Product managers are known by a range of different names — “mini-CEOs,” “advanced generalists,” “hybrid managers,” a “Jack-of-all-trades.” And none of them are wrong.
By definition, product managers are focused on identifying, prioritizing, and executing upon opportunities that best align with a particular set of goals and needs. In practice, that could mean any combination of roles on a day-to-day basis:
| – Researcher – Requirement gatherer – Solution architect – Quality assurance | – Risk manager – Visionary – Strategist – Mediator | – Salesperson – Customer service – People manager – Project manager |
And so much more…
So the question then asked is, how do successful product managers keep on top of it all?
It comes through, of course, experience, but also by wrapping them into reusable frameworks and tools!
Please enjoy a collection of product management resources I’ve gathered below to help you wherever you’re at in your journey as a product manager.
Frameworks
Frameworks are like workbenches; combined with a set of tools, they give you a structured environment to build something that addresses a particular category of situations. Think of them like a platform to do work on. There are a number of frameworks and variations to such out there. In this blog, however, I focus on frameworks that I have had personal experience with.
(1) Agile: This framework is more of a set of principles rather than an actual methodology. That being said, it emphasizes flexibility, customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, and adapting to change.
Click here for a brief 101 guide on Agile.
(2) Scrum: This framework is a specific implementation of Agile. It’s highly structured in its approach and focuses on delivery of a shippable product increment at the end of each “sprint” (usually a set iteration length).
Click here for a brief 101 guide on Scrum.
(3) Kanban: Another implementation of Agile, this framework is more focused on visualizing work, limiting work in progress, and managing work flow. It has no set iteration length.
Click here for a brief 101 guide on Kanban.
(4) Lean: This framework is more a set of principles like Agile in that it emphasizes maximizing value gained against resources spent.
Click here for a brief 101 guide on Lean.
(5) Lean Six Sigma: This framework is often combined with Lean methodologies. It focuses on quality control, structured processes, and data-driven decision making.
Click here for a brief 101 guide on Lean Six Sigma.
(6) Waterfall: This framework is a linear and sequential approach to development; it is a stark contrast to Agile methodologies. Here, it’s approach is a rigid in that you do not move onto the next stage until the previous is fully completed.
Click here for a brief 101 guide on Waterfall.
Tools
Tools are like pre-built modules that serve a specific purpose; they give you a clear path from A to B. Think of them like applications that focus on a specific outcome. If frameworks are your workbench, then tools are, well, self-explanatory.
User Feedback and Research Tools
At the start of any product’s lifecycle is an understanding of the people it will affect. As a product manager, your primary directive is to never build something that no one was looking for. Understanding your customer is the first step to doing that.
- User Personas: These are semi-fictional characters that you use to represent different types of users (demographics) that might use our product in a similar way.
- Customer Journey Mapping: This is a storyboard, workflow, etc. that illustrates steps your customer goes through when they engage with your product or a given feature.
- Voice of the Customer (VoC): This is a process product managers can use to capture product requirements and feedback to help guide future efforts to provide an excellent product or service to their customers.
Ideation and Concept Development Tools
When you understand who you are building for, it’s time to identify what opportunities you could potentially address with them, e.g. what problems do they have and how might one (you) resolve them?
- Brainstorming: Generally, this is a group technique in which a team collaborates to understand a given topic — i.e. a persona’s painpoints, solutions to problems, etc.
- Mind Mapping: This is a diagram some use to visually organize information, showing how things branch from each other and relate to each other.
- SCAMPER: Standing for “Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse,” this technique gives you a structured way to think out of the box and look at a given idea, opportunity, or problem from different perspectives.
Competitive Analysis Tools
You know who you’re building for, you know what you could do for them, now you’ll want to evaluate whether or not you’re in a place to do so and what alternative solutions may compete with your solution.
- SWOT Analyses: This is a strategic planning tool used to evaluate “Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.” Use this to better understand your projects and/or initiatives. Where is your advantage? Where are you weak? What opportunities are there? What could prevent your success?
- Porter’s Five Forces: This framework helps you to understand the competitive forces at play in a given industry/market and their underlying causes.
- PESTEL Analyses: With this tool, you analyzes external macro-environmental factors that affect your team. It stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal factors.
Prioritization Frameworks/Tools
At this point, you have your who, what, and why. Now you want your when. At this stage, you’ve selected one or more ideas to add value to your target audience, you know how your audience will/could evaluate you (against potential alternatives), and now you need to execute and build your solution. But, you can’t build everything at once — so, you must prioritize what to do first, second, third, etc.
- MoSCoW Method: This approach helps in prioritizing tasks based on their importance. It stands for Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won’t have.
- RICE Scoring Model: This framework scores projects or tasks based on four factors: Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort. Generally, the higher the RICE, the more likely you’ll want to start work on it.
- Kano Model: This model categorizes customer preferences into five categories (Must-be, One-dimensional, Attractive, Indifferent, Reverse) to help prioritize features based on customer satisfaction.
Roadmapping Tools
This is where you communicate to your stakeholders your product/feature’s strategy and vision and how you’re planning to achieve it. Your prioritization efforts feed directly into this as it is a means of building stakeholder trust.
- Roadmaps: A staple of product management, this is a high-level, visual summary that maps out how you’ll get the product from its current state to its future, desired state.
- Gantt Charts: A staple of project management, this illustrates a project schedule and the dependency relationships between each activity involved.
- Timeline Roadmaps: A linear representation of important events in a chronological sequence, often used for more detailed planning.
Performance and Analytics Tools
You know who your users are. You know what problems they have. You have ideas on how you can help them. You know what alternative solutions you’d be up against. You’ve prioritized the work to be done and laid it out in a roadmap or project plan. Now, as you execute upon it all, you need to objectively measure progress as this is what helps you and your team to recognize and address risks, pivoting efforts and/or shifting priorities as needed.
- OKRs (Objectives and Key Results): This is an outline where you define objectives and how you will track progress towards their desired outcomes.
- KPIs (Key Performance Indicators): These are quantifiable measures used to evaluate the success of an organization, team, employee, etc. with respect to performance. Beware of vanity metrics, as such can draw focus away from what really matters for your product.
- Conversion Funnel Analysis: This analysis has you deep dive into what steps a customer goes through from discovering your product to purchasing it, and also to identify where in the process customers are lost. This same tool can also be used to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of a feature; e.g. “how often do my users use feature X to accomplish desired goal Y?”