Mastering Dependency Management: A Guide for Platform Product Managers

Effective management of dependencies presents a significant challenge for platform product managers. Here, “platform” refers to enterprise shared-capability platforms utilized by both internal vertical products and external developers.

The primary challenges in managing dependencies include:

  • Tracking the dependencies
  • Incorporating them into your feature scoring scheme

Tracking the Dependencies

Features delivered by platform teams often enable other products, leading to scenarios where external features depend on the timely delivery of these platform capabilities. For instance, a new data management feature by the platform team might be essential for multiple teams to enhance or introduce new offerings. This interdependence necessitates platform PMs to consider the timelines and release schedules of other teams in their feature prioritization, adding layers of complexity to an already intricate prioritization scheme. This challenge intensifies with the increase in platform features under development and the external features awaiting the platform’s delivery. Over the years, I’ve honed a process for managing these outbound dependencies, a method validated during my tenures in solution delivery and product management at companies like Guidewire and Adobe.

Procedure:

  1. Initial Discussion: Teams identifying a dependency on our roadmap initiate a conversation with the corresponding Product Manager to discuss the dependency’s requirements and potential impacts.
  2. Feature Creation: After consensus on the dependency requirements, our Product Manager will create a feature in our roadmap to support the external team’s needs.
  3. Linking and Blocking: The external team links their feature to ours, marking it as a blocker. This step formalizes the dependency and aids in tracking progress.
  4. Planning and Coordination: With dependencies clearly outlined, teams can more effectively plan and prioritize tasks, ensuring support for successful execution across products.

Additionally, roadmap management tools like Aha! offer dependency mapping features crucial for planning and managing these dependencies. Such tools provide visual representations of dependencies, enabling teams to easily identify and address potential bottlenecks in their project timelines.

Incorporating Dependencies into the Scoring Scheme

Depending on your chosen scoring scheme—RICE, ICE, Eisenhower, or MoSCoW—dependencies should be integrated accordingly.

  • ICE (Impact, Confidence, Ease): Dependencies typically amplify the impact. One approach is to average the Impact scores of all dependent features or calculate a weighted average.
  • RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort): In this method, dependencies can affect both Reach and Impact, potentially calculated by averaging (or weighted averaging) the scores of dependent features.
  • Eisenhower Matrix: While I haven’t used it for backlog scoring, I’m interested in hearing others’ experiences.
  • MoSCoW (Must have, Should have, Could have, Won’t have): Often used for backlog trimming, this method categorizes any feature with a dependency as a must-have, though it offers limited prioritization assistance for roadmaps and backlogs.

Although dependencies can be factored into scoring methods, remember that planning features with multiple dependencies is as much an art of negotiation as it is a science. It’s crucial to include dependent product managers in your planning process and maintain consistent communication. There are times when, despite all efforts, a feature with dependencies may not be delivered on schedule, necessitating early and frequent communication. Ultimately, as a platform product manager, your judgment is paramount. It’s your insight and experience that most effectively navigates the complexities of managing dependencies. And remember, it’s impossible to keep everyone happy 🙂

Conclusion

Managing dependencies is essential, whether handling a narrow, vertical backlog or a broad, horizontal one. This article shares my method for dependency tracking, refined from years of experience in software delivery and product management across various companies. While not the only approach, it has been consistently effective.

I’m interested to hear how you manage dependencies in your backlog.

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