Product Management Introduction

Introduction

• A product is a software application or service that solves a specific customer need or problem.
• There are three product application types: Desktop, Web, and Mobile.
• Desktop applications run on a desktop/laptop.
• Web applications operate through a web browser.
• Mobile applications run on mobile devices.

The PM Role Disciplines

• The PM (Product Manager) role intersects UX, Tech, and Business.
• A PM should have communication skills, creativity, strategic thinking, analytical skills and design thinking.
• PM also requires Prioritization, decision making, tech-oriented skills.
• A PM job is:
  • To be efficient in presentations to communicate effectively with internal/external stakeholders.
  • A PM has a strong technical orientation and can understand complex technical concepts and technologies.
  • Possesses passion for building great user experiences and pays attention to details, UX, and design.
  • Analytical and experienced in working with both qualitative and quantitative insights to drive product decisions
  • Demonstrates leadership skills with the ability to motivate and inspire diverse groups of individuals.

Product Management Pillars

• The pillars of product management include Why? (a need/pain), What? (product requirements, prioritization, measurement), Who? (clients), Where? (market and business domain), and When? (planning, release).

Market Analysis

• There are four terms for market analysis: Need, Problem, Target Market, and Market Opportunity.
• Need refers to a consumer requirement addressed by a product.
• Problem is a specific challenge, issue, or difficulty that a consumer encounters and seeks to resolve.
• Target Market is a group of customers selected by a company to sell to.
• Market opportunity is a chance for a business to meet unfulfilled needs or capitalize on emerging trends, that lead to potential growth and success.
• Product Market Fit is the point where a product perfectly matches the needs and preferences of its target market, leading to strong customer satisfaction, demand, and adoption.

Environmental Analysis (PEST Framework)

• PEST Framework is a strategic framework used to analyze and evaluate external macro-environmental factors.
• Political factors include government policies, regulations, and stability (e.g., government stability, rule of majority, taxation policy, levels of corruption, ease of doing business).
• Economic factors include inflation, exchange rates, and economic conditions (e.g., stage of business cycle, impact of globalization, labor costs, changes in economic environment).
• Social factors include societal norms, demographics, and cultural shifts (e.g., population growth, gender & ethnic diversity, health & education, social welfare, economic disparity).
• Technological factors include innovations and technological advancements (e.g., R&D activity, impact of emerging technologies, technology transfer, technology diffusion, technology disruption).

Market Size

• Market Size is market volume (# of deals, deals size $$$) today and in the feature.
• It measures current and future market volume (deals, revenue).
• Example: The Public Safety Drone Market is projected to grow from USD 1.1B (2023) to USD 2.0B (2028) with a CAGR of 13%.

Market Trends

• Market Trends refers to a direction in which a market is heading, reflects changes in consumer preferences, technology, economy, regulations, or competition.
• Reflects changes in consumer preferences, technology, and competition.
• Example: Streaming market trends include content diversification, global expansion, and interactive streaming.

Market Opportunity

• Market Opportunity refers to a chance for a business to meet unfulfilled needs or capitalize on emerging trends, ultimately leading to potential growth and success.
• Identifies unmet needs or trends that can lead to growth and success.
• Example: Integrated Urban Counter-Drone Systems for densely populated areas.

Sales Analysis

• Sales Analysis refers to gaining insights into sales performance and identifying trends, patterns, and areas of strength and weakness in their sales strategy.
• Tracks KPIs, such as customer acquisition, retention, churn rates, revenue, and profitability.

Market Segmentation

• Market Segmentation refers to the process of dividing a larger market into distinct and homogeneous subgroups of consumers or businesses based on shared characteristics, behaviors, or needs.
• It divides a market into distinct subgroups for better targeting.
  • Types includes:
    • Demographic: Age, gender, income.
    • Geographic: Location-based segmentation.
    • Psychographic: Lifestyle, interests, values.
    • Behavioral: Lifestyle, interests, values.
• Example: Nike tailors products and messaging to different segments.

Competitive Analysis

• Competitive Analysis refers to the assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors and the threat they pose to our business.
  • Methods includes:
    • Customer Insight: Win/loss analysis, surveys, and anecdotal data.
    • Technology Comparison: Testing competitors' products and reviewing analyst reports.
    • Financial Performance: Analysing financial filings, growth rates, and recruitment trends.

Competitive Strategies

• Defensive (Emulation): Copy competitors' successful ideas and protect market share.
• Offensive (Leader): Innovate and differentiate to outperform competitors.
  • Red ocean vs. Blue ocean:
    • Red Ocean: Existing markets with high competition and limited growth.
    • Blue Ocean: Unexplored markets with little competition and higher growth potential.
• Competitive Analysis includes:
  • List competitors.
  • Collect data on company structure, products, marketing, and sales.
  • Analyse and formulate a competitive strategy.
  • Support sales and marketing teams with relevant insights.

SWOT Analysis

• Strengths: Unique qualities, pricing, branding, and customer service.
• Weaknesses: Pain points and areas where competitors excel.
• Opportunities: Underserved markets and emerging trends.
• Threats: New competitors, technological barriers, regulation changes.

Product-Market Fit

• Product-Market Fit refers to aligning a product with market demand to ensure customer satisfaction and growth.
  • Indicators of Fit:
    • High customer satisfaction and regular usage.
    • Willingness to pay for the product.
    • Rapid customer and revenue growth.
• Example: YouTube pivoted from a dating platform to a video-sharing site after realizing user preferences, leading to massive success.

VOC — Voice of the Customer

• VOC identifies the main customer types: B2B, B2C, B2G, and B2D.
• Explores qualitative and quantitative methods for gathering feedback.
• Introduces key customer satisfaction metrics.
• Highlights alignment of customer success with product management.
  • Customer Types:
    • B2B: Large volumes, long cycles, ROI-based. Example: Salesforce.
    • B2C: Small volumes, short cycles, PLG strategies. Example: Pinterest.
    • Hybrid (B2B & B2C): Example: Instagram (70% B2C, 30% B2B).

VOC Importance

• Validation helps assumptions and identify customer needs, expectations, and product gaps.
• Strengthens customer relationships by addressing challenges and improving product offerings.
• Example: Amazon's Customer Obsession focuses on personalized user experiences and advanced technology.

Qualitative and Quantitative Methods

• Qualitative:
  • Face-to-Face (F2F): Conferences, meetings, interviews, and focus groups.
  • Online: Surveys, webinars, in-app feedback, social media, and user forums.
  • F2F Interviews involves preparing an agenda, ask open-ended questions, actively listen, and maintain a neutral stance.
  • Avoid leading questions, defensive responses, jargon, interruptions, and rushing.
  • Includes overall satisfaction, valuable features, support, and suggests improvement (impact of COVID-19). - Quantitative: -Analytics: Product usage metrics (internal) and customer management metrics (external). -Segmentation: New vs. existing users, users by pricing plan, and churn analysis. -External Analytics Tools: Gong and ZoomInfo Chorus.
• Includes Customer Satisfaction Metrics like NPS, CSAT and retention rate
• Ensures customers derive value and satisfaction from the product, along with feedback loop for key roles.

Customer Success

• Collaboration with Product Management involves customer-centric approach, focus on product adoption, and collaboration.

Exercises

• Includes designing user stories for the following: -payments app -university class scheduling app

Requirements

• Clear and well-defined requirements are essential for developing a successful product.
• Document provides an overview of product requirements within the product development lifecycle.
• Functional and non-functional aspects, sources of requirements, and the importance of personas.

Session Objectives

• Includes an Understanding of the product development lifecycle - Identification/Documentation of product requirements - Managing APIs and technical requirements.

Product Lifecycle

• This document provides an overview of product requirements within product development lifecycle & functional aspects. - Begins with design and continues through development, testing, release, and maintenance. - Example: Alarm system design with properties time/tone/volume - Actions: add, edit, delete, enable, disable.

Product Requirements

• Describes capabilities and characteristics the product must achieve, including functionality, performance, design, and compliance. - Sources of Requirements:
• Direct customer feedback
• Market research
• Competitor analysis
• Sales team input
• Executive directives

Requirement Components

• Specification: Functional Requirements (features and functionalities) & Non-Functional Requirements (security and performance).
• Persona: Defines who will use the product - Use Case: Describes how the product will be used.

Functional Requirements

• User Functions: Activities performed by the user - Business Logic: Processes, flows, and rules - Data Management: Creation and validation of data. - Reporting and Analytics: Real-time/offline data - Notifications: User communication via email, messages, etc - External Interfaces: Interaction with other systems/services
• Example: Recurring Payments Feature

Non-Functional Requirements

• Performance: Processing time for user actions.
• Security: Authentication and encryption of personal data.
• Availability: percentage based on criticality.
• Regulatory: Compliance with industry standards.
• Requirement Guidelines require clear, consistency format, avoid vague statements and include examples - Good Requirement Example: -The payments app home screen shall display the transaction history for the past 30 days, including amounts, dates, and recipient names, sorted by date - Bad Requirement Example: - Users should find it easy to make payments.

Personas

• Help understand users' needs, behaviours, and goals. Attributes:
• Demographics: Age, family status, education, occupation, income.
• Psychographics: Interests, habits, lifestyle, values.
• Motivations: Problems the user wants to solve and their goals.

Use Case

• Represents a specific scenario where a persona interacts with a product to achieve a goal or outcome.
• Use Cases: Actor: The main or secondary users interacting with the product.
• Triggers: Events or conditions that inflate the use case.
• Main (Sunny) Flow: A step-by-step without errors or exceptions where actors interacts with the product.
• Frequency of Use: Estimate of how often the use case occurs.
• Special Requirements: Relevant constraints to the use case. Example: Alarms app - adding a New Alarm Actor: A Teenage schoolboy in Israel. Trigger: The user clicks "Add." Main Flow: User confirms the alarm details, adds/cancel without confirmation, and the new alarm is added.

User Stories

• Help visualize and define how users interact with a product to achieve specific goals.
• Product requirements into actionable tasks that clear and independent are broken down by user stories.
• Product requirements are divided into smaller units of work that describe Functionality with the end user's perspective.
• user type wants to achieve a specific outcome with the Product.

Key Characteristics of User stories

• Independent: Minimal Dependencies.
• Negotiable: Refinable with both product and development teams.
• Valuable: All stakeholders deliver value.
• Estimable: Clear for Developers.
• Small: Fit within a single development iteration.
• Testable: Clear Criteria.
  • Following guidelines like Bill Wake's INVEST principles ensures user stories are effective & can be managed easily. Example: Feature: recurring payments.

Documentation

• Provides a structured and comprehensive guide for stakeholders, ensuring everyone aligns on the product's goals, features, and success criteria. -Collaborative tools like Notion and Confluence streamline & maintain PRDs
• PRD challenges: -Time-consuming, requires collaboration within constraints. -PRD has to be updated and evolves

Product Requirements Document (PRD)

• Serves as a guide that defines products/behavior/features. Its structure includes: Overview is a brief summary of the introduction/purpose
• User's Needs & Goals describes users and their goals Product requirements details the features/functions.
• The scope is a clear indicator of what is not included. Assumptions and Constraints are impacts that affect the product.
• Success is evaluated on Measurements.

Application Programming Interface (API)

• Facilitates secure data communication between separate software system There are 2 methods of Integration: Retrieve Additional info: with exterior access to Integrations APIs may be of different Models with different price ranges
• Consume Functionality as a Service: Use API for Functionality.

Protocol

• Rest, SOAP, GraphQL, GET method: retrieves the data while the POST method: makes changes to Data.
• API is popular through services like Google: Maps, Gmail and YouTube. -OpenAI- Chat GPT -Facebook-Posts and integrating Business in WhatsApp.

API Requirements Analysis

• Confirm Functionality: ensure API & request data
• Identify the method: Select a relevant method i.e, Convert
• Request & Response: Analyzed to format input and output.
• Frequency of use: calculate
• Handle Exceptions: Manage
• Pricing: Ensure usage aligns Manage Changes: monitor API
• API found: Exchange rates API with convert the method, and potential issue.

API Requirement example

• Open Banking and Identify Verification
  • Key aspect includes to be efficient data exchange.
  • API has some documentation which allows product needs to be analyzed and meet expectations.

Agile Methodologies

• Flexible & customer-based. promotes and improves team collaboration. It is often iterative. It's objectives:
• Introduces all tools to manage.

Role of methodology

• Includes the Product Manager.
• How teams work together
• Includes daily processes and rituals. Agile requires team collaboration while the Waterfall methodology (invented by Winston W. Royce in 1970 has each phase completed before the following).
• Linear and sequential.
• In high requirements, a drawback is implemented to make changes.
• Agile includes the Manifesto
• It's suitable, adaptable, development is continuous. -Includes self-organizing teams.

Manifesto Values

 -Prioritize working software over documentation
 -Customer collaboration
 -Respond to change (Fixed)

Agile is also implemented because of the benefits of Incentives:

• More Efficiency.
• More transparent.
• Risk mitigation.

Agile methodologies Kanban

• Focuses on workflow management from continuous delivery to increase collaboration and better results.

Scrum-inspired Scrum

• Structure Role: Manager-team member -master.
  • Sprint cycles Deliverables: Eliminate Waste while delivery with more value. The framework requires key individuals to implement in projects.
• Artifacts backlog: Potentially shippable products are more likely to receive back-log.
• Daily Meetings are 15 minutes that will take place regularly. Each Sprint. member is accountable with sharing updates.
• Sprints should be reviewed and updated.

Organizational Structure

• Spotify squads are divided into team that manage focus.
• Guild: sharing community knowledge
• The Tribe: collabs between Squads. Amazon also has Teams: This is usually a small quantity with the goal of having more agility Salesforce using scrum.
• Agile is very active in workflow.

UX

• Improves communication within business.
• Increases use-satisfaction.

Session Objective

-Includes the testing for usability.

What is UX?

• User Experience -all users aspect.
• Design is usability. UX- Influences is success 70% of Businesses have poor usability
• 88% of users dislike websites that have it.
• 85% of UX use 7 users or more
• Product management between users and a good design.

UX Principles

• Peter Morville's Honeycomb-design the needs to be smooth and modern
• User friendly can be a good experience if its simple .
• Must build a good relationship.
• Easy to navigate.
• Inclusive User Design.
• The appearance of user can generate positive emotions.
• The usefulness if users' needs are met. The Value should make the process easy for both (users/business). Common Mistakes may need avoid.

UX mistakes

• Overcomplicated navigation
• Limited contrast images
• Too many choices/options
• Hick`s Law
• More choices may take long.
• Miller`s Law:
• Limited item of 7 plus or minus two.
• Users get impatient if the result is over .400ms. Responsive Design:
• Ensures constant and optimized user experience across devices

UX Writing:

• Helps and guides user and usability.
• It is used in the tools/forms and notifications.

Wireframes

• Has sketch to show layout on website
• Tools-Figma. Adobe XD, Sketch

Usability Testing

• Conduct testing to figure out issues.
• Learning from mistakes in the future.
• The most positive example is AirBnB and it `s modern design.
• UX helps in building a solid client satisfaction on design.

Visual Design (Feel vs. Look)

• Feel: focuses on emotions with design
• Look: cover the icons

Designers

• Ensure consistent colors/sizes/alignment
• Reminder: design is important
• Wire-frame: outline or page of the app.
• It shows components
• The Benefit allows it to iterate, and its structure begins.

Agile Wireframe Design Tools

• Includes key features and tool which are similar to IDE
• MockUpPlus is free
• Mockup/Prototype- interactive version simulation a function.

User Flow

• helps to take tasks and steps from website -Figma: design software
• AI Design Tools: base user preference

Limitations

• Not direct and inspirational. -Mid Journey- AI base design tool. -Usability testing, the user helps to observe tasks for usability. -Use tools to get the users.

Prioritization

Effective prioritization-ensure that teams focus on tasks with the highest impact while considering available resources. The MoSCoW-method & Effort are ideal for balancing in any business when the need is greater