This week's podcast is from one of my upcoming columns on projectmanagement.com. Enjoy!
The Podcast:
The Transcript:
This is 60 Seconds of Writing in Public with Johanna Rothman for November 28, 2025, where I read an excerpt of just a minute of some writing in progress.
This is part of what I hope will be one of my columns on projectmanagement.com.
While I do not write anything like a requirements document, I do write a reader journey for every nonfiction book I write. That reader journey discusses the problems the reader has at this point in the book and what the reader will learn in this chapter. In that way, it’s just like user story mapping. That’s because I want readers to interact with my books by practicing the activities at the end of each chapter.
My 2024 draft was not specific enough for my ideal readers. When I focused on my ideal readers, I was able to focus the book on those readers’ needs. Projects exist to create products. That means every project team needs to understand their user(s) and what those humans need from that product. That will focus your product development and prevent late surprises.
Action 1: Understand what all of your ideal users need from your product to focus your project team. Consider fulfilling just one user’s needs at one time.
The Video:
The video link is here.