Episode 18

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Published on:

9th Jan 2025

Balancing Top-Down & Bottom-Up Product Planning

πŸ”„ Balancing Product Vision: The Art of Top-Down & Bottom-Up Planning

Join Matt Watson and Dave Reinhold, Fractional CPO, in an intellectually stimulating exploration of modern product development dynamics. This episode illuminates the delicate balance between executive vision and engineering insights, offering a fresh perspective on how successful products emerge from collaborative planning.


Dive deep into the nuanced world of product planning as Dave Reinhold shares his expertise on bridging the gap between business objectives and technical execution. Discover how combining top-down strategic vision with bottom-up engineering insights creates a more robust and effective product development process while exploring the critical role of structured collaboration in driving innovation.

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ο»Ώο»ΏπŸ”— Essential Links (Start Here!):

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Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://newsletter.productdriven.com/

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Key Discussion Points:

🎯 The evolving role of product leadership in modern organizations

πŸ”„ Balancing strategic vision with technical feasibility

πŸ’‘ Engineering team empowerment and voice in product decisions

⚑ Managing technical debt versus feature development

πŸ“Š Framework for evaluating engineering proposals

🌱 Creating sustainable product development processes


Chapters:

0:00 - Introduction and role of fractional CPO

1:33 - Product direction challenges

3:04 - Strategic planning fundamentals

5:55 - Sales-driven development discussion

8:55 - Engineering team involvement

12:39 - Bottom-up innovation approaches

15:00 - Balancing technical debt

21:45 - Framework for evaluating proposals

24:15 - Practical decision-making tools

26:48 - Venture CPO services overview


Transform your product development approach through strategic collaboration and balanced planning. Join our community of innovators dedicated to building better products through inclusive, thoughtful development processes.

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About the Podcast

Product Driven
How to build better software and software teams
Building software products requires caring more about the product than it does the technology used to build the product. On this podcast, we discuss bringing a product driven mindset to every step of the product development process.

About your host

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Matt Watson