1. A/B testing life
Confession time. You have totally A/B tested that recipe and whether you should wear high or low heels on dates in order to collect “data” and “metrics” and optimize cooking/dates (or such)? While a lot can be said about data significance of these “tests”, they do make us feel better about our choices. Don’t they?
2. Launching into market research with unsuspecting people
Guilty as charged. When I was at Zynga, I would ask my baristas or anything who would confess to playing my game, all sort of questions on player patterns, tricks and such. Not working for any tech-taxi companies, but that has not stopped me from asking taxi drivers what they thought of Lyft vs. Uber vs. Sidecar business model, supplier experience etc. My PM friends are flooding FB/Twitter with all sorts of survey links. Heck, we even use our parents for impromptu usability studies. Side of of being a product manager is that the world is your playground errrrr guinea pig.
3. Immediately deconstructing a new feature in another product
Secret app recently suggested I share an answer on father’s day and that was immediately spotted by many as a growth hack by many others in the app (early adopter tech folks). Ever spent time downloading all the top apps from the store and then deconstructing them? Making notes of design patterns for growth, engagement and such? Favorite pastime ever.
4. Trying to MVP a home-project — hey, it works!
Very recently, a fellow PM purchased a new pad. In typical PM fashion, he actually took the time to define the “vision” (shabby chic decor meets gamer) and then create prioritized list of changes he would like to do. This led to a “MVP” set of remodeling to be done before “launch” aka move-in. Now that he has moved in, he is creating a “roadmap” for v2, v3 of the remodeling. Clearly, it’s a thing and a popular one among PMs. Here is how we make a birthday cake .. over 3 releases.
