Pivot Product Hits | October 21st 2016

Why value is the lynchpin of Product Management, beyond Jobs to be Done and a Product Manager’s guide to the Internet of Things.

Internet of Things: A Primer for Product Managers

Know your 5 layers, says Daniel Elizalde.

In Summary: The Internet of Things is considered by many to be the 4th Industrial Revolution, but unlike the first three, it’s not a new technology — it’s a new way of combining existing technologies. The Internet of Things is all about connecting devices and sharing data. As a result, it will require a new kind of Product Manager.

From the embedded software that allows you to implement communication to the Cloud, to the end-user applications that your customer will see and interact with, Daniel outlines the 5 layers of the IoT stack so PMs can understand the decisions and tradeoffs they will need to make when working within it.

One of the challenges of IoT applications is that they can generate an enormous amount of data, so PMs will need to have a good idea of the type and amount of data they’ll be collecting on a daily basis.

When designing end-user applications, it’s very important to understand your user and their primary goal for using your product (aka the ‘Job to be Done.’)

Product Managers will need to understand each layer of the stack, and how they all fit together into a complete IoT solution.

3 pillars of the most successful Products

To succeed, a company must never lose sight of its GEM: growth, engagement and monetisation, says Nir Eyal.

In Summary: When it comes to monitoring and regularly communicating what matters, the GEM framework is valuable to companies and Product Teams. Growth, engagement and monetisation are interlinked. Each is insufficient on its own.

Growth is about getting the right message in front of people who need what you have. Nir calls these ‘external triggers,’ they can be delivered through multiple channels.

Engagement changes according to the nature of your product. It could be once a year (like a vacation planner) or once an hour, like Facebook. If your product isn’t used often it becomes less useful, and eventually customers never return.

Monetisation means turning some of the customer value you create into cash. Over the long term, there’s only one way to achieve it: you need to see a future market that others don’t and be able to protect it with a ‘moat’, like regulation, brand or network effect.

Value is the lynchpin of Product Management!

We’re in the value delivery business, says Ellen Gottesdiener.

In Summary: Value is the single most important basis for making decisions in Product Management. Yet, we don’t tend to qualify, quantify or discuss what value means enough. A key duty of a Product Manager is optimising development based on the changing landscape of value.

Most people consider value in terms of money, but that is not always the case. It can be something intangible such as ‘trust’ or ‘belonging’.

To have a holistic understanding of value, and to make value-based decisions that help deliver the product, a smart Product Manager needs to know who the product partners are and what they consider valuable. Different stakeholders will have diverse views on what a product’s value is. The best products evolve from collaboration among all product partners.

Great Product Management relies on partners transparently leading value delivery by continually defining what value means for the ever-evolving product.

In defence of Product Specs

They key to success, says Gaurav Oberoi.

In Summary: Gaurav is sceptical of the view that Product Specs mean slower releases, over-planning and generally wasted time. In fact, he has worked with world-class teams who followed agile principles, shipped code daily and measured their success on what they shipped — yet still prized specs as a key part of their process.

Good product specs should cover the problem, measurable goals, the context, details of the solution and the timeline. Above all, they should be short, set the direction and point at the vision.

Writing a spec may seem like extra work, but it’s not. Effective specs will help you and your team save time, and deliver with confidence.

5 secrets to building a Product that sells itself

Metavallon’s Phyllis Nikolaou cracks the code.

In Summary: A quick guide to building a game-changing product.

First of all, know your market. Learn what your customers value and what makes a product irresistible to them. Understand what they love and what they fear, the two most powerful forces shaping their behaviour.

Product development is all about making your initial idea better, more innovative and more competitive. This involves a lot of testing and decision-making. Building something is the best way to get your first customers and kick start the process of learning why some features work and some don’t.

Don’t just offer something incrementally superior. In a world of instant-gratification that overflows with new products, only 10x better will grab attention and maintain it.

Finally, the price. Behind every business success story, there is good pricing. Getting the right value on your product can catapult you to growth and prosperity. Getting it wrong can be your Titanic .

Beyond Jobs to be Done?

Clay Christensen’s new theory of Disruption, by Quartz’s Oliver Staley.

In Summary: Every Product Manager knows Clay Christensen’s theory of the Job to be Done. Customers, he says, aren’t really interested in products themselves but in what they do. Innovative companies focus on developing products that do the jobs customers want, no matter what form they take.

In his new book, Clay uncovers why, despite having done the requisite market research, 80% of products fail. The customer, he believes, is very unpredictable but the job is very stable over time. If you understand the job to be done, it helps you compete against companies who still believe it’s a gamble.

If you organise your company around a job to be done, it’s a lot harder for a new entrant to disrupt you, because most companies just compete against other products. Jobs to be done is good protection for companies worried about being disrupted.

Jobs to be done are discovered, not developed. If you keep your ear to the ground, you’ll happen upon a job; this is where great product companies start.

What is a Product Manager?

A different perspective, from CapitalOne’s Tim Platt.

In Summary: Inspired by Marty Cagan’s recent post ‘Behind every great Product’, Tim concludes that official job roles aren’t important but people and the work they do is. Just because someone has the title ‘Product Manager’ doesn’t mean they’re the one driving the product forward.

As a consequence, Tim lists the 8 traits, characteristics and skills that individuals behind great products embody.

The priority of a product leader isn’t to create the role of Product Manager but to enable others in the company to flourish. This is achieved by establishing the best environment, nurturing a great culture and equipping people with the autonomy and tools to become great people behind what will ultimately be a great product.

The product itself is the reward for those that love what they do, who they do it with and who they do it for.

What can you remove from your Product?

Less is definitely more, says Tom Tunguz.

In Summary: A (slightly) different take on the concept of ‘Product Debt’, this time from Redpoint Ventures’ data-hero, Tomasz Tunguz.

Product debt is different from technical debt. Technical debt means having to go back and rewrite code because it wasn’t built to scale. Product debt refers to groups of features that work well, but are only used by a tiny fraction of users. These features can introduce all kinds of complexity downstream.

Every product team needs to decide the ‘carrying costs’ they are willing to bear. They need to ask: what fraction of users need to use a feature for it to remain?

Removing features that don’t meet the criteria ensures Product Teams can move more quickly, reduce their product debt, and deliver a better experience to their users. One in which nothing else can be taken away.

How Lean UX builds better Products

Lean UX is how we integrate user experience and design into Agile product development, says Neo’s Jeff Gothelf.

In Summary: Believing that agile became too focused on increasing the pace of software delivery, Jeff’s hypothesis-based approach to UX design has helped revolutionise product creation over the last 5 years.

When you optimise for velocity, done means “we shipped it”. But that doesn’t tell us whether customers use it or whether it adds value. Jeff advocates for moving away from the feature as the measure of success to customer outcomes as the metric instead.

The more you expose people to customers, the more humility you drive into the organisation and resistance to Lean UX starts to soften.

Taking small risks, doing experiments and running tests provides insight into where to go next with your products. Lean Start-Up, Agile and product discovery are risk mitigation tactics. They reduce the risk of making products that people don’t want.

Product Quote of the week

“My MVP was DOA so, until I figure out my next pivot, I’m driving for Uber.”

Overheard in Silicon Valley, quoted in the Atlantic’s 3rd annual Silicon Valley Insiders’ Poll.

Originally published at Pivot Product Hits.