Day 2 : Product

Management

1 of 20 © Copyright 2020 Dell Inc.

Recap

2 of 20 © Copyright 2020 Dell Inc.

2 Days Agenda
Day 1 – Overview
Introduction
● Evolution of Product Management
● Product Manager Role
Product Journey
● Product Vision
● Problem Space
○ Product Discovery
○ User Research
○ Personas
○ User Journey
● Solution Space
○ Prioritization
○ Roadmap
○ Backlog & Stories
○ Lean MVP
○ Lean Experiement
○ Measures & KPI
Day 2 – Hands On Post Workshop
Recap from Day 1
● Form Product Groups
Product Journey
● Problem Space ● Product Discovery Lifecycle
○ Product Discovery
○ User Research
○ Personas ● Presentation
○ User Journey
● Solution Space
○ Prioritization
○ Roadmap
○ Backlog & Stories
○ Lean MVP
○ Measures & KPI
Project Problem Statement
3 of 20 © Copyright 2020 Dell Inc.
Evolution of Product Management

1950s
2XXXs

• “Toyota Production 1970s • What next?

2000s
1930s System”
• Lean principles
(Kaizen, Go-Gemba,
Muda, Mura, Muri, • Waterfall approach • “Agile Manifesto”
Jidoka, Hansei) • Helped 1990s
• “Lean Software
• “Brand Man” by Specialization Development” by
Neil McElroy at • Late feedback, no Poppendieck
P&G customer focus (Eliminate waste, Build
• Design Thinking by quality in, Create
Tim Brown of IDEO knowledge, Defer
• Double Diamond commitment, Deliver
fast, Respect people,
framework Optimize whole)
(Empathize, Define,
Ideate, Prototype, Test)
What Does PM Do ?

The PM leads a team to discover and deliver a

product that creates measurable value for their
company and users.
They will identify what the team should build next and
why by extracting the best available information from
business stakeholders and end users.
Roles in a Product Team Product Managers:
• leads a team
• to discover and deliver a product that
creates measurable value
• for their company and users
• identifies with the team what they should
build next and why
Architect • by extracting the best available
information
Product • from business stakeholders and end
Manager users.

Program
Manager Product
Designer
Product Managers are Not:
• “The Boss”
Engineers • An expert in all things
• The true user (but is an advocate of the
user)
Engineering • Solely responsible for team success
Manager • A project manager
• Someone who has to be technical
Lean Startup Principles
Build

Lean is a product methodology

designed to decrease risk
and reduce waste through
constant validated learning.
Learn Measure
Stages of Product Journey
Opportunity Space

Product
Vision

Problem Space

Product User User

Personas
Discovery Research Journey

Solution Space

Backlog & Measures

Prioritization Roadmap Lean MVP
Stories & KPIs
Product Vision
Product Discovery
 Product User User
Personas
Discovery Research Journey

Discovery
Product discovery is a method of deeply
understanding your customers to develop products
that perfectly suit their needs. It’s a critical stage in
the product design process because if companies do
not accurately prove or disprove their assumptions
about their customers, they may waste time building
products that nobody needs.
 Product User User
Personas
Discovery Research Journey

The three steps of product

discovery
● Challenge your assumptions
● Conduct empirical user research
● Create Artifacts
 Product User User
Personas
Discovery Research Journey
User Research
 Product User User
Personas

Why research users?

Discovery Research Journey

User research can be leveraged in a variety of ways, ranging from discovering new
business opportunities, to ensuring that products being developed are meeting
needs.

● Keep us from guessing

● Gather information
● Avoid solving for ourselves
● Ensure we aren’t building the
wrong thing
Types of research
Product User User
Personas
Discovery Research Journey

Quantitative Qualitative
● Usability test ● Surveys
● Heat Map ● User interview
● Log Files ● Contextual inquiry
● Analytic data ● Ethnographic study
● A/B test ● Card sorting
● Multivariate test ● Focus groups

What users are doing… Why users are doing it…

User Inteviews
Interviewing users
Some things to keep in mind when preparing and running user interviews:

● Non-leading questions
● Validate/Invalidate hypothesis
● Interview isn’t a to-do list
● New product ideas
● 2+ people to conduct
● Develop large question set then
sub-select based on research
goals
Interview Synthesis
Tips for Interview Synth
Keep the following in mind when synthesizing qualitative insights/problems:

● Look for action verbs

● Synthesize every 2-3 users
● Groups of similar users make a
cohort (5-6)
● Identify patterns
● Blend with quantitative data (when
available)
2x2
How to work with 2x2s
As Individuals
1. Place items individually, without discussion.
2. Do a quiet read.
As a Group
3. Ask questions to understand.
4. Negotiate placement of items in question.
5. Stack up duplicates (only one showing).
6. Nothing on a line - be decisive.
7. Migrate half of the items to below the line.
8. Stack rank the items above the line.
Activity
Let’s prioritize the top problems to solve for your customer.

identify your Top 3 objectives based on frequency and pain:

Easy to Deliver

Lower
Higher Impact
Impact

Hard to Deliver
 work in your group
Activity
Let’s find solutions to your customer’s top problem.
Take your top 3 solution ideas on the 2x2 to help with prioritization:
More important to users
and business

Harder to Easier to
deliver deliver

Less important to users

and business
Personas
Persona example
Product User User
Personas
Discovery Research Journey

Behaviors (as a result of the problem)

Shelly
Spends too much time getting tickets
and food at the movie theater
• Tries to arrives 15 min before the movie begins
• Brings video games to keep kids happy in line
• Doesn’t go to movies as often as she’d like

Demographics Goals / Problems / Needs

• Lives in the suburbs
• Does not use public transportation
• 10laks a year dual income family
• 2 kids
• Loves to spend time with her kids at movies
• Loves popcorn
• Kids get antsy in line
• Wants to give kids healthy snacks, but they
want candy
User Journey
Understanding the user journey
Product User User
Personas
Discovery Research Journey
Roadmap
Product Roadmap

Your roadmap communicates how you intend to

realize your strategy. It aligns the product work to
overarching business goals and helps
communicate the current and future state of your
product

Current : This is work you are doing now.

Near Term : This is work coming up soon.
Future : This is work you’re thinking of doing but need to research more.
 Backlog & Measures &
Prioritization Roadmap Lean MVP

Product Roadmap
Stories KPIs

A product roadmap is a shared source of truth that outlines the vision, direction, priorities, and
progress of a product over time.
User Story
What is a user story?

A user story defines the who, what and why of the functionality being built.

It uses clear, unambiguous and non-technical language to communicate a value-

adding outcome for a user.

Stories are an invitation for a conversation.

Lean MVP
What is a MVP ?

A Product that includes only

the necessary functionalities
that allows a company to
release to the market to
validate the idea and get
early feedback to avoid
doubling down on the wrong
path
“MVP is the version of a new product which allows a
team to collect the maximum amount of validated
learning about customers with the least effort”
-Eric Ries
Case Study – Dropbox
What was the problem risk for Dropbox? The problem was that they had to make sure there is a large number
of people who had a very specific problem: multiple devices with which they wanted to access the same files.

To answer the question whether customers would want to use and pay for their file sync solution, Houston and
his team had to “get out of the building” and put their proposed user experience in front of real users for
feedback. They created a 3-minute video for DropBox in order to walk people through the product. The video
alone drove hundreds of thousands of people to the website. DropBox beta waiting list went from 5,000 people
to 75,000 people literally overnight.

At Startup Lessons Learned, Drew summed up his experience with one single slide that says:

● Biggest risk: making something no one wants

● Not launching > painful, but not learning > Fatal
● Put something in users hands (doesn’t have to be a code) and get real feedback ASAP
● Know where your target audience hangs out & speak to them in an authentic way
Day 2
Lean Experiment
 Backlog & Measures &
Prioritization Roadmap Lean MVP
Stories KPIs

What is Lean Experiment ?

We live in a world of uncertainty, and it is important that we

make informed decisions rather then relying on
assumptions and biases to make decisions. Lean
experiments enables us to challenge the limits of what we
know, so we can focus our direction. By doing so this
allows us to reduce risks associated with our products and
services.
 Backlog & Measures &
Prioritization Roadmap Lean MVP
Stories KPIs

Validating your experiment

The questions you should ask before you start validating your experiment are the
following

1. Validate the problem. Is this a problem worth solving?

2. Validate the market. Some users might agree that this is a problem worth
solving. But are there enough of them to make up a market for your product?
3. Validate the product / solution. The problem might exist, but does your product
actually solve it?
4. Validate willingness to pay. There might be market demand and a great
product. But will people actually be willing to reach into their wallets and pay for it?
 Backlog & Measures &
Prioritization Roadmap Lean MVP
Stories KPIs

Lean Startup : A Strategy of Minimizing Risk

The Biggest Risk in Product

Development is that we build a
product/feature no one wants

To avoid wasting months or even

years of time, money and efforts, we
continuously test our vision, starting
small and iterating.
 Backlog & Measures &
Prioritization Roadmap Lean MVP
Stories KPIs

The Scientific Method

1. Make observations

2. Formulate a hypothesis

3. Design an experiment to test the hypothesis

4. State the indicators to evaluate result of experiment

5. Conduct the experiment

6. Evaluate the results of the experiment

7. Accept or reject the hypothesis

8. If necessary, make and test a new hypothesis

 Backlog & Measures &
Prioritization Roadmap Lean MVP
Stories KPIs

Experiments
Every good experiment has four things :

• Observation – Something we can see or notice

• Hypothesis – a restatement of the assumption, to start with the works “we believe
that…”

• Test – the thing you’re going to do or build to validate the hypothesis through
empirical evidence

• Evidence – a metric that clearly shows whether your hypothesis is correct or

incorrect
 Backlog & Measures &
Prioritization Roadmap Lean MVP
Stories KPIs

Experiments Template
Observation

We have observed <This Behavior>

Hypothesis

we believe that <This capability> will result in <this outcome>

Test

We will do/Make <This test>

Evidence

We will know that our hypothesis is valid if we observe/measure <this outcome>

Measures & KPI
 Backlog & Measures &
Prioritization Roadmap Lean MVP
Stories KPIs

Metrics tell us whether we’ve made the right progress

Metrics help us determine,

ARE WE HERE? FIRST PEAK
through data, whether we OR THERE?
are where we need to be or
not.
VISION
They may also help us
CURRENT STATE
understand whether our
plan is feasible or not.
 Backlog & Measures &
Prioritization Roadmap Lean MVP
Stories KPIs

Metrics Check
 Backlog & Measures &
Prioritization Roadmap Lean MVP
Stories KPIs

KPI
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are the elements of your plan that express what you want to achieve
by when. They are the quantifiable, outcome-based statements you’ll use to measure if you’re on track to
meet your goals or objectives. Good plans use 5-7 KPIs to manage and track the progress of their plan.
The anatomy of a structured KPI includes:

➢ A Measure – Every KPI must have a measure. The best KPIs have more expressive measures.
➢ A Target – Every KPI needs to have a target that matches your measure and the time period of your
goal. These are generally a numeric value you’re seeking to achieve.
➢ A Data Source – Every KPI needs to have a clearly defined data source so there is no gray area in
how each is being measured and tracked.
➢ Reporting Frequency – Different KPIs may have different reporting needs, but a good rule to follow
is to report on them at least monthly.
Problem solving
challenge
 Product User User
Personas
Discovery Research Journey

Problem Statement
As a product manager of Tiger Healthcare Tech.
You have to create a Vaccination Portal for vaccinating people against the Rupus Virus.
Admist the Pandemic due to Rupus Virus, the impacted individuals are from the above 20
years age group over the complete stretch of India with a population of 100 crores in the
age group. The company Sigmyu Pharma has created a vaccine.
Personas
Personas
Product User User
Personas
Discovery Research Journey

Use personas to avoid solving for

yourself (you are not the customer)

• An archetype of a group of users

• Created by identifying trends in user research

• Summarizes research in digestible format

• Gives research a face and a name and helps

us empathize

• It does not represent one person

• Simple, iterative, easy to use, human, and

useful
Persona example
Product User User
Personas
Discovery Research Journey

Behaviors (as a result of the problem)

Shelly
Spends too much time getting tickets
and food at the movie theater
• Tries to arrives 15 min before the movie begins
• Brings video games to keep kids happy in line
• Doesn’t go to movies as often as she’d like

Demographics Goals / Problems / Needs

• Lives in the suburbs
• Does not use public transportation
• 10laks a year dual income family
• 2 kids
• Loves to spend time with her kids at movies
• Loves popcorn
• Kids get antsy in line
• Wants to give kids healthy snacks, but they
want candy

10 Minutes
User Journey
Journey maps
Product User User
Personas
Discovery Research Journey

• A journey map is one way of helping to define the value you can bring to a user through
understanding the emotional engagement at each touchpoint of a user’s journey

• Emotional engagement is what brings people back to a product, even if it is functional

• It is especially important when your product is used at a time of need. A bad user
experience just makes things worse

• From an existing journey, you can then design an ideal one

• Understanding a customer’s journey can help you define the value proposition for your
product
Understanding the user journey
Product User User
Personas
Discovery Research Journey
Activity
Product User User
Personas
Discovery Research Journey

What does the experience look like for your users?

Use smileys, they are universally understood

• 😀…above the line
• 😐…at the line
• 😕…below the line

10 Minutes
2x2
 work individually
Activity

Let’s find solutions to your customer’s top problem.

Think back to your problem statement, your persona, the journey

map and success measures:

• How would you solve for that?

• Take a couple of minutes to individually come up with solution
ideas

2 Minutes
 work in your group
Activity
Let’s find solutions to your customer’s top problem.
Take your top 3 solution ideas on the 2x2 to help with prioritization:
More important to users
and business

Harder to Easier to
deliver deliver

Less important to users

and business

10 Minutes
 work in your group
Activity
Let’s find solutions to your customer’s top problem.
Pick the one solution idea to start with:
More important to users
and business
Here’s where you’d
want to focus on!

Harder to Easier to
deliver deliver

Less important to users

and business

2 Minutes
User Story Writing
What is a user story?

A user story defines the who, what and why of the functionality being built.

It uses clear, unambiguous and non-technical language to communicate a value-

adding outcome for a user.

Stories are an invitation for a conversation.

What is a user story not?

A detailed description of an entire large feature set.

A prescription for a specific technical solution or implementation.
A complete set of instructions for delivery.
A description of implicit value or functionality.
Set in stone.

Stories are not requirements thrown over the fence.

Anatomy of a user story [Clear concise high level
description of functionality]

⇢ Title As a shopper
⇢ User value I want to remove items from my cart
So that I can manage items before I
⇢ Acceptance criteria
check out
⇢ Resources
Design specs Given I'm a shopper viewing my
shopping cart with an item in it
Wireframes When I click the “remove” icon next
User flow diagrams to an item
⇢ Epics Then that item should be removed
from my cart
Typically used as an optional grouping tool
Resources:

Design_file.png
Always INVEST in your stories Shopper Steve should be
able to remove items from
his shopping cart
Independent Can be released without dependencies.
As a shopper
Negotiable Ready for discussion and can be adapted I want to remove items from my cart
based on team input. So that I can manage items before I
check out
Valuable Delivers value to the end user when accepted.
Estimatible Dev team can estimate its relative complexity. Given I'm a shopper viewing my
shopping cart with an item in it
Small As small as possible while still providing real When I click the “remove” icon next
user value. to an item
Testable Contains the acceptance criteria that guides Then that item should be removed
testing and makes them verifiable. from my cart

Resources:

Design_file.png
10 Minutes
Project work
Project Problem Statement
Self Service for MyPC Limited

It’s not easy to make customers happy these days. Why, you ask? It’s because customers have become very
demanding! Customers want answers now, not tomorrow. They expect you attend to them at their
every need, without delay. And the longer it takes to respond, the more likely it is that the customer will leave.
It’s no wonder that companies are feeling overwhelmed! The reality is that customers want the same things
that you do: That is, they want their questions answered and their problems solved quickly. And what
happens if you fail to meet your customers’ expectations? They will share their complaints with hundreds, if
not, thousands of social media connections. Or worse, your happy customers will leave. So, how do you
make your customers happy? And how can you respond faster? Fortunately, there’s a solution to this. And
it’s called customer self-service.

Self-service allows you to provide online support to your customers without requiring any interaction with
a representative from your company. Consider Yourself as a Product Manager for Self Service Solutions
at MyPC Limited - A leading Laptop, Desktop and Server Seller, you have to setup the
complete self service ecosystem for the tech giant.
Project Evaluation Criteria
Stage Assessment Criteria Max Score
Vision Vision Statement 10
Product Discovery Insights from Product Discovery 10
User Research & Personas Methods used, synthesis 10
User Journey Depict user journeys for 2-3 personas 10
Prioritization Brainstorm ideas, Prioritization matrix with entries in all quadrants 10
Roadmap Examples of immediate, short-term, long-term roadmap items 10
Backlog & Stories Write stories in BDD format for first 2-3 requirements 10
Lean MVP MVP Scope and rationale 10
Lean Experiment Experiment details, hypothesis 10
Measures & KPIs Product KPIs 10

Final assessment will be done on an 8-grade scale of:

A+, A, B+, B, C+, C, D+, D, F