Decoding the Product Manager (3)

Customer Insights: The Secret Weapon of Top PMs

Author

Sherman Jiang
February 16, 2024

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Decoding the Product Manager (Part 3)

Customer Insights: The Secret Weapon of Top PMs

Product managers wear many hats: creating requirements, writing features, collaborating with engineers, meeting deadlines and writing supporting documents. But sometimes, amidst the hustle, we can unintentionally lose sight of the crucial element – our customers.

In B2B settings, we often rely on insights from sales and support teams. However, top PMs go a step further. They cultivate a deep understanding of their customers directly. They get out and talk to customers. They know their needs, and pain points. They know how customers actually use the product, what works well, and what needs improvement.

Think of building a product like a strategic bet. We never have all the answers, but the more we understand our customers, the better our chances of success. Engaging directly with them, testing prototypes, and actively seeking their feedback empowers us to build something they truly value and enjoy.

In the following newsletter, I will summarize a 4-step process in product discovery, outlining techniques in each step.

  1. Uncover underline customer needs and define challenges you want to solve

  2. Explore potential solutions through ideation and prioritization

  3. Validate the solution iteratively though prototyping and testing

  4. Make it a continuous discovery journey

Step 1: Uncover and define

Determining your target customer is the first step in this process. During this problem space exploration, you aim to understand who your ideal customers are, what they want to achieve, and their unmet needs.

We typically start by analyzing secondary data like industry trends and competitor offerings to develop a high-level problem statement. For example: "As a PM, I need to communicate with diverse stakeholders, addressing their unique needs."

After analyzing secondary data, conduct primary research through customer interviews, focus groups, surveys, or user observations. This research helps refine your problem statement, specifying the user archetype, usage context. For instance: "As a PM of a new product, I need to share and validate features with various audiences simultaneously, gathering feedback and achieving alignment, all in one platform."

Remember, asking customers directly what they want often yields limited insights. Hone your customer interview skills to uncover underlying needs and motivations is an important PM skill. You can find helpful tips on this blog.

Personas are a valuable output of customer research. These fictional representations of your target users should be detailed as if they were real people. Include their goals, values, challenges, needs, buying process, and background information (age, occupation, etc.). A good persona also features a picture and quotes reflecting their wants and concerns. Personas help the team visualize the target customer, leading to more cohesive and user-centric product decisions.

Here is an example:

Persona example by Filestage

Step 2 Ideate and prioritize

I've always found that a user journey can be a powerful tool for aligning everyone on the most crucial problems to solve. A user journey diagram visually represents the steps users take to achieve a goal within a product or service. It helps businesses understand the user's perspective and identify areas for improvement.

Typically, user journey diagrams include:

  • Starting point: A persona or user's starting point, like visiting a website or opening an app.

  • Goals: The user's goals, such as making a purchase or signing up for a service.

  • Touchpoints: The interactions between the user and the product or service, like clicking a button or filling out a form, and how these tie into internal processes.

  • Pain points: The frustrations users experience, such as difficulty finding information or completing a task, along with their underlying needs and attitudes.

To see some really good examples of user journey, click here.

The key is to delve into the real-life experiences of your customers. Do they truly face the problems you think they do? How do they solve them currently? By understanding this context, we can build user-centric products, improve user experience, and boost conversion rates.

How to create a user journey together:

While working at Visa, we invited real customers to participate in a multi-day co-creation process. We brought together customers, designers, and engineers in a large room with plenty of whiteboards, Post-it notes, dry-erase markers (no permanent markers!), and a facilitator guiding daily activities. It involved a lot of direct exchange, whiteboarding, and sticky notes. It was one of the most energizing experiences I've had. For more details, check out an excellent book Sprint.

Streamlining the Customer Journey

Breaking down the user experience into detailed steps helps us identify key moments of truth where we can improve customer satisfaction. The team then brainstorms solutions, capturing ideas on sticky notes displayed on a wall. While creativity is encouraged, we must prioritize effectively, and that's where product value proposition comes into play. Our product must deliver good value to customers and outperform other options.

Prioritization Techniques:

  • Dot voting: Each participant receives 2-3 sticky dots to vote for preferred solutions. Encourage discussion and explanation of choices to foster team understanding and buy-in.

  • Kano Model

Story Mapping for Clarity:

The prioritized tasks are then mapped onto a two-dimensional story map:

  • Horizontal axis: Major user activities sequenced by time (left to right).

  • Vertical axis: Each major activity is broken down into user tasks, with corresponding user stories added. Prioritized tasks are placed higher vertically.

For a detailed guide and examples, please see: https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/how-to-create-a-user-story-map

Step 3: Prototype and Test

Once we prioritize solutions, we group them into features. While the urge to develop them immediately is understandable, it's crucial to prioritize prototyping and testing first. Prototyping allows us to test and learn at a lower cost and shorter timeframe compared to building the real product. These tests help differentiate good ideas from bad ones, revealing what customers truly want and are willing to pay for. The process can also unveil gaps in the solutions themselves.

Variety in Prototyping:

There are various types of prototypes to choose from, each with its own strengths:

  • Sketches: Simple, quick way to visualize ideas.

  • Mockups: More detailed visual representations with limited functionality.

  • Clickable wireframes: Allow basic interactions to simulate user flow.

  • Wizard of Oz prototypes: Simulate functionality behind the scenes, controlled by a human "wizard."

  • Beta products: Limited-release versions for real-world testing.

Testing for Usability and Value:

Multiple qualitative and quantitative testing methods exist:

  • Usability testing: Evaluates ease of use and user experience.

  • A/B testing: Compares different versions of features to identify user preference.

  • Surveys: Gather user feedback on specific aspects.

  • Interviews: Gain in-depth insights into user needs and motivations.

A helpful two-by-two chart from "The lean product playbook" by Dan Olsen outlines these methods and their applications. Understanding when and how to use each method is crucial.

From The Lean product playbook

Testing allows for iterative improvement of the product design and functionality, minimizing launch failure risks. It also helps validate your hypotheses about the target customer, their needs, and the product's value proposition. Armed with test results, you can refine your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) with confidence, increasing the chances of customer adoption and usage.

Step 4: Keep on discovery

Digital products never truly "launched" – they evolve continuously. Like raising a child, your role as a product manager changes as your product grows. You'll constantly iterate and improve, responding to user needs and market shifts.

This continuous evolution requires ongoing customer engagement. Every interaction reveals discrepancies between how you envision the product and how users experience it. Bridging these gaps is crucial.

Teresa Torres, a renowned author and coach on continuous discovery, advocates for weekly customer engagement. This minimizes decisions made without user input. Regular meetings with willing customers foster invaluable feedback and insights. Waiting for NPS scores every six months in today's dynamic market simply isn't sufficient.

Conclusion

By focusing on customer needs, desires, and pain points, you can develop solutions that are both valuable to them and viable for your business. This is a core responsibility for product managers. It's consumer insights that truly distinguishes great PMs from the rest. The 4-step process can guide you on this journey.

Reference

Persona

Books

Author

Sherman Jiang, a product leader with a proven track record of success at Fortune 500 companies like Visa, HSBC, and Synchrony and honed expertise in Silicon Valley’s fast-paced tech scene. My passion lies in empowering payment and fintech companies through the power of Agile and AI augment. I specialize in engagement of team transformations, product strategy, product discovery, and product delivery. I’m also enthusiastic about how generative AI can make product managers better.