product management - building products your customers love
TRANSCRIPT
Product ManagementBuilding Products Our Customers Love
Nathan RhodesDirector of ProductProduct Owner: [email protected]
CONTACTCONTACT
Start with an exampleeveryone can relate to
I hate it
It took too long to build
Not very usable
Cost too much (to build the wrong thing)
Agenda1. Product Teams2. The role of a Product Manager3. Tools used in Product Management4. Exercise: Story Mapping5. How to build products that your customers will actually use6. Attributes of an effective Product Manager
Product Teams
Product Teams
A small, cross-functional, collaborative (and ideally co-located) team of empowered and accountable people focused on a clearly defined set of business objectives.
- Marty Cagan, Silicon Valley Product Group
Product Teams: StructureProduct ManagerProduct Designer (UI/UX)Product Developers
Development skillsQuality assurance skillsBusiness Analysis skills
Shared RolesScrummasterData AnalystUser ResearcherProduct Marketing
Product Teams
A small, cross-functional, collaborative (and ideally co-located) team of empowered and accountable people focused on a clearly defined set of business objectives.
- Craig Larman
Product Teams
“The Thing Right” “The Right Thing”
“Is It Usable?”
Product Teams
“The Thing Right” “The Right Thing”
“Is It Usable?”
Product Developers
Product Management
Product Design (UI/UX)
Agile Product Development
80% of all software organizations have adopted Agile practices
Agile Product Management
Finding that minimum mix of:Cost of developmentValue to the customerCan the customer use it?
Product Management
At its simplest form, Product Managers answer these three questions:1.What are we building?2.Why are we building it?3.How will we know if we’ve succeeded?
Product Management
The Product Manager Role
The team builds what’s on the product backlog, and the Product Manager is responsible for that backlog.
Two Obsolete Models
1.Two People, One Role2.One Person, Two Roles
A modern Product Manager is able to move effortlessly from talking to and observing external customers, to talking technical details with the Product Development team.
Two People, One Role
In today’s small, cross-functional, collaborative team of empowered and accountable Product Developers, a Project Manager is wasted resources.
One Person, Two Roles
Product Owner
The Product Owner is a role within Product Management. They do all of the above, plus:Prioritizes the backlogUltimately responsible for ensuring the product is
successful
What Do PM’s Contribute?
The Product Manager Contributes
Deep Knowledge ofThe Customer
Acknowledged expert in Vendasta’s users and customers
The Product Manager Contributes
Deep Knowledge ofThe Data
Acknowledged expert on product data
The Product Manager Contributes
Deep Knowledge ofThe Business
Business model, dynamics, stakeholder considerations
The Product Manager Contributes
Deep Knowledge ofThe Industry
Competitors and trends
The Product Manager Contributes
Reference CustomersObsesses over happy, referenceable customers
Product Discovery Tools
Product Discovery TechniquesIdeationOpportunity AssessmentsCustomer DiscoveryStory MappingMVP TestPrototypesUser TestingLive Data Testing
Ideation
Product TeamsObserving Users“Customer Misbehavior”Hack DaysData Spelunking
Opportunity Assessment
Framing Product Discovery:What problem are you trying to solve?Who are you solving the problem for?How will you know if you have succeeded?
Customer Discovery
Discovery and cultivate a group of reference customers in parallel with discovering and developing the product.
Customer Discovery
Product Market Fit
Defined as, “the smallest possible product that meets the needs of the Early Adopters.”
But, Product Market Fit is just the beginning...
Story Mapping
A technique to visualize and deconstruct the big picture of a problem or solution.Provides shared understandingFinds holes in your thinkingFrames prototype or release scopeImproves planning and estimating
MVP Testing: Demand Testing
Landing Page TestingFake Door TestingVideo TestingKickstarter Testing
MVP Testing: Solution Testing
Concierge TestingWizard of Oz TestingPrototyping
Solution MVP Testing: Prototyping
Feasibility PrototypesUser PrototypesLive-Data Prototypes
Story Mapping Exercise
Exercise: Story Mapping
Lessons learned:Provides shared understandingFinds holes in your thinkingFrames prototype or release scopeImproves planning and estimating
What would I have done differently?
What would I have done differently?Do some Customer Discovery
What would I have done differently?Do some Customer DiscoveryIdentified every type of user (customer)
What would I have done differently?Do some Customer DiscoveryIdentified every type of user (customer)Test usability, before it is built
What would I have done differently?Do some Customer DiscoveryIdentified every type of user (customer)Test usability, before it is builtUnderstand Minimum Viable Product
What would I have done differently?Do some Customer DiscoveryIdentified every type of user (customer)Test usability, before it is builtUnderstand Minimum Viable ProductBuild it (and open to the public) in stages
Additional Learning1. Build Great Product: “Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love” - Marty Cagan
2. Building a Successful Product Business: “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” - Ben Horowitz
3. “Fail Fast” Startups: “The Lean Startup” - Eric Ries
4. Rapid Prototyping: “Video on Rapid Prototyping and Product Management” - Tom Chi, Google X
5. Product Vision & Leadership: “Start With Why” - Simon Sinek
6. SaaS Analytics: “Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster” - Alistair Croll & Banjamin Yoskovitz
7. Saas Analytics (2nd to Alistair Croll’s): “Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data” - Charles Wheelan
8. User Story Mapping: “User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product” - Jeff Patton
9. Lean UX: “UX for Lean Startups: Faster, Smarter User Experience Research and Design” - Laura Klein
10. Qualitative Testing: “The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems" - Steve Krug
11. Scaling: “The Art of Scalability: Scalable Web Architecture, Processes, and Organizations for the Modern Enterprise” - Martin Abbott & Michael Fisher
12. Product Culture: “How Google Works” - Eric Schmidt
13. Management (recommended by Ben Horowitz): “High Output Management” - Andy Grove
PM Blogs to Follow
Silicon Valley Product Group: svpg.comMind the Product: mindtheproduct.com