Managing Dependencies in Practice (or why your roadmap is lying to you) | Anna Hannemann| PT Cologne

Dependencies often get blamed for slowing teams down, but are they really the problem?
In this ProductTank Cologne talk, Anna Hannemann shares practical insights from leading a portfolio of 12 product teams, challenging the way we think about dependencies in product organizations.
Instead of avoiding them, Anna explores how to make dependencies visible, manageable, and even valuable.
In this talk, you’ll learn how to:
Treat dependencies as first-class citizens in your roadmap
Regain alignment after strategic pivots
Identify and surface dependency risks early—without relying on leadership escalation
Introduce WIP limits at a portfolio level to reduce overload and improve flow
This session is especially relevant for Product Managers, Product Leaders, and anyone working in complex, multi-team environments.
About the Speaker: Anna Hannemann is Head of Product for Warehouse Systems at Picnic Technologies, where she drives innovation in automated fulfillment and supply chain systems. She brings extensive experience in leading large-scale product and data teams and is an active contributor to the product community as a co-organizer of ProductTank Düsseldorf.
→ See upcoming ProductTank Cologne events here: https://www.meetup.com/producttank-cologne/