product management - building products your customers love

Product ManagementBuilding Products Our Customers Love

Nathan RhodesDirector of ProductProduct Owner: Platformnrhodes@vendasta.com

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