Chaos and Confusion in Product Management
PDMA St. Louis | November 17, 2025
Description
Products today often get released due to team member heroics despite the existing processes. Most teams are grappling with chaotic workflows that few understand. Yet, every organization is unique—so your planning process should be as well. Most organizations need a small number of living documents—fewer than 10—to guide market insights and product innovation.
The Quartz Open Framework is a comprehensive, non-proprietary framework designed to streamline and optimize product management practices. It provides a structured approach to managing the entire product lifecycle, from initial concept to market launch and beyond.
Quartz emphasizes practical tools and a common language, enabling product teams to collaborate more effectively and align their efforts with broader business strategies. The framework supports critical areas such as market and customer analysis, product planning, roadmap development, and execution, ensuring that teams can respond to market demands with agility and precision. With a focus on customer-centric innovation, Quartz Open empowers organizations to build successful products that meet both user needs and business objectives.
Use the Quartz Open Framework to innovate your planning process to better align with your organization’s agility. Discard outdated methods and define a process as nimble as your organization.
Learning Objectives:
- Identify areas of dysfunction in your planning cycle
- Design your optimal planning process using the Quartz framework
- Articulate the scope of product management in your organization
About the Speaker
Steve Johnson
Steve Johnson is a product success coach focused on removing the chaos from product planning. He uses modern methods to guide product teams from idea to market in only a few weeks. His approach is based on the belief that minimal processes and simple templates result in a nimble product team.
Steve has trained tens of thousands of product professionals in his career. He is a former instructor and vice president at Pragmatic Institute and the chief architect of the popular Quartz Open Framework.