30 Days of Product Management Genius with Chris Clark | Quantitative Analytics for Problem Space Exploration

“What’s your long-term career goal?” the CEO asked.

“I don’t have a long-term goal, yet.” I was answering a question in the final interview for a Product position. “But I have one for the short-term: become a Product Manager.”

“Okay. We’ll see,” he replied, ending the interview. Three days later, I landed the job. I was going to facilitate a product powered by cutting-edge technology that I barely knew. Besides being in over my head with the technology, I didn’t even know what I was supposed to do as a Product Manager!

I didn’t know how to achieve my goal: I didn’t just want to survive as a Product Manager, I wanted to thrive! I was nervous, but my desire to learn helped me focus on my next steps. I hired a researcher to provide me with all the information and online tutorials I needed to learn about Product Management, and I acquired a list of thought leaders in this domain.

A week later, I was like a piranha swimming in the ocean of knowledge. Tapping into all the genius of those who came before me, soaking up all of their combined wisdom, I quickly learned as much as I could and applied this to my new job. Senior Management was amazed by my acumen and Product Management skills.

Chris Clark is a Product Management genius who contributed to my PM success.

Quantitative Analytics for Problem Space Exploration

I interviewed 30 world class product management experts, and all of them stressed the importance of talking to customers, conducting user interviews and user research. So I took the User Research Mastery course created by one of the speakers, Sarah Doody. I followed her five-step research process and saw great results. I learned from one customer that they didn’t care so much about how the product works, so long as it makes their job easier. It sounds obvious, but I hadn’t thought that way before.

But what about quantitative analytics? Numbers tell you the what. People reveal the why. Qualitative research is usually better for exploring, understanding, and uncovering, while quantitative research is generally better for confirming and clarifying. In other words, qualitative and quantitative research go hand in hand. If I want to become great in product management, I have to utilize both quantitative and qualitative research in my decision making.

Chris Clark has more than 7 years experience working closely with engineers to guide products from conception to launch. He used to build the full suite of internal analytics subscription lifecycle tools and developed key organization subscription metrics and KPIs as a Consultant at Google, and was once the Product Manager for data services at Apple.

He is currently working on data and reporting within the Android partnerships team at YouTube.

Are you a Product Manager? Are you hungry for practical and actionable PM knowledge you can apply on your job?

Chris Clark is a speaker in the Product Manager Summit: The first FREE Web Conference showcasing Product Management best practices from around the world.

He will discuss Quantitative Analytics for Problem Space Exploration.

You don’t want to miss this. Claim your free ticket.