WIN,LOSE

ORFailLessons in Early Stage Product Management

Prioritizing Product Ideas

Recipe for a Winning Product

• Meets customers’ needs• Is better than other alternatives• Is easy to use• Has a good value/price

What does a Product Manager do?

Product Managers help companies build better products by bringing the following expertise to the early-stage product development process:

– Knowledge of how to ship higher quality products so that customers are happy

– How to determine what features to put in those products, so that you don't under-engineer or over-engineer a product

– How to spend the right amount of money on a marketing plan that ensures the highest amount of profitability

– How to plan and operationally support a product pre- and post-launch

Problem vs. Solution Space

Problem – customer problem, need or benefit that the product should address; or a product requirement (ex. ability to write in space)

Solution – A specific implementation to address a need or product requirement (ex. NASA space pen $1M verses Russian space pencil)

“Make it easy to share a link with my friends.”

“Allow me to re-use my Facebook contacts.”

Facebook Importer

Design 1 Design 2 Design 3

Design Preview with checkboxes

User can edit before import

#1 No No

#2 Yes No

#3 Yes Yes

Problem Space Solution SpaceUser Benefit Feature

VS

User benefits

• Functional Benefits– allow user to do something they couldn’t do before– deliver a benefit more quickly, conveniently, or

cheaply (ex. browse the web for less money; finding information quicker; read news on my own time)

• Emotional Benefits– Control– Feeling informed (context)– Enjoyment– Self-expression

Prioritizing Benefits vs. Features

• Need a framework for prioritization– What user benefits should we address?– Which product features should we build or improve?

• Importance vs. Satisfaction– Importance of user need (problem space)– Satisfaction with how well a product meets user’s

needs (solution space)

low

-

-

-

-

-

-

+

+

+

+

+

+

high

high

high

high

high

high

Prioritizing User Benefits

User Benefit

Importance to User

Current User Satisfaction

Upside Potential

Benefit 1low

Benefit 2low

Benefit 3low

Benefit 4low

Benefit 5low

Benefit 6

High

High

Low

Medium

Low

Low

Wow!Opportunity?

Wow!Opportunity?

Doesn’t Matter

Prioritizing Product Ideas

Idea D

Idea F

Idea C

Idea BIdea A

?

Retu

rn (V

alue

Cre

ated

)

1

2

3

4

1 2 3 4

Investment (developer weeks)

Idea C

Idea B

Idea A

Retu

rn (V

alue

Cre

ated

)

1

2

5

8

1 2 3 4

Investment (developer weeks)

34

67

5 6 7 8

Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.

- Alan Kay

“

”

Usability: Hard to Use ProductN

umbe

r of C

licks

/Com

plex

ity

1

2

5

8

3

4

6

7

Frequency of UseUse often Use rarely

Threshold for easily finding a feature

Makes frequent use of features harder to learn and

painful to use

Causes accidental use of lower frequency features

Usability scorecard: Hard to use product

Usability: Easy to Use ProductN

umbe

r of C

licks

/Com

plex

ity

1

2

5

8

3

4

6

7

Frequency of UseUse often Use rarely

Threshold for easily finding a feature

A more even spread allows for adaptive learning

Usability scorecard: Easy to use product