How a forensic science background made me a better product manager
When you think of forensic investigation, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Crime Scenes, CSI: Miami, Silent Witness, Murder? All of the above? I’m going to guess one thing that probably doesn’t come to mind: product management.
I work in product at Cancer Research UK and hold a degree in forensic investigation, and the leap between the two isn’t quite as big as you may think! There are a surprising number of parallels and here are 5 lessons that I’ve learnt along the way.
1. Pay attention to the detail
To work in forensics — be it in a lab or at a crime scene — you must pay close attention to detail. You could be looking for a tiny speck of blood that you could run a DNA profile on, searching for a weapon in a wooded area or analysing a sample for the presence of illegal substances. Every scenario requires a thorough approach and attention to detail. Without it you could miss a critical piece of evidence. That could be the difference between finding a speck of blood which gets you the DNA match on a suspect, which isn’t a risk you want to take when investigating a crime.
To build a better product that solves problems for users, and in my case for supporters, look at the detail of how your product is performing. I work on the Payments Product, part of which includes the online donation form and we’ve just released a new MVP donation form. As part of this we’re tracking many things, but something that is really helping us to understand product performance is that we’re now tracking the errors that our supporters are seeing when they fill out the form. We’re tracking what the errors are on each field, how often supporters are seeing them, what page of the form has the biggest drop off — a wide range of sources. This is something we weren’t able to do in this level of detail before, and it means we’re able to better understand how our supporters are filling out the form, and where we can make improvements to their journey. The attention to detail enables us to get to the why and ensure our supporters have a great experience when they donate to CRUK.
2. Look for the evidence like a CSI
In forensics you need evidence and data so that you can build a clear picture of what happened. The evidence is the data that informs you and without the data, you have a baseless opinion. You also need to be able to understand your findings within the context of the situation. Blood on its own is evidence but understanding blood spatter analysis gives you a richer opinion of the evidence and what happened at the scene.
Some of the most commonly asked questions by product managers are, “what data have we got?”, “can we test it?” and “what feedback do we have from supporters?” all with the aim of gathering enough information to make informed, data-driven decisions. At the core, product managers are doing the same thing as forensic experts. They gather evidence in the form of data and feedback to inform and enrich their opinions, and they use it to make decisions on the strategic direction of the product. If you’re not able to pick up on these ‘clues’ or pieces of ‘evidence’ then you will struggle to truly understand your product, its performance, and what your user/ supporter needs from it. It’s good to keep this front of mind and I often ask myself: “where’s the evidence?”
3. Cater your message to your audience
One of my assignments was to investigate a fire crime scene, and then present my evidence as the expert in a ‘court’ scenario. The aim was to mimic the real experience where if you work in Forensics you can be called to court to give your scientific evidence as an Expert Witness. Imagine being the one explaining heavily scientific, complicated or technical information to a lay person in a jury; it needs to be accessible to everyone so that they have the information needed to build a full understanding.
This court experience taught me a lot that I still use in my job now. When I’m looking to achieve alignment with stakeholders, I’m not going to reach a consensus by going into it with unnecessarily complicated technical language; it’s unlikely to lead to the agreement we’re looking for. So being able to explain information in a way that caters to the specific audience has served me well in product management. I know that I can tailor the way I talk about my work and the product in a way that will resonate with different audiences, in the same way I did in court. If in doubt, strip it back and imagine that you’re trying to explain the concept to a jurer in court with no technical knoweldge.
4. Always look for the insects
Forensic Entomology is the study of insects and how their life cycle can provide insight to crime scenes, especially where death is involved. They provide a lot of information, but one that’s particularly interesting is the insight that they give into time since death. Lots of different insects are attracted to these scenes, including flies, and so the life cycle of a blowfly is used as a key indicator of time since death. Investigators can look at the development stage of the flies that are present at the scene and that, combined with other factors, can build a picture of when the death likely occurred.
Now, if thinking of flies and death hasn’t completely lost you, here’s why I’m a better product manager because of that knowledge. Problem solving involves the ability to both look at the detail and see how that has an impact on the bigger picture. It’s being able to zoom into the detail of data that you’ve collected off the back of releasing a new feature but also being able to give it context by looking at the wider picture of the current landscape, taking into account other evidence such as user feedback and using it all to come to a conclusion.
In launching our MVP donation form I’m really using this skill to understand the detail of performance as well as how it’s performing in the wider landscape. We’re gathering a wide range of data just some of these include: supporter feedback, form performance, total income, conversion, what parts of the form people interact with the most, and what errors they encounter. At the same time, it’s essential to keep the wider view; to understand the charitable landscape in a time of COVID-19 and people’s ability to give, to see what other charities and companies are offering to their customers, campaigns being run, I could go on! The granular and broad detail leads to better problem solving as you can better understand the context in which your product is performing. Product managers should look for clues and indicators of how the product is performing, not unlike looking for the insects present at a crime scene.
5. There’s one skill to rule them all
There is one core skill that underpins some of the best product managers I know and those that work in the forensics field: critical thinking. The ability to reason, learn, question information, refuse to take things at face value, apply logic and ask the right questions. Critical thinking is informed by the evidence and data uncovered through paying close attention to detail and not taking things at face value, which is used in forming data driven and evidenced based opinions and bringing all of that together to problem solve.
Forensic investigation taught me how to be analytical and thorough in my approach to product management. It allowed me to build my problem-solving skills, showed me to pay close attention to details and I’m better at my job because of it.
At the very least it means when I’m next asked why I’m not using my Forensics degree I have a whole host of reasons as to why I actually do use it every single day!
So the next time you watch CSI: Miami or the next Netflix drama, maybe keep these things in mind of how you can apply them to your product day to day:
- Pay attention to the detail
- Look for the evidence like a CSI
- Cater your message to your audience
- Always look for the insects
- There’s one skill to rule them all
Thanks for reading! If you have any feedback or would like to get in touch please do on twitter @tash_mallett or LinkedIn.
