Digital Product Management
Session 3
A product vision
• Dropbox
• Collaborate seamlessly and deliver work faster from anywhere with Dropbox.
Securely store your content, edit PDFs, share videos, sign documents and
track file engagement – without leaving Dropbox.
• Sonos
• The connected home: Sonos makes it easy to play what you love—music,
podcasts, films, shows, audiobooks, radio and more—and share it out loud
with the ones you love.
Recap: Why Product Vision
• Align the product discovery ,development and life cycle management
with the purpose of the Organization.
• Products often translate the vision, mission and the business definition of a
firm
• Engage and inspire the team by aligning their efforts to a larger goal
• LET’S PUT A MAN ON THE MOON
• Our mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally
accessible and useful
• Help the team ideate and choose enhancements to the product
• Envision how the products would lead to a better future for the
customers.
Recap: Creating a Product Vision
• A product vision will help to define the contours of our product
management task
• What is the value of the product? What do we offer?
• Who will use the product? Customers? Buyers, Users?
• Why would the customers/users need this product?
• Who are the competitors in this market space?
• How will your product compare to other competing products in the market?
• What will differentiate this product and makes it unique?
Recap: Product Vision-music streaming
• For [our users], • For [paid subscribers and
audiophiles],
• whose [problem to solve, user
• who [want to listen to the best
needs], quality music on the go],
• the [name of the product], • The [Escape],
• is a [product category], • is a [streaming service],
• that [key-benefits, reason to buy • that [allows users to listen to
it]. anything they like to from the
world’s best artists].
• Different from [competition
• Different from [Spotify],
alternative],
• our product [lets users listen to
• our product [key-difference, unique recording-studio quality HiFi].
selling point].
Recap: Product Visions can be simplified
• Our product vision is a world where [audiophiles] no longer suffer
from [poor music quality] because of [our lossless high-fidelity music]
they [experience music as the artist intended, as if they were in a
studio quality environment].
• Our product vision is to provide a high-fidelity music experience that
is as good as the experience of listening to music in a world-class
studio.
Recap: Product Vision Board
Why do they buy it
What problem What benefit will
from you and not
What do you sell? Who buys it? does it solve for people enjoy from
from your
them? owning it?
competitor?
When your work is
Why do they really
What motivates done, why will the
buy your products? How do you make What is your
your staff to work world be a better
(What is said and money from selling organization great
on this project place thanks to the
unsaid?, any it? at?
other than money? existence of your
hidden motives?)
product?
Recap: Product Vision Prioritization
Less about this Our Product Vision More about this
should be
Recap : Affinity diagrams
• Developed by Prof. Jiro Kawakita
• Structured brainstorming and analysis method with many application
areas including product management, strategic decision making
• How to make an affinity diagram?
• Brain storm and produce insights and ideas
• Compile insights into cards (sticky notes)
• Sort and cluster to organize the cards
• Use a white paper and stickies
• Use a digital white board
• Develop the affinity diagram , interpret and present
How to do affinity diagram workshop
• Gather a team and have a facilitator
• Present the topic or the problem statement
• Provide sticky notes to the team and ask them to write one idea in
each sticky
• Collect the stickies and stick them on white board randomly (post-up)
• Lead the team to reorganize the stickies iteratively
• Discuss each grouping . Why here ? Why not elsewhere?
• Start small
• Group and Label
• Move and re-arrange items
Your product vision is an iterative process
For [our users],
whose [problem to solve, user needs],
the [name of the product],
is a [product category],
that [key-benefits, reason to buy it].
Different from [competition alternative],
our product [key-difference, unique selling
point].
Product – Market Fit
• Is there a fit between what you offer and your customer
requirements ?
• There are customers, users and other stakeholders. They have needs.
They have problems they want to solve. They have pains and gains.
• Does your product deliver the requirements to groups of
stakeholders?
• Who : For whom you are developing your product?
• What : What is your value proposition? The benefits you offer? The
feature set you provide? How is your offer superior to the
competition?
@Adam Fisher
Stakeholder Map
Stakeholder Map
User Persona
Marci, 55
Married with children, one grandchild. Empty-nester. All her help for set-up comes from the web.
Husband, George, is the local pastor, and she has started a blog for his church, wanting to
proactively be modern and support him. She is unwittingly about 5 years behind technological
trends.
Enthusiastic, a bit flighty.
Located in the American Midwest – Ohio
AOL user
Needs:
•Upload videos or shortcode from the YouTube
•Find the right theme
•Add users/subscribers
•Add posts
•Create a custom menu
Tech-savviness rating: 1/10 (1 is least tech-savvy, 10 is most)
I’ve read the page for custom menus three times and been following it, and I can’t see my pages
User Persona
Angelo, 40
Small business owner
He’s pretty successful locally
Someone told him about .Org, and he struggled with it, but learned about plugins and themes.
He doesn’t want to spend a lot of time on this – it has to just work. He will be stingy with his money
depending on how much perceived value something has.
He has a teenaged son.
Married to his high school sweetheart
Hotmail user.
Needs:
•Theme
•Upload a logo
•Much more a static site, but will eventually branch into some light blogging.
•Wants to have increasing traffic over time to increase business
Tech-savviness rating: 4/10 (1 is least tech-savvy, 10 is most)
“I’ve spent 5 hours of my time on this. I don’t have time, I need this done.”
User persona
Jessica, 20s
Personal blogger
A few years out of college.
Relatively savvy – grew up with technology. Has an iPhone.
Knows a little HTML, but not that into it.
Has been blogging on Tumblr for a few years, but now wants to be able to have more themes and a bit
more control behind the scenes.
Stays on top of trends.
Gmail user.
Needs:
•Themes
•Flexibility to change domains when hobby changes
•Wants to curate followers/increase followers
•Publicize on social media
Tech-savviness rating: 7/10 (1 is least tech-savvy, 10 is most)
“How do I pick the image that gets posted to Facebook”
User persona
David, 35
Does web design work professionally, but not on WordPress
Lost a bet on a basketball game, and now has to set up a site for a friend.
Very savvy, knows a lot about computers.
Thought that setting up the site on WordPress would be a 10 minute job, and now it’s been a few
hours and he’s frustrated.
Comes in with very specific expectations that may not actually be accurate on how things should
work.
Hosts his own email address through Gmail on his host.
Needs:
•Themes
•Set up site structure (pages, maybe a blog)
•Set up a home page
•Where does the HTML go?
Tech-savviness rating: 9/10 (1 is least tech-savvy, 10 is most)
“I work with websites a lot, and I’m setting up a site for my friend and I can’t figure out this WordPress thing. How
is this easy exactly?!?”
Personas
• Why do it?
• Personas give us a person to connect and empathise with,
someone with goals for using the product, ensuring human-centred
design.
• When to do it
• Can be done at the initial stage to develop a common shared
understanding of the user
• Revised subsequently after interviews and journey mapping
Personas
• Who is involved?
• Design and Development team, internal stakeholders
Personas
• A persona is a representation of the needs, thoughts and goals of the
target user.
• Think of a persona as your typical or ideal user - who do you see using your
product?
• It helps prevent you from generalizing all users into one bucket and
thinking that everyone has the same needs and goals.
• It also prevents you from falling into the pattern of thinking that you are
going to experience the application the same way that other users will.
• Personas are designed to help you to empathize with individuals who might
use the app, so think of them more as a bio that you might see on a social
website than a job description.
Personas
• How to create a persona
• Using your initial insights, create one or two personas to represent your core users.
Each should have a slightly different story and use case.
• Write down and make a list
• Craft a scenario in which that person would like to use your product or service.
• What would that user’s motivations, goals and needs be?
• What are their pain points and challenges?
• Fine Tune the persona by including an image, name, and quote that
expresses the needs and goals of the user.
• Discuss internally
• Try to find people who fit your persona, speak to them
• Iterate and revise