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Articles by Alice Rex
Cortana with Sandeep Paruchuri
This is a newsletter about big bets, explored through conversations with the product leaders who worked on them. For this one, I chatted to Sandeep Paruchuri, my colleague from WhatsApp and a former PM at Microsoft, about Microsoft’s AI assistant, Cortana. A competitor to Siri and Google Now, Cortana was a bottom-up bet that became a major part of Microsoft’s strategy to make their Windows Phone succeed and to prove their prowess in the AI arena.
Product Roadmap
A product roadmap is a strategic communication tool. Its purpose is to show your team and other stakeholders what your product vision is and how it breaks down into product strategy and the product development initiatives needed to achieve that strategy. A product roadmap is not a Gantt chart, and it’s not a device for showing off every last detailed feature in your development plan – instead, a product roadmap should focus on high-level themes aligned around customer outcomes.
Escape From the Feature Roadmap to Outcome-driven Development
I’ve made a lot of roadmaps in my time. In fact, in the first three years I was at WorldRemit, I counted that I represented our company roadmap in 10 different ways. This reformatting was always an attempt to make the roadmap work harder: to bring more focus, communicate more effectively with stakeholders, keep a growing team joined up. Yet most roadmaps have a big problem in common. They’re just variants on lists of features, typically arranged on a timeline (albeit a vague one).
AVA'S SPECTACULAR SPECTACLES
Ava works out her love-hate relationship with her specs in this Australian import with a fairy-tale twist. Sans glasses, Ava is miserable in class. It isn’t long before her teacher, Mrs. Cook, takes notice. As it turns out, Ava didn’t forget her glasses; she hid them in her schoolbag because she hates them. Mrs. Cook uses the teachable moment to reimagine fairy tales in a pro-glasses light.
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