Behind the Click: A Product Management Primer
What can I do to see if I'll even like Product Management as a career?
Hi future and current protégés,
A frequently posed question to me revolves around understanding the nuances of product management as a discipline. How does one truly get a feel for it? I've often directed folks to various websites or apps, explaining the intricacies of each user experience. However, today, I'm offering a more hands-on approach to gain this insight.
Who wants some homework?
1. Your Choice of Experience:
Begin by selecting a digital platform you admire or frequently use. For demonstration purposes, let's consider Amazon – a platform many of us are familiar with.
2. Zooming Into Details:
To make this a focused homework assignment, choose a specific section or page, say a product detail page for a pet product like dog food. Let this page be your canvas.
3. The Anatomy of the Page:
Upon landing, what captures your attention first? Is it the product image, the price, or the 'Add to Cart' button? Assess the hierarchy of information – from what's placed at the top to what requires scrolling. Ask yourself, why might Amazon have made these design choices? What is most helpful on the page? Act like a detective, don’t assume anything and really question all the elements on the page and jot them down.
4. Journey Mapping:
Every element on the page has a purpose. Map out the various interactions possible on this page. For example, what happens if you click on a similar product recommendation? Or what if you click on customer reviews? What happens if you want to go back and search for something else? How do you navigate to and from the page?
5. Given, When, Then – The Art of Structuring:
It's essential to streamline your observations. Using the "Given, When, Then" format, capture the core of the interactions. Examples include:
Given a consumer is on a product detail page for dog food on the Amazon App, when they tap on the search bar, then a keyboard appears allowing them to input a search term.
Lets say as a detective you notice that wait a minute, as soon as I start typing DOG... i start to see recommendations for dog food and dog toys and dog kennels... another given/when/then
Given a consumer taps the search bar and starts typing, when they hit the second character, then a dropdown of recommended search terms emerges. This assists users in refining their search or exploring related products.
Given a consumer is curious about product reviews, when they click on the rating (e.g., '4 stars'), then they are navigated to a section showcasing customer feedback, both positive and negative.
Given the product offers multiple flavors or variants, when a consumer clicks on a different flavor, then the product image and nutritional information update to reflect that specific choice.’
Your list may be long, but it’s important to try your best to document all the experiences and links that you can tap on on this page. Given/When/Then is part of a bigger artifact known as a User Story - describing what is happening / what should happen as if you were the user or consumer in this case.
6. Reflect, Innovate, and Ideate:
Now that you've written out a rather extensive list of given/when/then scenarios, I encourage you to reflect.
What would you have done differently? Why? Which elements would you alter, and what fresh ideas surfaced as you engaged with this exercise? Here's the intriguing part: if you delve into the product management discipline, you have the opportunity to bring such ideas to fruition, provided they enhance value for the customer or the business.
So, how do you transition these conceptual changes into tangible features? A prime starting point is the Product Protégé Guide. This comprehensive resource walks you through the entire journey — from conceptualizing ideas to collaborating with your team to finally launching it on a platform where customers interact. It also guides you on assessing whether your innovation genuinely delivered the intended value.
How does one turn these conceptual changes into live features? For a comprehensive answer, I'd recommend diving into the Product Protégé Guide.
In conclusion, if you're interested in product management, understand that every interaction on a product detail page on Amazon, for instance, was a deliberate decision made by a product manager. These decisions were then brought to life by a design/UX team, developers, and quality assurance professionals. Additionally, they were likely tracked by analytics experts to gauge user engagement. If you found the process of documenting the given/when/then scenarios enlightening and enjoyed dissecting the experience into specific use cases, consider continuing down the path of understanding the product management discipline as a potential career path. Wondering how to embark on this journey? Turn to page 262 in the Product Protégé Guide to get some tips on how to break into product management as a career path.
Keep interested and stay interesting. Until next week.
Product Protégé
