Series - Product Sense - article 2
Introduction
In this article, I am going to share about What you need for Developing Product Sense. In continuation to the earlier article, which was on What is Product Sense, we are going to see about the areas, skills, and capabilities required to build product sense.
Core Skills of a Product Management People
Based on my experience, a product management people and/or a product manager needs these skills as UX/UI, Empathy, Collaboration, Technology, Execution, Product Sense, communication etc. Among all these skills, I would say that Communication and Product Sense are the major skills that helps us to remain in the product sense.
Image - Core Skills of a Product people / manager
How does this "Product Sense" comes in picture?
In many organization, product people work build their product sense capability using major areas as - product strategy, product design and product improvement.
Product Strategy - Product strategy refers to a high-level plan and approach that guides the development, positioning, and growth of a product or a portfolio of products. It outlines the direction, goals, and key decisions that shape the development and lifecycle of a product. A well-defined product strategy aligns with the overall business objectives and ensures that the product meets the needs of the target market while delivering value to customers and achieving business success.
Product Design - Product design refers to the process of creating and developing a product that meets the needs of users while aligning with business objectives. It involves the strategic and creative decision-making required to shape the form, functionality, and overall user experience of a product. A well-executed product design considers aesthetics, usability, functionality, and manufacturability to create a successful and desirable product.
Product Improvement - Product improvement refers to the process of enhancing an existing product to address user feedback, fix issues, and add new features or functionalities. It aims to make the product more valuable, user-friendly, and competitive in the market. Continuous product improvement is essential to meet evolving user needs, stay ahead of the competition, and drive customer satisfaction.
Product sense is one of the core part of the Product Management practice skills which stays in the problem space.
Image - Problem Space and Solution Space - where do we see Product Sense
To build and improve your skills and experience on product sense:
start thinking and building towards a journey from a broader problem to building right product
spend most of the time in the problem space to understand about problem, user, pain, gain, challenges etc.
Remaining in problem space will help you to know about Why, What, Who, How?
Identify the problem? can you able to define / articulate a larger / ambiguous problem?
will you be able to narrow down the problem?
After breakdown / narrow down, will you able to identify core challenge ?
Which user / customer?
Are you empathetic with the users?
What are the metrics involved?
Which metrics you will consider ?
Prioritization?
Is there a enough reason to get buy-in for go or no-go?
Do you have awareness about the trade-offs involved?
What about scaling?
Example for building your Product Sense
Scenario 1: Product Improvement areas - for this, you can start building concepts considering any product or solution as product to build your understanding and hypothesis.
Which product? identify a product
How often do you use that on a daily basis
What would you like to improve product ABC?
How to answer on these questions?
Start building your answer by using an approach considering:
Approach - Start with a way to make sure that you understand the product correctly and also define what specific business metric you trying to improve. Eventually, you can focus on defining the target user for which we want to improve the product and brainstorm what additional user problems we could solve. And lastly, you as a product people can generate solutions for these narrow downed problems, make a prioritisation considering factors to decide and then, and make a recommendation.
For an example - Let's take few questions to understand improvement areas:
What would you improve in Facebook / Meta?
How would you improve AirBnb?
How would you improve Netflix?
What would would you like to improve in LinkedIn's user profile page?
Do you use Google Products? If yes, choose a Google product. How would you improve it?
Choose any of your favourite app from daily usage. How would you improve it?
Let's take example of Google Maps: Herein, I am sharing my approach for working towards improvement as part of product improvement.
A. Google Maps purpose:
Allows user to perform a search from point A to point B
allows user to perform a search from point A to Point B and add point C in search
While performing search, it provides various commute options as car, walking, motorcycle, public transport and flight
Google maps are used in various apps as OLA, Uber, Rapido, Porter etc.
Maps has a feature to make search for restaurants, nearby places, fuel station etc.
In summary - it has 3 major areas which are performed:
General Mapping
Navigation
Discovery and information gathering with the point of interest areas
Note - Now think yourself as a user how do you use Google maps frequently. For me, I use Google maps frequently for following areas:
Navigation while driving
Search for Paid Car Parking space
Search for specific search for restaurant and distance
As per me, I do more search for paid car parking space is a challenge in many areas as Koramangala, MG Road, Commercial Street, Bannerghatta etc.
Reaching to the location and searching for a parking takes a lot of time
I do not see any real time parking slots solution easily
As a competition, I can see other competitions as ParkSpot which shares space as renting for month wise, not hour wise and majorly it seems like they are in Parking Leasing as monthly pay model.
Narrow down your problem areas and create user segment, build your clarity; consider yourself as a peer discussion and clarify :
- Any Specific Pain Point to address, OR,
Is it to improve an existing feature
Add a new feature to improve the product overall
Improve a platform (Web/Mobile)
Any specific persona
Improve a specific user segment?
Improve a goal: User Aquisition, User Engagement, Monetisation etc.
I believe, parking as a feature - PAID can create a new segment. How?
1. encourages parking lot owners to list their property / slots in google maps
2. helps users who are searching for car parking to get easy information
Transaction: We can leverage GooglePay as a payment mechanism using QR codes
Navigation: Google Maps AI can help user to navigate easily
Monetisation: We can take certain % cut and focus on volume and scale.
Conclusion
You can build you concepts and thinking as part of product sense as:
Think as Build, Integrate, Existing product and its' Reusability
What is the bigger problem?
Is that a problem or seems like a Wishlist?
Is that problem is bigger enough?
Are you aligned to the org?
Who are the users / persona?
What would be the scaling way?
How will you monetise?
About the Author
Anubhav Sinha is a Co-founder as well as the course developer of the Product Capability Uplift. In this role, Anubhav leads the development of the PMA as well as works as the product thinker of the Product Capability Uplift PMA.
Anubhav Sinha is a product coach, a product management practitioner and technology product geek with around one and half decade of the product management and development experience that ranges widely in the B2B and B2IB product space. He is known for contributing and creating products majorly in the start-up space, helping start-ups in their early stages and contributing industry product organisations as user-experience flow optimiser. He had served industry as Principal Product Owner [co-founder], Product and Design Thinking Coach, Product Owner and Transformation Coach.
Anubhav holds a Post-Graduation in Marketing - IB and Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical and Electronics.
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