Product Management
47 flashcards · Other · by claudehsu
What is "vision"?
"Vision" refers to the overarching, long-term strategic goal or objective for the product being developed. It encapsulates the "why" behind the product.
Recall the Product Vision Board
Practically, how do we fill in each section of Product Vision Board
Vision: use a brief statement or slogan Target Group: who are the users and customers? Needs: why people will want to use a product or pay for it? What success looks like for the users and customers. Product: summarize 3 to 5 features(not listing lots of features. Stick to max of 5) that make your product stand out and that are critical for its success. Business Goals: state the desired business benefits, for instance, increase revenue, enter a new market, reduce cost, develop the brand, or acq…
Recall Lean Canvas by Ash Maurya
Recall the idea behind the Lean Canvas
Why Ash used Problem to replace the component in Business Model Canvas?
Most startups fail, not because they fail to build what they set out to build but because they waste time, money, and effort in building the wrong product. Once you understand the problem, you are then in the best position to define a possible solution.
Why Ash used Metrics to replace the component in Business Model Canvas?
Startups often drown in a sea of numbers in an attempt to bring order to the chaos of uncertainty. At any given point in time, though, there are only a few key actions (or key macro metrics) that matter. "A startup can only focus on one metric. So you have to decide what that is and ignore everything else." - Noah Kagan Initially, these key metrics should center around your value metrics, and later they shift toward your key engines of growth.
Can we leave Unfair Advantage blank?
Ash was cognizant of the fact that few startups have a true unfair advantage on day one, which means this box would be blank. "A true unfair advantage is something that cannot be easily copied or bought." - Jason CohenThis encourages you to work towards finding/building your unfair advantage. Once a startup achieves some level of initial success, competitors and copy-cats will inevitably enter the market. If you don't have a defense against them, you stand a real risk of being made extinct by t…
What is Impact Mapping and why we use it?
A visual technique, similar to mind-mapping, popularized by Gojko Adzic in his Impact Mapping book in 2012. Impact maps help delivery teams and stakeholders visualise roadmaps, explain how deliverables connect to user needs, and communicate how user outcomes relate to higher level organisational goals.
What does an Impact Map look like? Recall the diagram
Explain the components of an Impact Map
Goal: at the heart of the map, the Why of the work being done Actors: ppl or groups who can influence the goal, the Who of the work Impacts: options(or actions/activities) for achieving (or frustrating) the goal, the How of the work Deliverables: things that need to be done to deliver on the impacts, the What of the work
Can Actors be something other than people?
Yes, Actors can even be Systems(you may have system interaction) Processes A group of an organization
How to understand the concept of Impacts component?
It answers the following questions: How should our actors' behavior change? How can they help us to achieve the goal? How can they obstruct or prevent us from succeeding?
What is the sequence Mark Dalgarno found works well?
Goals, then Impacts, then Actors, then Deliverables works well bc ppl often have good idea about possible Impacts.
Can I only make a portion of the Impact Map?
Yes. You don't have to fully flesh out the map — you can do just enough to guide your work for the next increment. This agile approach to fleshing out the map works well with the cadence of an agile delivery team.
Recall the example of Increasing School Sign-Up by minimum of 20%
What are the consistent themes that unite the work of Product Manager across job titles, industries, business models, and company sizes?
have lots of responsibilities, but little authority if it needs to get down, it's part of your job you are in the middle of everything, like translating between business needs and user goals, mediating conflicts between engineers and designers, connecting high-level company strategy with day-to-day product decisions
What is NOT product management?
you are not the boss, or mini-CEO. For you to meet the responsibility, you are entirely dependent upon the trust and hard work of your team. you are not actually building the product yourself. Product management is likely to teach you difficult yet important lessons about trust, collaboration, and delegation. you cannot wait around until somebody tells you what to do. It is your job to identify, evaluate, prioritize, and address anything that might affect your team’s ability to deliver on its g…
Recall the profile of a Great Product Manager.
People who like to solve interesting problems learn new things work with smart people One interesting approach to identify those people is to interview with ppl in an organization and ask the to draw out a diagram of how information travels within the company, not a formal org chart, just as an informal sketch of how people communicate with each other. Without fail, a few people continuously show up smack in the middle.
Recall the profile of a Bad Product Manager
Jargon Jockey: intimidate others with jargon so that they get power and control Steve Jobs Acolyte: tend to be very critical of other people's ideas, often saying that they are "not visionary" or that they are "building a faster horse." Hero Product Manager:The Hero Product Manager is not particularly interested in hearing why this idea might not work, or that it’s already been discussed and explored a million times. The Overachiever:revered by company leadership as a go-getter who can deliver…
When you feel insecure, you may become one kind of those Bad Product Manager. In that case, what do you do to mitigate?
Talk to your team and see what you can do to better contribute to their success. But don't let insecurity turn you into a bad product manager. Truly believe that team success is your own success.
Do I need to work like 60 hours a week to be a Product Manager?
No. Set boundaries and prioritize the time. The idea that long hours are an inextricable part of the job discourages talented people from learning how to prioritize their time and set reasonable and healthy expectations for their teams.
If there are multiple ADPR(ambiguously descriptive product role) roles on the team, what should you do?
Work with them to align on your shared goals and figure out how best to work together toward achieving those goals.
Recall the Venn diagram of the Product Management
The intersection of business, tech and UX There may be variation on this. e.g. sometimes UX is replaced with design people.
How does Natalia comment on the belief that a single product manager must possess all the skills and knowledge of a developer, a designer, and a business analyst?
Fallacy. Product is at the intersection of UX, Tech and Business, but it doesn't mean we have to have all the answers or be experts in any one or all three of those. The skills required to be a designer, a developer, or a business analyst can be very different from the skills required to crate alignment among designers, developers, and business analyst.
Based on Natalia's point of view, what is product manager supposed to do with different roles like developers, designers, business analyst, stakeholders, etc.
To connect them and create alignment.
What does CORE skill model mean by Natalia to be a successful product manager, connecting and aligning whoever s/he work with on a day-to-day basis?
Communicate with the stakeholders Organize the product team for sustainable success Research the needs and goals of the product's users Execute the day-to-day tasks required for the product team to meet its goals
Regarding to Communication in the CORE model. What is the guiding principle? Clarity over comfort
Great product managers not only tolerate, but actively enjoy, the challenge of creating alignment and understanding between different people with different experiences and perspectives
As a product manager, how to deal with discomfort?
Product manager cannot fear discomfort; s/he must actively work through it to get clarity for yourself and your team.
Recall some questions that you can ask yourself to evaluate your communication skills
Am I asking the necessary questions and facilitating the necessary conversations to make sure my team has clarity on what we're doing and why? Am I proactively reaching out to other product teams and managers if I believe that coordination will help deliver better user and business outcomes? Am I responding promptly and thoughtfully to stakeholders who reach out to me? When exploring potential solutions, am I consistently presenting multiple options and walking stakeholders through trade-offs f…
Regarding to Organization in the CORE model. What is the guiding principle? Make yourself obsolete
Not all individuals who excel as individual communicators are naturally gifted organizers. Product managers who lack organization skills are happy to hear questions like “What should we be working on right now?” because these questions put the product manager in the utterly indispensable role of guiding the team’s day-to-day priorities and decisions.
How to understand 'Make yourself obsolete'?
The drive to make oneself obsolete is counterintuitive to many product managers, especially those who seek recognition for their individual efforts. But the best product managers are secure in the understanding that those individual efforts are most impactful when they empower the entire team.
Recall a few questions to evaluate your organization skills
If I were to go on vacation for a month, would my team have the information and process in place to prioritize and deliver? If I were to ask anybody on the team, 'what are you working on and why' would they have immediate and consistent answers? If somebody on any other tam wanted to know what my team was working on, would they be able to easily access that information in an up-to-date, understandable format?
Regarding to Research in the CORE model. What is the guiding principle? Live in your user's reality
Product managers who lack research skills might be able to hit their deadline, but they are constantly playing catch-up with their market and their users.
How to understand 'Live in your user's reality'?
Product managers need to understand not only how users interact with their product, but also how the product fits into users' broader reality. When evaluating a competitor's product, they ask 'what might this product mean to our users? How can we achieve feature parity?'
Recall a few questions to evaluate your research skills
Is my team learning directly from our users/customers at least once a week? Is every product decision my team makes informed by both business goals and user needs? Do the users needs and goals articulated by my team actually reflect the needs and goals of our users, or just what the business wants those needs and goals be?
Regarding to Execution in the CORE model. What is the guiding principle? All efforts in service of outcomes
Product managers who lack execution skills fail to connect their day-to-day efforts with the actual purpose of their team’s work. They get bogged down in the sheer volume of stuff they have to do, focusing on effort without outcomes. Or they get distracted by chasing the perfect product to build or metric to measure, focusing on outcomes without effort.
Recall a few questions you can ask yourself to evaluate your execution skills
Is my team starting with the customer and business impact we seek to drive, as opposed to starting with features and retroactively justifying them by estimating impact? Are my team's strategic goals and objectives front and center during tactical conversations and activities(like Sprint planning, story writing, etc.)? Am I prioritizing my own time in way that reflects the goals and priorities of my team? If I don't have the capacity to do the work that my team needs without burning myself out,…
What about hard skills like programming skill, querying database, doing data analysis as a Product Manager?
The best product managers are just as curious about technical concepts as they are about nontechnical concepts. As a Product Manager, you don't have to be an expert of coding/testing. Even if you don’t self-identify as a “technical” person, avoid saying things like “I’m not a technical person, so I could never understand that!” Trust in your own ability to learn and grow.
Creating clarity for yourself and your team will require navigating a lot of uncomfortable conversations. How to understand that?
Learn to treat discomfort as a valuable signal of potential misalignment, not as something to be avoided or minimized.
What's answer to the question how Product Managers can earn the trust of developers, or data scientists, or compliance officers or other people given by Natalia?
Take a genuine interest in the work that they do. "I’m curious to learn more about the work that you do“ is the most powerful sentence at your disposal as a Product Manager.
Recall the three critical things you can accomplish by reaching out to your colleagues from a place of openness and genuine curiosity:
Understand 'hard skills' contextually. Learn more by asking those people who are working on the org tasks, instead of reading a book yourself. Build bridges before you need something If you only talk to people when you need something from them, nobody will be particularly happy to hear from you. Build relationships with people before you need something from them. Expand your network of trust. The people you reach out to each have their own networks of trust. By reaching out to folks in your org…
Which mindset does Natalia recommend? growth fixed
The growth mindset. People operating with a growth mindset are able to approach skills and subject matter that are new to them as an opportunity to, well, grow.
If curiosity is the single most important quality for product managers to demonstrate, what's the opposite of curiosity? Answer: defensiveness
What are the concrete things that can help you manage the impulse to go on the defensive?
Provide options, not arguments. The best product managers Natalia work with never have to say no—they just provide a set of options and help their teams (and especially their team and company leadership) choose the best one according to their goals and objectives. If you feel compelled to do something out of anxiety or defensiveness, write it down and re-approach it the next day. Habit: taking a deep breath and writing down any anxiety-fueled actions you feel compelled to take, then revisiting…
How to avoid the innocuous-seeming 'why' questions?
Reframe “Why?” questions as open and genuine “Could you show me how?” questions. For example, I tend to have much better conversations when I say something like “That looks awesome! Could you show me how your team came up with the idea?” as opposed to “Why are you building that?”
Why saying “I’m too busy right now” is a very dangerous sentence for product managers? How to overcome that?
If your colleagues are taking the time to come to you with questions and thoughts, however trivial those questions and thoughts might seem, encourage that behavior.Be confident in the knowledge that time spent learning from your colleagues is time well spent.