As a way to learn myself (by sharing what I have learnt đ ) , I am going to make notes on all my key learnings as a Product Manager.
So I am starting this series today and I am going to organise into the following categoriesâââNewbies, Business & Finance Intelligence and Product Management general practices.
Here goes my first post for Newbies â
Understand the âProblemâ . Define the âwhyâ.
Many times early in my career as an engineer / developer, we used to talk about solutions. Cool Features. Cool new technologies.
Not problems they were going to solve.
Define the problems and make them the most important guiding light. It could be problems of a user segment, or specific business problems. These problems should guide the solution.
Why ?
If you are very clear about the problem, comparing solutions would become easy.
Calculating ROI (return on investment) of a particular solution is going to be easy.
Validating the solution is going to be easy. You can ask/ validate whether this solution is solving the original problem you set out to solve.
So, very very clearly define the problem a product / feature is going to solve.
Your solutions might keep changing but the problem wouldnât / shouldnât unless its not a valid problem at all.
How ?
Step 1: Talk to people. Become a user yourself.
When you talk to people, they wouldnât usually tell you their real problem directly. So talk to a lot of people and make your own notes on what is underlying common theme. Whats the underlying real issue at the symptoms people are describing.
Hint: Empathizing with users and the ability to get into their shoes is a key skill you would need. (So work on that.)
Step 2: Then write your conclusion about the problem down. Validate that written definition with the users.
Step 3: If users agree, you now have a defined problem. If not, go back to step 1.
And next time if you have to compare two existing apps in the market, or two solutions, donât compare their features, compare how well they solve a given set of problems in their order of priority.