Category: Product Management

Categories
Product Management

Trust Your Gut

It’s that time of year again.

Like clockwork, when the leaves start falling and the hoodies begin making their regular appearance, I find myself falling back into a weird pattern.

I begin believing that a decision holds no merit if it isn’t backed by bullet-proof, statistically significant data.

After all, a huge number of successful startup stories (and job postings) mention how they are a data-driven team.

So I’m writing this as a note to myself, and anyone else that stumbles onto this:

Not everything has to start as an A/B test.

And not everything has to be data-backed with statistical significance.

I’m not suggesting that you ignore the data, but there’s a spectrum between “trust your gut 100%” and “let the data decide”.

Especially when the decision is easy to revert.

Copy for the first version of a new landing page? It’s OK to trust your gut feeling if it’s easy to revert or update. You will analyze the results and can introduce new versions very easily if necessary.

User interface for a new feature? Put some early wireframes in front of a couple customers and gauge their gut reactions. You will analyze the results and can introduce a new version, with some work, if necessary.

Two drastically different business models for a new product? Lean more heavily on your research since this is probably a drastic shift in your positioning, burn rate and data model. These are much harder to iterate on since your customers, employees and investors may all be impacted.

It’s easy to fall into analysis paralysis, and take way too long analyzing all possible angles before making a decision.

But sometimes, it’s just a headline change or a really common UI pattern.

So it’s OK to trust the 20 years of experience and countless mess-ups in the past.

Categories
Design Product Management

Design Portfolio Site

When I’m sourcing for a Product Designer, I see a lot of portfolios.

Like, a lot a lot.

And today, it takes so long to judge if you are aesthetically a good fit for us.

In the last five years, there’s been a trend for product designers to tell more about their process. How they’ve been more helpful in other parts than just the aesthetic.

I understand why it’s like this.

Product Designers are becoming more and more product-focused (as opposed to design focused). Which is great. I LOVE a Product Designer who will be my partner in crime, not just my pixel buddy.

What I usually see on these portfolio sites, in order:

  1. Overview of the project
  2. Paragraphs about the research process
  3. Pictures of sticky notes, and other assets from brainstorming
  4. Early wireframes
  5. The final design

Problem is, when I’m searching for a Product Designer, I need to start at the final result.

Right now, I’m looking for someone who can extend our app and our brand. Not start it from scratch, not overhaul it.

And for that, I just need to see what your general style is.

Then I want to go deep on your process to see how you’d fit with us.

I also want you to talk about results. Talk about the impact your design had on the goals. Show me that you understand the spreadsheet side of your role, too.

What I want to see on a product designer portfolio site:

  1. Overview of the project
  2. The final design
  3. Research process
  4. Wireframes
  5. Results

Categories
Product Management Reading List

Product Management Books for the Junior AND Senior Product Manager

What are the best books to get started in product management? Sometimes, I’m asked: what are the best books for any product manager? This is the ultimate list.

These are my go-tos to bring anyone into product management, or to level up your existing product management skills.

Inspired – this is like The Bible for individual contributor product management. I’m sure you’ve read it by now, but if you haven’t, pick this one up! Inspired is about all the non-tactical stuff of product management, and is where the industry has been trying to move the PM role to lately. My copy is marked up, bookmarked, and highlighted – and I know lots of PMs and ScrumMasters whose copy is the same way. Can’t recommend this book more.


Escaping the Build Trap – This is kind of a companion book to Inspired. I bet you’ll nod your head alongside every page of this. Experimentation, checking assumptions, of course. But also PM management and team building. This book will make you a better product manager, but may also give you good insight into words and phrases you can use to get the attention of people looking to hire product leaders. 


Good Strategy / Bad Strategy – I just love this book. Early on in my PM career, I recognized that different people had different ideas of what “the strategy” or “a strategy” was. That’s still the case, but this book clarified (to me) what the mental model of a generic strategy was. And that enabled me to parse, analyze, and ultimately challenge the strategic ideas of others. It’s good stuff, and has helped as I’ve moved into broader roles.

Categories
Product Discovery Product Management User Research

How to See the Ads Your Competitors Are Running on the Entire Facebook Platform

Did you know that Facebook will let you search and view ads that your competitors are running on Instagram, Facebook, Messenger and the Facebook Audience Network?

Read below to see how, and skip to the bottom to see how to take advantage of it.

You can use this information to tweak your messaging, positioning or even your ads. Here’s how to do better competitive research, in real-time, using your own competitions paid advertising on one of today’s largest advertising platforms.

First, go to the Facebook Ad Library. You don’t need to be logged into Facebook to access this page.

Next, type your competitor’s name into the search box. Check to make sure that the “All” tab is checked, so you can see all the ads.

If they have run ads on Facebook you should see them presented on the next page. You can see here that UserInterviews is running a few ads on Facebook right now:

Each item on the page is a different ad they’ve run. Here’s one from Loop11:

For each ad, you can see when they started running it…

and icons for which platform where the ad ran. Here, this ad ran on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Facebook’s Audience Network:

You can also see the exact advertising headline and image they used to get attention.

Clicking “See Ad Details” button brings you to a details page about this ad, and the page it ran on.

In this case, you can see that Loop11 only has one ad running, but ran multiple versions of it:

So what can you do with this information?

  • Click the ad! Check out the funnel your competitors are sending their customers through. Should you change yours?
  • Take a look at the types of ads they’re running to analyze their positioning. How is this different than yours? Are they speaking the same way to the same audience you are?
  • You can assume that if the ad has been running for a month or more that it’s converting well. Assuming that long-running ads are working well for them, what combinations of headline and imagery has been working for them over the long term? How should you react to this?

BUT, hold on. Don’t spend too much time worrying about what your competitors are doing and copying it.

Instead of reading between the lines of everything your competition is doing, you’d be better of spending that time with your customers instead.

A more direct, and proven, way of understanding your customers is to talk to them directly. ListenKit makes it easy to coordinate and schedule conversations with your customers, so you can make better informed decisions before your competition.

See if ListenKit can work for you.

Categories
ListenKit Product Management User Research

How to Recruit for Your User Research Project In Less Than Three Minutes (total)

The video above proves that you don’t have to spend hours doing unnecessary setup and coordination to recruit for your user research project.

The video is 3 minutes long, so you should watch it (if not even just for the stumble halfway through).

But if you’re more of a reader, the transcript is below.

Click here to sign up for the alpha program, and see how much easier ListenKit makes recruiting for your user research.

Today, I’m going to show you how you can have real people, real users, real customers,  signing up to talk to you in less than 3 minutes of effort by using ListenKit.

Our goal today is to get interviews on the books with as little effort as possible. 

This is where we want to drive people. This is a signup page on listenkit.com with a list of dates and times that you’ve said your users can book with you. 

They simply click the date/time they are willing to talk to you, and they’re done. You both get appointments added to your calendar at the right time, with a meeting link.

So how do they get there? Two ways.

Let’s say you already have an existing list of users. My friend Eric used ListenKit last week to schedule interviews with trial users of his app. He had a list of 180 users, and wanted to have 10-15 interviews to gather feedback on the trial experience. 

He logged into ListenKit and uploaded a list of customers from his internal tool. 

Just like that, he emailed a customized link to each of them. (Wait for the email)

They click the link in the email, schedule a time, and boom. All he had to do was upload a CSV into ListenKit. As his users sign up, he AND they got meeting invites on their calendar, with the Zoom link, so everyone knows exactly when and exactly where to show up.

OK. But maybe you don’t have an existing user list yet. Maybe you’re doing discovery work on a new user research recruiting tool. [look] 

but you DO know where to find the people you want to talk to. This is what i’ve been doing a lot lately. I’m using Listenkit to do research about ListenKit, so I have been asking PMs, designers, founders and researchers to talk to me for 30 minutes on Zoom. (In fact, if you are one of these people, click the link in the description below and let’s talk.) I share my signup link in communities where I know the people I want to talk to are spending time.. like LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit, IndieHackers, wherever…. 

When someone there clicks the link, they are taken to my signup page, they enter their info, and they can select a time. Boom, done. 

Then, all I have to do then is show up in the right Zoom link at the right time and you’re talking to your user. You share a link, ListenKit handles everything.

And thats (CLOCK)

This isn’t smoke and mirrors. This is all functional on listenkit.com today. And it works. 

If you have a research project coming up in the next couple of weeks, or are willing to start one, you can use ListenKit for free in exchange for your brutal feedback.

Click here to sign up for the alpha program, and see how much easier ListenKit makes recruiting for your user research.

Categories
Product Management

Confirmation Bias Is a Profitable Business

There’s always a market to confirm what people want to hear.

Confirmation bias is real. Especially now, when we’re all under this new (and seemingly never-ending) existential stress between the pandemic, social uprising and politics. Right now, few people want to read articles that frustrate or upset them. So, you look for things that make you happy – by confirming some belief you have.

Content creators know this works. Just look at the titles of this article as an example: With Safety Measures in Place, Students Need Sports and Arts for Mental and Emotional Wellness.

Now, regardless of whether or not you agree with this take, you can tell who this is written for. The target audience for this is the parent, teacher or coach who wants to get back to a normal fall.

The article is written by the executive director of an organization with a vested interest in sports returning.

(To be clear, I am not stating my opinion about this article, just using it as an example.)

Confirmation bias isn’t just for articles and blog posts. Here are a few others that use confirmation bias as a business model:

Scam or not, there are huge businesses which prove that confirmation bias is a profitable business.

Look no further than Facebook.

$70 billion in ad-based revenue in one year. Ad impressions that are monetized by engagement. Engagement that is strengthened when you spend more time on the site. And what keeps people on the site? Seeing what they want to see, and seeing things that make them happy!

If that’s not confirmation (hah) that confirmation bias can make a huge business, even Twitter made $3.5 billion in ad-based revenue in one-year. Billion! With a B!

Look, the takeaway from this is that feeding into confirmation bias can be a good and profitable move for business.

The other, more-nuanced takeaway from this though, is that revenue-led confirmation bias is going to impact the way information is generated and consumed for a long time.

It’s up to you to decide if that market is big enough to take advantage of, and if that’s a market you want to address in the first place.

Categories
Product Discovery Product Management User Research

The User Research Email Template That is Guaranteed to Get a Response

User Research Tools Product Discovery Techniques Email Template
Just setting up the meeting is one of the most time-consuming parts of doing product discovery.

Designers, product managers and researchers agree: user research is insanely valuable, but getting it set up is a colossal waste of time.

Scheduling participants takes too much time, and that’s if you can get them to respond in the first place.

But, I have an email template that’s guaranteed to get you participants on the phone (or Zoom) today.

I’ve been using and iterating on some variant of this for years, and it’s never let me down. I haven’t had a problem getting customers (or potential customers) on the phone in a long time, and this template is a huge part of that success.

The quick keys to an effective email research request:

  • Sound friendly, be friendly. Everybody gets a ton of marketing and ad emails. An email written like it’s special will get attention.
  • Make it clear right up front that you’re not trying to sell them something. Again, everybody gets a ton of marketing emails, and you need to get meetings.
  • Make it short and succinct. You’re not the only email they’re getting right then.
  • Make the ask clear and easy to say yes to. Don’t make them work to understand what you want. Hitting archive on that email is too easy.

Here’s my template. Feel free to copy/paste and update it to match your specific scenario.

Subject Line: thom, got a couple minutes re: widgetco? [1]

Hi Thom-

I work at WidgetCo on a team that’s investigating offering a new widget to WidgetCo customers.[2] The widget isn’t in development yet (it’s only an idea at this point), but I’m hoping to talk to some Widget Managers in the area to begin gathering feedback on the idea. [3]

It would just be a conversation about your company, your widgets, and how you’re utilizing technology today to make them better [4]- not a sales pitch. [5]

Is there a day next week that I could come visit with you for a few minutes? How about Tuesday morning at 9am? [6]

Jeff [7]

Here’s why this template works:

  1. All lower-case to imply that this isn’t spam. Use their first name, because everybody loves it. I add “re:” somewhere in the subject line to imply that this may have been an ongoing thread.
  2. I quickly explain who I am, and why I’m reaching out. This works better if they are already familiar with the company, but actually works even if they’re not.
  3. I tell them why I’m reaching out to them. They are a widget manager, I want to gather feedback from widget managers on something new. And new product development is very exciting! Saying that I’m investigating offering a new widget sparks that “new and shiny” thing that we all love deep down inside.
  4. I explain to them what I want to talk about. There won’t be surprises here! These are topics they already know, increasing their confidence that it’s going to be valuable time spent for both of us.
  5. This is key – but obviously won’t work if you are expecting to try to sell them something in the meeting. Make it very clear that this isn’t a sales pitch. Sometimes I even double-down on that, saying “this isn’t a sales pitch – I’m not in sales, and I don’t even have anything to sell you!”
  6. Make as a specific ask as you can. I noticed that if I suggest a day and time, instead of a generic “what works best for you?”, I get a better response rate. (Pro-tip: if you’re emailing multiple people and looking to fill a few spots, use a tool like Calendly instead so you don’t overbook!)
  7. This is controversial, but it works. First name only in your sign-off, no signature. (They will have your last name in the email header anyways.) This implies that you took time to write THEM this email directly. You’re on a first name basis now!

So there you have it. This template is part of the reason why user research or product discovery isn’t a big deal to me. (But I’d love to hear yours. Email me: jeff@clarkle.com)

I have other tricks up my sleeve to make user research easier and more valuable for your team. If you want to get an email when I share these, subscribe quickly here.

Categories
Product Management Professional Development

Make Yourself Unnecessary to a Creative Team

To lead a productive team, teach them how to make the right decisions.

A good team leader makes themselves unnecessary. 1

It shouldn’t be necessary that you’re in every meeting. It shouldn’t be necessary that you leave an opinion on every Confluence page. And it definitely shouldn’t be necessary for you to make or approve every decision.

As “the single wringable neck”, you hold the responsibility for the progress of the project. But that doesn’t mean that you need to do all the work.

Some leaders like to consider themselves “deeply involved” in every aspect of the product. I’d argue that these guys are holding their teams back from being truly creative, and literally killing themselves in the process.

GSD(WY)

So, how do you make sure that the right things are getting done (without you), by the right people, at the right time – while not involving yourself in every decision?

  • To reduce responsibility confusion, set crystal clear role expectations: Does your engineering counterpart know exactly what you’re expecting from him in that role? Does the design team understand exactly what problem they’re solving, why it’s important, and when you want to see the next version? Does this business team understand what their involvement should be at this time, and when it’s likely to change? If possible, establish expectations on the very first day a new member joins the team. (And if that’s already past, cancel some meetings and do it today!)
  • To reduce priority confusion, over-communicate the problem: How often do you re-iterate the problem you’re trying to solve, and why when? Who on your team would (and wouldn’t) be able to recite it from memory? When everyone knows this, everyone is more likely to make the right prioritization call in your absence. Start regular reviews with the problem. Reiterate it at the start of planning meetings. It’s easy (and understandable) to lose sight of the forest for the trees, especially when it’s crunch time. State the problem as often as possible to help keep everyone focused.
  • To increase decision-making speed, make it OK to be wrong: If the goal of this is to get out of the way of your creatives, then you have to make it OK for them to make decisions without first consulting you. If not, figure out what information you have that they don’t and relay it to them.

The Ultimate Test: Disappear

You can test how unnecessary you are by marking yourself as Away on Slack for a few days. There’s a cognitive blocker to sending someone a message on Slack while they’re away, which usually results in that person making a decision or getting the answer somewhere else. Use this to your advantage to see how your test reacts when you’re not around.

 

Categories
Design Product Management Tech

All About the Creation of Disney’s MagicBand Program

The story of how a group of Disney engineers worked on a secret project to breathe new life into an aging Walt Disney World audience.

Disney’s MagicBand is part park ticket, part credit card and part room key. But the result, and the story behind it, is typical Disney magic.

The technology is, obviously, very cool. But what’s particularly inspiring about these articles is how it tells the story of Disney designing this wristband as the way to remove every friction point from a Walt Disney World vacation experience.

These are pretty long reads, but are totally worth the time.

Categories
Product Management Product Roadmap Professional Development

Creating an Environment for Creativity

To best foster your team’s creativity, focus less on the solution and keep talking about the problem.

You know the feeling of a new idea. It’s exciting to think about, to wrap your head around, and to whiteboard ideas for.

We all want to be part of a team just like that: high-functioning, high-output, and creative. Product leaders play an important part in the psychology of a team. And as a product leader, we are incentivized to be concerned not only with what we’re building but how we’re building it.

Our roadmaps, our backlogs, and our discussions are usually focused on the solutions: build this API, extend the UI this way, create this landing page, add this button, etc.

We like talk about solutions because talking about solutions is fun. It’s exciting to be part of a conversation that ends in a bunch of fun projects with fun codenames.

But think back to the last time a project or initiative went wrong. That retro is almost always full of the same themes: unclear expectations, ever-changing priorities, or the super-helpful “communication issues”.

What happened with all that excitement from the beginning of the project? This time was supposed to be different! Here’s exactly when it happens:

At some point, we stop talking about the problem and only focus on executing the solution.

The same solution that we designed, estimated and planned weeks (or months!) ago has been in motion for a while. At some point, we start nitpicking UI or over-thinking micro-optimizations.

We lost focus of the original problem and started polishing. That’s when the problem solving ends, when the creativity slows way down, and where the fun ends.

A team does their best work when they’re in a creative environment. To bring the creativity back to software development, bring the problems back into focus:

  • Your roadmap should be a list of problems to focus on, not solutions.  Your roadmap should reflect a list of the problems your team is going to try to solve. Keep talking about the problems and their relative priority, and be able to clearly communicate why they’re ranked the way they are.
  • Repeat the problem more than the solution. To get the most out of your team, make sure that the problem is well understood by the team. Be sure the whole team can communicate what the problem is, why it’s important to address, and why it’s important to address now. I find it useful to kick off grooming and planning meetings by re-stating the problem and our current progress. Then let your creatives discuss how it gets solved.
  • Be stubborn about the problem you’re addressing, but be flexible about the solution. There’s a reason the problem is prioritized on your roadmap, so changing the problem you’re attacking should be painful. However, discussing and embracing new solutions is part of a healthy creative process. Challenge the team to explain why “this new solution” is the best way to address the problem, especially when taking time constraints into consideration.
  • Agree on how to measure the solution before you start building it. The objective judge of a solution is the impact it has on the problem. Figuring out how to measure the solution is sometimes as hard as figuring out how to solve the problem in the first place. Before you write a single line of production code, discuss the metrics you’ll use to define success, what tools you’ll use to monitor those metrics, and any work the team will need to do to facilitate accurate reporting. (I like Mixpanel)
  • Your problem should have a clear “re-assesment date”, not a “target ship date”. The team can’t read the future, so you realistically don’t know if the current solution is going to solve your problem. For every problem on your roadmap, you should be able to communicate how long you’re willing to invest in solving it. Whether this is purely for planning an coordination (for example, a user conference in November) or for financial resourcing, make sure there’s a date in which you will re-evaluate the problem’s priority if it hasn’t been solved.

Increase the time your team spends talking about the problems you’re trying to solve, and you’ll start seeing more creative solutions immediately.

You should follow me on Twitter @SparkleClarkle