Slides Dan Mason recently used in his discussion w/ mentees of The Product Mentor. Synopsis: In this talk, Vikas will share his thoughts on what is Product Strategy and how Product Managers can develop it, He will also share some concepts in Strategy and how Product Managers can apply them to make their products more successful. The Product Mentor is a program designed to pair Product Mentors and Mentees from around the World, across all industries, from start-up to enterprise, guided by the fundamental goals…Better Decisions. Better Products. Better Product People. Throughout the program, each mentor leads a conversation in an area of their expertise that is live streamed and available to both mentee and the broader product community. http://TheProductMentor.com

1. The Vision Trap
(AKA, Convincing your stakeholders of the role and
value of user research and customer validation)

2. About Me
Engineering
Product
Engineering Mgmt
Corp Dev
About me...

3. About Me (cont.)
(+4 more startups so dead Google can’t find their logos!)

4. Does any of this sound familiar?
● “If Henry Ford asked his users what they
wanted, they would have said a faster
horse.”
● “My users don’t know what they want, so
don’t bother asking.”
● “I know exactly what my users need --
it’s right here in my e-mail.”
● “Great products come from visionaries,
not focus groups.”

5. Case Study: Project Great Expectations
● Great proof of concept
○ A disruptive idea, a skunkworks prototype, and a successful (and high profile) first customer
○ CEO takes notice; project gets funded; team gets credit for “thinking outside the box”
● Product gets built (and sold)
○ Team expands; designers, developers, project managers, etc.
○ Prototype hardens into a product
○ Product sponsor goes on a roadshow talking about the big idea and great first results
○ Excited new customers sign up to be next
● New customers come on board
○ But they don’t use it. Why?
○ Because it doesn’t solve their problems. It solved that first customer’s problem, and after
the roadshow, new customers thought it would solve their problems, but when it didn’t, they
lost interest

7. Don’t get me wrong -- vision matters!
● True visionaries are selling you a product
(and a world) that doesn’t exist yet
● Your users may want that product, but
don’t know how to ask for it
● Vision is inspiring! We all want to be
inspired!
● That said...

8. User research helps you build great products. Period.
● Even if you have an
amazing and inspiring
vision, or your product is
operating at scale and
you can see in real time
the impact of experiments
and product tweaks,
there is no substitute for
hearing about your users
and their problems in
their own words.

9. So who do I listen to: my visionaries or my users?

10. Answer: YES
● Your stakeholders need to be heard
○ Their vision matters
○ Their opinions matter (especially the HiPPO)
○ Their feedback is important
○ Their support is crucial
● Your users need to be heard
○ Their problems are your problems
○ Their instincts and impressions will make or break your product
○ They don’t care how you solve their problem - you and your
stakeholders own the solution!

11. Solution: Turn ideas into hypotheses + experiments
● Turning an idea into a hypothesis de-personalizes it
and separates it from its creator
● The goal is not to kill ideas, but to create a safe space
to shape them with customer input -- ideas flow in,
validated learnings flow out
● Your job as PM is to control the narrative and guide
your stakeholders and team to the right solution
● This is hard to do!
● But when you get it right...

13. Why does this work?
● You are trying to leverage your users to validate your product vision and
strategy, not to crowdsource it
○ User research isn’t about finding what’s popular, which is a major stakeholder turnoff -- it’s
about finding what works, and experimenting until you find the right formula
○ Often a bad or incomplete idea can be improved with user feedback, in such a way that the
idea’s owner will feel validated by the engagement
● The best techniques may seem very basic and obvious -- because they are!
Discipline makes all the difference...

14. How to create an Experiments Backlog
● Use the same toolset you use for discovery and development
○ Jira, Tracker, Rally, etc.
● Tie raw ideas to experiments, one-to-many
○ In Jira, use epics or versions
● Good experiments are structured as:
○ Hypothesis (we believe that…)
○ Plan (so we will…)
○ Measurement (and measure…)
○ Success Criteria (we are right if…)
● Generate lots of small, testable hypotheses
○ The more experiments you have, the better you can compare and contrast them, and the
better you can create space around the Big Idea

15. Big Idea: Curling is the Next Big Thing!

17. Best practices for experimentation
● Mix quantitative and qualitative
○ Optimizely and feature flag tools are great, but don’t depend on them for your narrative
○ The most interesting cases are when data and interviews disagree!
● Don’t ask what users want
○ Do ask what their lives are like, and what their pain points are
● Don’t ask what users think
○ Do observe what they do (and ask why they do it)
● Validate real prototypes of your experiments
○ Whatever fidelity makes sense, as long as it’s real!
● Remember: feedback applies to the hypothesis, not the idea

18. How do you present findings to stakeholders?
● Get them excited about
your progress toward
validating their ideas -
use your tools!
● Show them that you are
focused on their
priorities, even when
the data has led you in
a new direction (or
directions)

19. How do you make this stick?
● Keep your pipeline full
○ Make your discovery process a continuous flow of ideas in, experiments out
○ Since your experiments will require users to conduct, you ensure that user feedback makes
its way to your vision holders
● Control the narrative
○ Turn the debate about whether an idea is good or bad into a simple assessment of whether it
works or doesn’t work in practice
● Illustrate ROI
○ Show how your disciplined approach saves money and dev cycles by not falling in love with
solutions that don’t work. People like that!

20. Final thoughts
Our job as PMs is to
solve customer
problems. Visionaries
often have amazing
ideas on how to do that.
We can help them turn
their vision into reality,
even if it’s not quite the
same reality they
envisioned.
#winning

21. Thanks!
dan.mason@gmail.com