The Product Manager's Guide to BBQ Planning
AI, Chaos & Charcoal Edition
🎆Happy 4th of July! Even on this day, our PM brains don’t take PTO.
If you're reading this, you're probably a PM trying very hard to unplug—but secretly planning your backyard BBQ like it’s a product launch. Why? Because we can't help it.
We see grills as Gantt charts, burgers as backlogs, and every guest as a stakeholder. And now, AI is here to help (or at least make things slightly less chaotic).
So this week, let’s ditch the dashboards and dive into BBQ mode—with a product mindset.
🧠 Discovery Phase: Group Chats Are Just Chaotic Research Tools
User research = Sifting through a dozen contradictory group chat messages
Unstructured feedback = “I’ll eat anything, but also no gluten, no onions, and not spicy”
Competitive analysis = Stalking your neighbor’s BBQ photos from last year
Risk mitigation = “Is Uncle Bob bringing his fireworks again?” 😳
🗓 Sprint Planning: Welcome to Feature Freeze Season
Tickets created: “Buy buns,” “Defrost patties,” “Clean grill from last year (lol)”
Dependencies: Weather forecast, meat delivery, Spotify playlist curation
Blocked: Grill propane status still unknown
Scope creep: “While you’re at it, can you also make pulled jackfruit tacos for the vegan twins?”
👥 Stakeholder Map (aka BBQ Personas)
⚖️ MVP vs. The Full-Stack BBQ Experience
The MVP:
Hot grill
Decent burgers
Condiments (ketchup counts as UX polish)
Everyone fed, no hospital visits
The Overbuilt Platform:
Three meat types + tofu skewers
Homemade lemonade, two AI-curated cocktails
Custom bun-warming microservice
Pinterest-inspired centerpieces that took 4 hours
Post-BBQ NPS survey
Guess which one gets shipped and which one gets stuck in dev?
🚨 Live Issues and On-the-Fly Fixes
Just like any sprint, nothing goes to plan.
Login failure: Forgot gate code, guests stuck outside
Data loss: Dog eats the hot dog buns
Scope bloat: Cousin adds 5 new "must-have" features at runtime
Performance degradation: Grill temp plummets during peak load
Rollback initiated: You burn the chicken, pivot to ordering pizza
Security breach: Squirrels breach chip supply mid-demo
AI Copilot prompts:
“Next time, check propane level before lighting the grill.”
“Reordering ice now would prevent stakeholder rage.”
🤖 AI as Your Sous Chef (And Crisis Manager)
Here’s how you can offload some decision fatigue to AI this holiday:
🍽 Menu Planning GPT → Tailors dishes to dietary prefs in 10 seconds
🧺 Shopping List Generator → Auto-adjusts quantities based on headcount
⏰ Timebox Assistant → “Start grilling in 3, 2, 1…”
🎶 Mood-Based Playlist AI → Pivots from “Backyard Vibes” to “Emergency Acoustic Rainstorm” when clouds roll in
🧑🍳 Agent Assist for Cook Timing → “Flip burgers NOW” across your smart speaker network
Coming soon: LLM-powered grill that auto-flips based on AI-detected doneness. Just kidding. (But also… someone should build that.)
🧾 Postmortem Time: Retrospective by the Firepit
What went well:
✅ Nobody left hungry
✅ The playlist slapped
✅ Stakeholders (mostly) aligned on burger doneness
✅ The AI didn’t hallucinate a brisket recipe mid-party
What didn’t:
❌ Grill failed regression test
❌ Guest arrival window miscalculated by 2 hours
❌ Vegan skewers cross-contaminated (post-mortem severity: HIGH)
❌ You forgot the ice (again)
Retro metric:
Guests fed / Features shipped = 100%
Stakeholder complaint volume: 📉 YoY improvement by 17%
🎁 Bonus: The PM’s BBQ Retrospective Checklist
Because what’s a launch without a retro?
✅ What Went Well
Food was hot (eventually)
Stakeholders left with full stomachs
No major outages (burns, broken grills, rain-apocalypse)
AI suggestions were actually helpful!
❌ What Needs Improvement
Propane planning (again…)
Vegan cousin’s needs scoped too late
Too many overlapping tools: Google Sheets, Slack, DMs, smoke signals
No one used the AI-generated “Hot Dog Load Balancer”
🛠️ Action Items
Create a reusable BBQ GPT that adjusts based on guest list and dietary prefs
Make a checklist that reminds you to check the grill before lighting it
Establish single source of truth (no more 3 competing shopping lists)
Document grill setup. Apparently, “wing it” is not scalable
💡 Ideas for Next Year
Add “fire risk” as a stakeholder
Use AI image generation to mock up plate visuals
Build a predictive bratwurst consumption model
Consider merging with neighbor Steve’s BBQ for “scale”
🔥 Final Thoughts
Let’s be honest—your product instincts will kick in no matter how hard you try to relax. But that’s okay. Product management is about adapting to chaos, balancing priorities, managing humans (and grills), and delighting your users.
Even if those users are just hungry friends asking for seconds.
So this July 4th, embrace the chaos, let AI handle the logistics, and enjoy the moment. The best BBQs—like the best products—are the ones where everyone walks away full, happy, and excited to come back next year.
🧨 Happy Independence Day from the Product Journey team! 🎇
P.S. - Got your own BBQ retro template? Reply with it—I’m building a template marketplace, and your mess might inspire someone else's masterpiece.
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