Too Many Product Management Frameworks?
Yes… I know, a product manager’s role can be seen as a black box, or rather a genie’s lamp!
I think that most product managers would agree that product management is an interesting, fun, and challenging role. Every day is different, every product is unique, every company implements it differently, and every product manager’s approach and what they bring to the role is distinct.
Which explains why the product manager’s role varies considerably from company to company and even from product to product.
I will discuss in another article the misconceptions that come with product management, especially in the Middle East and Africa region where this concept is still new. However, for now, I would like to share my thoughts about the different frameworks, plus when and how to use them.
What frameworks are you familiar with? Which one do you use the most? Do you use the same framework for all your products? Which one do you advocate for? I’d expect different answers according to the product, company, and the type of teams involved in product management. Let’s start with the basics.
What is a Framework?
A Framework is a basic conceptional structure of ideas or rules around which something can be built. In other words, a Framework is nothing more than a guideline that tells you what to do (and how to do it).
Why so many?
Frameworks provide us with ways of working, which evolve through time and cater to different needs. Hence you will find many options out there.
But as Barry Schwartz put it in his famous book, The Paradox of Choice, having too many options to choose from can cause anxiety and stress.
Some examples
There are plenty of great articles and material out there with detailed information about the different and most popular Product Management Frameworks. I’m going to summarise some of the most important ones here.
The Minimum Viable Product (or MVP)
Popularized by Steve Blank and Eric Ries, it is basically a solution with minimal functionalities that are enough to solve a problem and to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback on how to proceed next.
Jobs To Be Done (or JTBD)
JTBD is a way of looking at customers’ motivation and behavior to understand their needs. As Clayton Christensen put it, “People often buy things because they find themselves with a problem they would like to solve.”
North Star Framework
This framework has been introduced by Amplitude and espouses the concept of focusing in one single and most important metric that best captures the core value that your product delivers to customers: your ‘North Star’.
The CIRCLES Method
Lewis Lin came up with a great checklist that focuses on understanding the situation, identifying the customer, reporting the customer’s needs, prioritizing, listing solutions, evaluating tradeoffs, and recommending appropriate actions.
First Principles
As Elon Musk nicely put it: “Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there”. In other words, identify, define and break down the problem to its fundamental principles and create new solutions based on those principles.
Design Sprint
Design Sprints are fun! The idea, introduced by Jake Knapp, is simple: Build and test a prototype in just five days. It allows you to fast-forward into the future, so you can see how customers react before you invest more.
The Hook Model
Nir Eyal shared this model to help us describe the user’s interactions with a product as they pass through 4 phases: a trigger to use the product, an action, a variable reward, and some type of investment that brings value to the user.
Customer Journey Framework
The Customer Journey framework describes the stages people go through during the life cycle of using a product: Awareness, Consideration, Purchase, Retention, and Advocacy.
As I stated earlier, having too many options can be stressful and might create a FOMO sensation for all product managers. Am I missing out by not using framework B instead of framework A.
Keep in mind there are many more frameworks out there: The 5W & 1H, The 5Es Framework, STAR Framework, DIGS Framework, HEART, RICE Scoring Model, MoSCoW, Double Diamond Model, Story Telling, REAN Model, AARRR Model, Business Model Canvas, Opportunity Solution Tree, Weighted Impact Scoring and more.
Now, instead of getting stressed with too many options, we should feel privileged and grateful that soo many brilliant people came up with these frameworks and models so we can focus on what matters most, delivering outstanding products and solutions.
Some of the top tech companies have cracked the code and have been able to mix and match frameworks. Adjust them and adapt them to their long-term and short-term needs.
Companies like Spotify have mastered Experimentation where they think about the problem they want to solve, build the solution, ship it and tweak it.
Others like Netflix have mastered A/B Testing, which allows them to substantiate causality and confidently make changes to the product knowing that their members have voted for them with their actions.
Apple and Amazon are well known for their customer obsession. They did things backward, starting with the customer experience and the final product and working backward.
The point is, that you are not limited to using one and only framework for the rest of your product life. Mix and match and even create your own eventually.
There is no secret formula on how to pick the best framework and you won’t find any websites with a clear answer because all these frameworks serve different purposes and meet different criteria based on your product, your goals, your company, time to market, your ecosystem, your experience, your teams and most importantly your audience.
Things like speed and time to market, continuous delivery, continuous innovation, product-market fit, customer segments, ecosystem, innovation, customer needs, business goals, and vision among others, would have a say when it comes to picking the right framework or, the right combination of frameworks.
Start by understanding who your customers are and what problem they are trying to solve, break it down to its fundamental truth, and identify your North Star, touchpoints, interactions, and customer journey. Focus on the final product, and even get a glimpse of it following techniques like Design Sprints or MVP.
Do not be afraid to experiment and try new things, as long as you always keep it simple.
