Problem Solving and the Art of Critical Thinking I
Problem definition and Identification of Scale:-
There are two kinds of Space for the abstract problems:-
Problem Statement:- Say for example, If in Future Instagram want to move to Job seeking space, how they leverage the current solution to build a job network
Problem Space
- This is the space in which hypothesis or the need resides.
- Where why part of the problem resides, Why should I solve this.
- For Ex:- Need is to Go from Place A to Place B. I should be able to move from A to B, it doesn’t matter which modes of transport I choose
- This is the Space Product Manager spends most of his time.
Why is this important?
- If one doesn’t understand the need well whatever he build it will not work
- Need is a value prop to end-users. It is something that adds value or happiness to end-user life
One should not interpret the word needs too narrowly: It can be a pain point, a desire, a job to be done, or a user story.
Solution Space
If one understands the Problem part, why part, the need of the end-user well. This helps in building a hypothesis somewhere between problem space and solution space and building a solution on top of this.
Where the solution to the problem resides
Points to Note:-
- We need to re-iterate between Problem Space and Solution Space to come to some viable solution.
- Keep on building hypotheses and build solutions on them until we realize that we have come to a right solution
- Consistently question the user's needs and go back to the problem space and work on the solution on top of it.
- Abstract question will never give you pin-pointed answer, actual product will give.
- Use solution space to actually identify what is not getting addressed in problem space
- Customers will never tell about problem space,i.e their needs
- To identify needs take an existing solution and note down the needs of the user.
- Never put an abstract question in front of the user, Leverage solution space to understand the needs of problem space.
Most product managers even before they move to solution space, take an existing product and ask users to use it and say what they like and don’t like.
Customer Discovery /Contextual Inquiry: Way to interview customers and observe them using existing Product
Identify Size of Market (Segmenting the market and calculating size of it)
Once you have understood the need, it is viable to convert it into a product when the size of need is large enough
For example:- Adding a Tamil filter in Netflix, doesn’t make sense when the same is compared with adding the Hindi filter. This is because of the target. market results of Tamil are low as compared to that of Hindi.
You can either define your market size based on needs.
OR
You define your target customer by capturing all of the relevant customer attributes that identify someone as being in your target market.
There are 4 kinds of primary attributes to get to Target Group (Powers Users)
1️⃣ Demographic
These are generally termed Age-based Segmentations. This is the first Set, it doesn’t give an exact persona.
Example:- Develop an App for Moms to share their photographs with friends.
Target Customer:- Mom with the age between 20 to 40, who has kids less than 3 years old.
2️⃣ Psychographic
This can be classified into the set of users who do the intended action for a solution to work.
Target Customer:- Based on interest, women in the range of 20–40 who share photos of their kids.
3️⃣ Behavioral
This is the behavior they do.
Target Customer:- Moms who actually share their babies' photos at least 3 times a week
4️⃣ Needs-based
Breaks down into individual needs in the same segment.
Example: Probably share with friends, so they need a security layer around it.
This is a pyramidal approach, this helps us reach the target group, which we can Power users. We can build the solutions on top of this and tweak our solutions for the other users to work.
Identify Product Ideas to solve problems
Build hypothesis Statement
Ex:- Abstract Statement:- Help me Prepare my tax Returns easily (User Need)
Identify User Benefits (Validate Hypothesis):-
- Help me prepare my tax return easily
- Clear the accuracy of my tax return
- Reduce my audit risk
- Minimize my tax deductions
Do Customer interviews:-
Doing customer so that one can make the hypothesis from an Abstract to a Non-Abstract Statement.
Ex:- What does filling tax easily mean to you?
Typical customers comments:-
- I am not sure which forms to fill out.
- I don’t really know about taxes
As a PM your responsibility is to put all the comments as Product ideas and themes so this is what MVP should have.
Break down the statement into the Actionable items/ideas which the product should have.
Importance Vs Satisfaction framework:-
Importance:-
- How Importance is the user Need?
- What is brutal need and rate them in terms of importance
- Problem Space concept
Satisfaction:-
- How satisfied is the user satisfied with the current product.
- What is the feature in the current solution which are of high Satisfaction and which are of low Satisfaction?
High Need and High Satisfaction is Competitive => These are the competitive spaces, one would need to apply lateral thinking to build something out of the box.
High Need and Low Satisfaction is Opportunity => These are the opportunities area.
Validate Product Ideas
- User feedback is incredibly valuable because it identifies what you don’t know. When you are so close to the product, it is difficult to perceive, what a new user does.
- There’s a bias (Product Blindness) that comes into mind that I know my product and so the user will be able to use this. It is of utmost importance to remove the self-bias and get the ideas validated. To do this, Go to the Right Target Group outside the circle of influence to validate the ideas
- Feedback on usability, how easy it use, and understanding the product is for the end-user.
- Feedback on Value, Product-Market fit. This is how much value it brings to the end-user.
Take an existing solution listing down some points to users to figure out the importance and need of the users.
Based on this we can decide what the MVP should have and what the current solution is missing and help us in building the MVP. This helps in validating the product ideas based on the Importance vs Satisfaction framework
Product Value Templates:-
There are categorized into three main components:-
- Must Haves:- These are must-haves at any cost for MVP to succeed. Without having this the product will not bring any value prop to the users.
Examples:- Quality of content and accessibility in Airtribe and Udemy. - Performance Benefits:- These depend on business to business. Every Product has its own benefits.
Example:- Community-led learning for Airtribe and Prices, Content-led learning for Udemy. - Delighters:- These are specifics to business, which nobodies generally copy. Delighter may or may not exist and these are not the decision-maker for one to use the product or not.
Example:- Guest Lectures on Airtribe.
We generally list down all of these and compare them with the competitors while working on solutions for our MVP.
Learnings of 2nd week of the 8 weeks, “Breaking into product management” CBC led by (shravan tickoo) and Airtribe.
Follow, (Shravan Tickoo) The Swag Wala PM for amazing content.
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