Once comfortable, much more effective
at writing and structuring information

29. Expose micro-
decisions
through
questions

30. EXPOSE MICRO-DECISIONS THROUGH QUESTIONS
Handle decision-making by
exposing the underlying questions
● Recognize the many
micro-decisions
● Frame decisions as
explicit questions with
decisions as answers
● Practice the art of asking
the right questions

31. EXPOSE MICRO-DECISIONS THROUGH QUESTIONS
Facilitate structured discussions for
the difficult decisions

32. EXPOSE MICRO-DECISIONS THROUGH QUESTIONS
Make the decision-making process
transparent within the document

33. What it can
look like in
practice

34. WHAT IT CAN LOOK LIKE IN PRACTICE
About the example document
Caveat
● I have seen many different takes work
well, applying the approaches differently
● Thus, I was hesitant to say “this is what a
good epic document should look like”
● But because many asked, here is my take
on how a good epic document could look
● Please take it for what it is, an example,
and be mindful that a lot of the choices
depend on both company and feature
Setup
● To make it as relatable as possible I
tried to pick one of the epics I have
seen the most times - Google sign
up/login.
● Maybe you have done it (and recognize
the thinking) or maybe you are about to
do it (and get clarity from the example)
● It is a mix of a lots of documents I have
seen doing more or less the same thing

35. WHAT IT CAN LOOK LIKE IN PRACTICE
Example document 1/3

36. Example document 2/3
WHAT IT CAN LOOK LIKE IN PRACTICE

37. Example document 3/3
WHAT IT CAN LOOK LIKE IN PRACTICE

38. The approaches seen in the example
WHAT IT CAN LOOK LIKE IN PRACTICE
Drive towards
impact, base it
on research
Embrace user
stories as a
shared language
Use a single
source-of-truth
to create shared
understanding
Expose
micro-decisions
through explicit
questions

39. Delibr is a tool for writing feature documents – makes it
much easier to follow the described best practices
SHAMELESS PLUG
Delibr is a fully-fledged
real-time collaborative
document writing tool, similar
to Google Docs.
This enables several
features, e.g. our
two-way sync with Jira.
The main difference is
that Delibr is an outliner,
i.e. documents adhere
to a tree structure.
Try Delibr out for your next
feature document

40. Recap of what we talked about
WHAT WE COVERED TODAY
Meet the
complexities of
Product
Management
Drive towards
impact, base it on
research
Use a single
source-of-truth to
create shared
understanding
Expose micro-
decisions through
questions
What it can look
like in practice
Embrace user
stories as a shared
language

41. Thank you!
FOR MORE INFORMATION
If you liked this talk, please don’t hesitate to:
Connect with me on LinkedIn
Get the book Epic Alignment
Try Delibr out for your next
feature document *
* We help many of our customers with free coaching, both with the app and with product management in general

42. QUESTION TIME
Any questions?