This presentation is designed to be delivered in a workshop format. Please feel free to use this content and adapt it for your own teams. It would make a great exercise in a team meeting or during a team retreat. Building great products starts with asking the right questions. In this session, we will discuss how the best product managers stand out by asking better questions, and by listening better. This will be a team workshop session. You will work through a sample persona problem, discovering the persona’s needs as you ask good questions. We will learn from each other as we reflect on the “Five W’s”. Each team will present their persona problem to the group, followed by feedback on what worked well and where you can improve.

1. Who, What, When, Where, Why -
not How!
August 6, 2016
Robert Anderson
@RAndersonTexas
www.andersontexas.net

2. Are questions really that important?
● Failure to ask questions leads to a misleading
understanding of persona problems.
● Better questions → Better understanding of
problems → Better product
● Your success as a product manager is directly
related to your ability to ask good questions!

3. Asking the right question
Key Takeaway - Ask open-ended
questions!
● Avoid problem bias like the plague
● Do not ask yes-no questions
● Get your persona to tell a story
● Who, What, When, Where, Why - not How!

4. Workshop
Personas
- Online shoe buyer
- Sales manager producing
reports for management
- IT director looking for a cloud
database
1. Divide into groups of 3-6.
2. Pick your persona.
3. Role play the product manager
and the persona.
4. One exercise for each question.
5. Report back what you observed.
6. At the end, describe what you
learned about asking questions.

5. 1. Who?

6. Who?
● Document what you know about your persona.
● Example items to include in your personas:
○ Who does she report to? What motivates her?
○ What is she responsible for? What does she own?
○ What makes her happy?
○ What makes her feel good?
○ What does success look like?
● What are the differences in a B2C and a B2B
persona? How do you approach the questions
differently?

7. Small Group
Who?
1. In your role plays, designate
someone as the actor for product
manager and persona.
2. Designate one or more persons
as observers.
3. Ask who questions and
contemplate what you learned?
4. Share your top learnings with the
larger group.

8. 2. What?

9. What?
● “What” questions are in some ways the most dangerous. Why is that?
● Be careful not to mix what with why.
● Focus on the problem, not the solution!
● Think of some failed products that delivered
what someone asked for.
● Example questions
○ What do you need -vs- what do you need to do?
○ What matters -vs- what must you achieve?
○ What makes you happy -vs- what is success?

10. Small Group
What?
1. In your role plays, designate
someone as the actor for product
manager and persona.
2. Designate one or more persons
as observers.
3. Ask what questions and
contemplate what you learned?
4. Share your top learnings with the
larger group.

11. 3. When?

12. When?
Is timing important? Why?
● You can miss the solution if you miss the timing.
● One of the biggest lies to product managers -
“Better late than never…”
● Example when questions
○ Time to complete?
○ Business seasonality?
○ Do this before that?
○ Specific days of the week or times of the month?

13. Small Group
When?
1. In your role plays, designate
someone as the actor for product
manager and persona.
2. Designate one or more persons
as observers.
3. Ask when questions and
contemplate what you learned?
4. Share your top learnings with the
larger group.

14. 4. Where?

15. Where?
● Why would where questions be important in B2C and B2B?
● Types of key “where questions”
○ Work remotely? Go to the office?
○ Prefer to use a mobile device?
○ Road warrior or glued to your desk?
○ Network bandwidth / connection?
● Environmental concerns
○ What are the user’s surroundings like?
○ Private, quiet, noisy, crowded?
○ Why might this matter?

16. Small Group
Where?
1. In your role plays, designate
someone as the actor for product
manager and persona.
2. Designate one or more persons
as observers.
3. Ask where questions and
contemplate what you learned?
4. Share your top learnings with the
larger group.

17. 5. Why?

18. Why?
● Why does why matter?
● Why is a measure of pain and urgency.
● Example why’s:
○ My boss is pressuring me.
○ My finances are tight.
○ We have no idea if we are going to make
our number.
● Bad why’s:
○ That’s what we always do.
○ It’s part of my job description.

19. Small Group
Why?
1. In your role plays, designate
someone as the actor for product
manager and persona.
2. Designate one or more persons
as observers.
3. Ask why questions and
contemplate what you learned?
4. Share your top learnings with the
larger group.

20. Not How!
● How assumes the user knows
how to solve his problem.
● If that were true, why they be in
that problem in the first place?
● What happens if you build
products based on the how?
○ A faster desktop web browser experience vs a mobile experience
○ Provide everything the user might need
○ More disk space available vs less disk space used
● How can you avoid approaching how in your questions?

21. Wrap Up
1. Where did you find yourself
changing your approach?
2. How can you apply this when
you return to work?
3. How do you think this can
improve your product?

22. THANK YOU!!!
ProductCamp Austin 17
Robert Anderson
@RAndersonTexas
www.andersontexas.net