The latest articles on DEV Community by Justin Williams (@product_foolery). https://dev.to/product_foolery https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F1025300%2Ff72923a6-0578-4790-ade0-56f420a35b9e.jpg https://dev.to/product_foolery en Justin Williams Thu, 23 Mar 2023 19:54:08 +0000 https://dev.to/product_foolery/product-vs-project-thinking-1e9h https://dev.to/product_foolery/product-vs-project-thinking-1e9h <p>I wrote up some notes based on a Shreyas Doshi talk on Product vs. Project Thinking, thought I’d share!🍹(also on <a href="https://practicalproductdiscovery.substack.com/p/shreyas-doshi-on-product-thinking">Substack</a>)</p> <h2> Three big ideas </h2> <ol> <li>Explain product vs. project thinking.</li> <li>Describe how you and your team can learn product thinking.</li> <li>Encourage you to practice by applying product thinking to nearly anything.</li> </ol> <p><strong>Product thinking is challenging to explain.</strong></p> <p>Much like trying to describe the color orange, it is difficult to do without analogies. But once you see product thinking, you cannot unsee it.</p> <p>On Twitter, people say: “Just friggin launch it and see! How can we be expected to know what works upfront?!”</p> <ul> <li>This is terrible advice.</li> <li>There are many methods we can use to get closer to the mark.</li> <li>Once you see product thinking in action, these techniques become easier to apply in your day-to-day.</li> </ul> <h2> A Common PM Scenario: </h2> <p>A critical customer escalates a feature request to the CEO.</p> <p><strong>The project thinking response:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Size the request.</li> <li>Recalibrate your roadmap to accommodate while attempting to make parallel progress on already-committed efforts.</li> <li>Recast launch dates.</li> <li>Ask the CEO to make a go/no-go call.</li> </ul> <p><a href="https://res.cloudinary.com/practicaldev/image/fetch/s--AGz6IFCE--/c_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto%2Cw_880/https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/9ixzw67h62altwtlkltt.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/practicaldev/image/fetch/s--AGz6IFCE--/c_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto%2Cw_880/https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/9ixzw67h62altwtlkltt.png" alt="Image description" width="880" height="495"></a></p> <p><strong>Project thinking is</strong></p> <ul> <li>Understanding expectations</li> <li>Formulating plans</li> <li>Marshaling resources</li> <li>Coordinating actions to meet said expectations</li> </ul> <p><strong>Product thinking is</strong></p> <ul> <li>Understanding motivations</li> <li>Conceiving solutions</li> <li>Simulating their effects</li> <li>Selecting a path forward based on the effects you want to create</li> </ul> <p><strong>Let us revisit the above common PM scenario, this time using the power of product thinking.</strong></p> <p>PM speaks directly to to deeply understand the ask. PM doesn’t rely on proxies:</p> <ul> <li>How does this help our buyer win?</li> <li>Or prevent them from losing?</li> </ul> <p><strong>PM breaks the problem down into distinct parts:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Their ask is primarily to solve </li> <li> is secondary and can be handled manually for the time being</li> </ul> <p><strong>PM understands how a win with could be parlayed into more significant gains:</strong></p> <ul> <li>If we build , agrees to be featured as a reference customer. We’ll use this to capture more of .</li> </ul> <p><a href="https://res.cloudinary.com/practicaldev/image/fetch/s--1doSCusi--/c_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto%2Cw_880/https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/sgali8rneisqjjgu16ys.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/practicaldev/image/fetch/s--1doSCusi--/c_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto%2Cw_880/https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/sgali8rneisqjjgu16ys.png" alt="Image description" width="880" height="633"></a></p> <p><strong>When done in excess</strong></p> <ul> <li>Project thinking produces heroic efforts lacking results.</li> <li>Product thinking produces great plans that gather dust.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Scenario: a VP puts you on the spot about a proposed customer experience (!)</strong></p> <ul> <li>A project thinking response involves schedule and resources.</li> <li>A product thinking response involves motivations, insights, and strategy.</li> </ul> <h2> How you and your team can learn product thinking: </h2> <ol> <li>Suspend the project-thinking mindset.</li> <li>Prioritize your real goals. Not deliverables. Ask: Why? So what? What effects do you want to create for your users?</li> <li>Understand your users’ needs. Pay particular attention to objections and friction points. The most important needs are those that the customer cannot directly articulate but come through indirectly via actions/stories.</li> <li>Generate options. Don’t shy away from big ideas. Embrace creativity and differentiation. Copying competitors is the inverse of differentiation.</li> <li>Simulate. Visualize how each option will play out. Ask yourself what happens next. Gameplan it out. Build prototypes or other testable assets.</li> </ol> <h2> Study examples of product thinking in the wild 🐅 </h2> <ul> <li>Stripe’s checkout page builder allows you to create a custom checkout experience so you can envision it working in your product.</li> <li>The iOS feature copies in an SMS confirmation code with a tap.</li> <li>Cash App became a hit when it designed a card that didn’t make people feel poor.</li> <li>Duolingo uses gamification to help you learn a foreign language.</li> <li>Others? I feel like I should have a much longer list. Help good people - send me some examples of product thinking.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Full post:</strong><br> <a href="https://practicalproductdiscovery.substack.com/p/shreyas-doshi-on-product-thinking">https://practicalproductdiscovery.substack.com/p/shreyas-doshi-on-product-thinking</a></p> productmanagement productthinking Justin Williams Tue, 21 Mar 2023 17:05:30 +0000 https://dev.to/product_foolery/jobs-to-be-done-interview-guide-37p https://dev.to/product_foolery/jobs-to-be-done-interview-guide-37p <p><a href="https://practicalproductdiscovery.substack.com/p/jobs-to-be-done-interview-guide">Full Post</a></p> <h2> Before you dive in: </h2> <p>Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) interviews are designed to discover the underlying motivations or the real reasons behind a buying decision.</p> <p>These are typically wildly different from what customers say in surveys or traditional interviews.</p> <p>JTBD says when customers make a purchase, they are hoping for a type of progress that goes beyond the functional nature of the product.</p> <p>These jobs can be considered the underlying reasons customers buy. Understanding the jobs helps us design our product to suit.</p> <p>JTBD applies to any product, for example, are customers buying a grill or are they buying…</p> <p>⭐ The pride of enjoying a meal that you created</p> <p>😌 The feeling of relaxation that comes from cooking at home</p> <p>😘 The ability to impress a love interest</p> <p>🥳 The joy of backyard BBQ parties with friends</p> <p>The hard truth is that traditional interviews in which you ask users direct questions about what they want or don’t want, what they like or don’t like, are largely a waste of time. </p> <p><em>“Decades of research on investigative interviewing have shown that participants struggle to answer direct factual questions accurately.”</em> - Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits.</p> <p>This is what makes the JTBD method powerful. Instead of asking direct questions, we learn insights indirectly by getting our customers to tell a specific story. </p> <h2> Intro Spiel </h2> <ul> <li>Hi, and thanks for participating in this interview. I'm going to ask you some questions about your decision to purchase </li> <li>There are no right or wrong answers; I'm just trying to hear your story in your own words.</li> <li>I ask that you be totally candid. You won’t hurt my feelings, and oftentimes, the negative helps more than the positive. </li> <li>At certain times, I'll ask detailed questions about a situation.</li> <li>You can think of it like we’re filming a documentary, and we’re trying to set the scene and get all the details right for a closeup.</li> <li>Then we will get you out of here with </li> <li>Any questions before we get started?</li> </ul> <h2> Warm-up </h2> <p><strong>B2C</strong></p> <ul> <li>Tell me a little about yourself</li> <li>What were you using before ? </li> <li>Why did you start looking for something new?</li> <li>What worked well?</li> <li>What was the biggest issue with the old solution?</li> </ul> <p><strong>B2B</strong></p> <ul> <li>Tell me about your role at the company</li> <li>How has life changed since you started using ?</li> <li>Has anything changed in the world such that what you just described is more important than it would have been a couple of years ago?</li> <li>What does success look like for you?</li> <li>How do you measure it?</li> <li>What are your biggest obstacles to achieving success right now?</li> </ul> <h2> Finding the First Thought </h2> <ul> <li>When did you first think about ?</li> <li>What triggered you to think about this?</li> <li>What else do you remember from that day? Were you with someone? What did they say?</li> <li>When you discovered , what first made you want to try it?</li> </ul> <h2> Desired Progress </h2> <ul> <li>What about the stood out to you the most?</li> <li>What kind of progress or change were you hoping for when you purchased ?</li> <li>Why is this important?</li> <li>What do you hope it will help you achieve?</li> </ul> <h2> Consideration Set </h2> <ul> <li>Tell me about how you looked for a product to solve your problem. Walk me through each step of your search. </li> <li>Before purchasing , what other options did you consider?</li> <li>Did you try or buy anything before you found us?</li> <li>Did you compare the purchase you were about to make to any other products?</li> <li>If so, which?</li> <li>Why did you choose our vs. the alternatives?</li> </ul> <h2> Emotional Factors </h2> <ul> <li>Did you ask anyone else what they thought about the purchase you were about to make?</li> <li>What was the conversation like when you discussed the purchase with your ?</li> <li>Did you have any anxiety about the purchase? What was it? Why did it make you nervous?</li> <li>Was there any information you wish you would have known that would have made the decision easier?</li> <li>What made the purchase process challenging, inconvenient, or frustrating?</li> <li>How did you overcome your initial concerns?</li> <li>What could have been a deal-breaker?</li> <li>What led to you overcoming these concerns?</li> </ul> <h2> Current Satisfaction </h2> <ul> <li>How does using compare to your initial expectations?</li> <li>What do you like most about it?</li> <li>What can you do now that you couldn't before? What does it unlock for you?</li> <li>If disappeared tomorrow, what would you miss most?</li> <li>How has made your life better?</li> <li>Have there been any moments of delight while using ? </li> <li>If you could wave a magic wand and improve three things about the product, what would they be? Assume anything is possible ;)</li> <li>Why would you want that improvement?</li> <li>What would that enable you to do that you can't do now?</li> </ul> <h2> Customer Copy </h2> <ul> <li>These questions help you find better language you can use in marketing materials and product descriptions.</li> <li>How would you describe the experience of to a friend?</li> <li>Who would you say the is for?</li> <li>Why is perfect for people like that?</li> <li>If you had to convince a friend to try and you only had 2 minutes to explain why they should buy it, what would you say?</li> </ul> <h2> Wrap Up </h2> <p>Many customers worry that they have not been helpful enough - please reassure them.</p> <p>Thank you, while answers to these questions may seem straightforward at times, I can assure you I've learned a tremendous amount, and you've given me a ton of ideas!</p> <p>Is there anything else you think I should know?</p> productmanagement research