Product Management in the times of a crisis
These days are crazy.
The corona virus lead to a shut down of public life as we know it. Some cities re-open, others lock down a second time. And we are happy about this because governments finally took action after, at first, ignoring an upcoming pandemic.
Nations are increasing trade barriers.
Some countries have good leaders, other countries are managed by notorious liars.
And this roller coaster ride keeps accelerating… economic decline, pandemic threats, home office, political chaos.
Economic issues move in closer and may really hit many of us. Some businesses will struggle, people’s health is in danger and the way we do business will change. So how can product management work under these contemporary circumstances? How can products survive the disaster?
Times are changing. Like with every change, there is a chance hidden deep inside the turmoil of 2020.
Remote product work, core tasks
Everything has to happen remotely these days: sales are done remotely, development teams are managed remotely, decisions are taken remotely and customer feedback is collected remotely. Remote work is everywhere. Remote work forces people to focus on their core tasks. Less blah-blah, more getting things done. Moreover, there is a good chance people will excel at their core tasks due to remote work because distraction reduces. With remote work there is focus on core activities.
Now, of course, running remote product management will not perfectly shield you from all the obstacles and challenges of today’s business environment. There is no umbrella to open and stay dry. The situation is far from ideal. But there is hope and product managers should attempt to take advantage of the new focus on core activities.
New features will transform products
Business life changes and business may shrink, but business does not hibernate. Your customers are not anymore interested in business optimization. They now want to transform their business to adjust for new challenges. Some business undergo fundamental transformations (e.g. not all airlines will survive the reduction in air traffic) while others undergo a slight shift (e.g. education moves to video conf).
- More safety buffers
Before the crisis businesses wanted to reduce safety buffers to reduce warehouse cost, now they increase safety buffers for more independence. - Increased resilience
Before the crisis businesses wanted to grow in any possible way, now they want to protect their operations. A solid public sector customer is favored above a set of 10 start-up customers which potentially run out of money soon. - Increased flexibility
Before the crisis procurement departments negotiated prices aggressively to the lowest possible level. Now they pay a premium to keep multiple parallel vendors engaged such that the core business is not endangered by the limited availability of a single vendor.
Be financial buffers, inventory, or increased flexibility — businesses shift their attention towards contemporary challenges. In a crisis-driven world products need new features, different from what they envisioned before the crisis. Old product road maps are not valid right now, new features become relevant. It goes without saying that customer feedback can be collected remotely, old customer feedback from before the crisis may be outdated now and particular attention must be paid to customer feedback received during the current crisis.
Stay focused on the customer. Double-check if you need to refocus.
Booming markets lead to excess. Some companies pay insane amounts for a super bowl image clip, others buy user growth at any cost and pile up significant losses. While these strategies may work, they may not be ideal during a recession. Recessions require for high customer retention, solid profits and stable business. Only when money is available in can be invested into future growth.
Validate that all your product activities are either supporting customer retention or directly support future growth. Avoid waste activities, focus on what drives value for your customers and your business. Recession kills waste, recessions kill the walking dead.
That new marketing campaign? Hm. Run it, but only if your marketing crew cannot provide better value elsewhere.
All your product related investments should fall into one of the following two categories:
- Core task
Product enhancements directly increases user retention or directly leads to business growth. Build what your users always wanted. - Re-focus when needed
Some resources may be around running idle, e.g. the airplanes not transporting tourists anymore. Use these resources for whatever other meaningful activity you can think of: refit the planes for air fright to provide transportation services.
As a product owner in a recession environment you want to execute, not contemplate. You want to run whatever keeps your customers happy and you want to re-focus your product in case it is exposed to fundamental market shift.
Summary
Product management in the times of the crisis is a challenge. Yet, it can be done and products can be driven to success by following three simple rules. Product owners need to spend their time working on core tasks. User requirements may change during crisis and new features will become relevant. Naturally, users play an important role in product management but especially during a crisis products must put customers into their center of gravity.
As a basic crisis survival guide crisis C-F-C provides good guidance: core tasks, new features, customer focus. This will help.
For tool support on identifying new crisis-relevant features please check our tool Productific: a free plan is available for testing.
