2.2: Understand Product Management Basics - Video Tutorials & Practice Problems

<v ->Now let's cover some fundamental</v> product management concepts. To develop a product, you need to have a product vision that describes the overarching, long-term mission of your product. So how do you define long-term? Probably one or two years is too focused on legacy, and over six years, it's too far away. So usually the product vision that is realistic and ambitious, covers three to five years. Product vision statements are aspirational and communicate concisely where the product hopes to go and what it hopes to achieve in the long-term. Product vision is derived from the organizational mission and vision. Most companies have multiple products and each comes with its own vision. For example, Australian company Atlassian includes Jira software, Jira service desk, Jira Core, Confluence, Bitbucket, Trello, that I have shown you with my personal goals and Jira line. Each of the product has its own vision that drives delivery. Bitbucket is for continuous integration, Jira is for company level product management and agile delivery management, and Trello is for individual use primarily. So how do you formulate your product statement? For that, use the following elevator pitch template, that was introduced by Geoffrey Moore in his book "Crossing the Chasm," An elevator pitch, as you may have guessed already, is a short description of a product that explains the concept so that any listener can understand it in a short period of time. So the goal is to convey the overall product concept in an exciting, clear, and concise way. The name elevator pitch reflects the idea that it should be possible to deliver the summary of the time span in an elevator, right? So for example, if you are in an elevator with the CEO of your company, you can use this time to tell this person about your product and what you expect it to do. So here is the template. It was suggested by Geoffrey Moore, and it's the following: for (target customer) who (then you provide statement of need or opportunity) the product name is (then you provide the product category) that (and then you provide the why) it's key benefit (reason to buy and use your product) and then another sentence, unlike (and then you put primary competitive alternative) our product, and then you put the statement of primary differentiation, the value. So it is important that the elevator pitch is compelling. It reflects customer value rather than technical implementation. So for example, for tax software TurboTax, the product statement would emphasize the value of saving time and money, for individuals to dedicate to their families, rather than providing spreadsheets and calculating annual taxes on their own. So the compelling product vision would sound something like "For the family member responsible for the annual tax return who spends a lot of time and effort to prepare their taxes and frequently make mistakes that need to be corrected afterward, TurboTax provides a fast and worry-free way of preparing their annual tax return. Unlike other tax preparation software, TurboTax is inexpensive, intuitive, and easy to use." So as you can see, the product vision needs to inspire your customers, and also your employees. Silicon Valley product management guru, Marty Cagan, explained the difference between the missionaries and mercenaries from a product perspective in his famous book "Inspire," that was mentioned in lesson one. According to Marty Cagan, teams of missionaries are engaged, motivated; they have a deep understanding of the business context and tangible empathy for the customer. On the opposite, teams of mercenaries feel no real sense of empowerment or accountability, no passion for the problem that they're trying to solve, and little connection with their actual users or customers. So in a product team, we want teams of missionaries, not mercenaries. More than anything else, it is the product vision that inspires missionary-like passion in the organization. As Marty Cagan said, you can make any product vision meaningful, if you focus on how you genuinely help your users and customers. So the product needs to be customer-focused. That gives customers a compelling reason for using the product. It has to be inspirational and realistic, informative, and still leave room for creativity. Now let's play a matching game. Let's review some of the product vision statements and guess which product it is. And I will make a pause to give you time to think about it. So here is the first one. For the business user, who needs to be productive in the office and on the go, this product is a convertible tablet that is easy to carry and gives you total computing productivity, no matter where you are. Unlike laptops, this product serves your on-the-go needs without having to carry an extra device. Did you guess? If you haven't yet, this is a Microsoft Surface tablet. Let's try another one. This product is the collaboration hub that brings the right people, information and tools, together, to get the work done. From Fortune 100 companies to corner markets, millions of people worldwide use this product to connect their teams, unify their systems, and drive their business forward. Did you guess this one? I hope you did. This is Slack. Here is another one. This product's vision is to improve lives by improving communication, and the core to this vision is meeting the communication needs of people worldwide. Think what it could be. It is not Zoom. And this one is not as straightforward, though you may use it every day, just like I do. This is Grammarly, the spell checker. So now you can see how important it is for your product vision to be very specific, and to resonate with your customers. So here is an exercise for you to do after this lesson: create a product statement for one of the products that you use every day, and you will see that it is not easy, but once you do, it helps you understand and define the product really well. So how do you combine it all together? From company mission and vision, to the product vision and the objectives and key results that you use to measure the progress towards this vision? There are several approaches to creating a holistic vision for your product. A well-known framework is called OGSM, which stands for objectives, goals, strategies, and measures. This framework defines both what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve there. It divides your product vision into measurable goals, defines strategies, and uses key result measures to establish an ongoing way to monitor progress. This approach is used in product management, and in marketing. Actually, marketing is one of the key areas of product management. It's not sufficient just to build the product, there are 4 Ps of marketing: the product, which is the good or service, the price, what the customer is willing to pay, the place, how you market your location for the product, and promotion, the advertising. The concept of 4 Ps is not new, it has been around since the 1950s, and companies still use it to identify key factors for their businesses, including what consumers want from them, how their products or services meet their needs, and how they're perceived by their users. They use it to see how the products stand out from their competitors and how they interact with the customers. So now when we're equipped with all the knowledge about the product vision and the product goals, we can talk about design thinking.