Systems Thinking Framework for Product Managers

Notes on some fundamental building blocks of product thinking

As a new PM, this is the framework I am following to gain thorough knowledge of the product I am assigned to and form an action plan:

• Always tell yourself “I am not the target customer of this product”.
• Keep in mind that if you are building for everyone, you are building for no one.
• To be a good PM, you need to develop a systems thinking mindset both for understanding the system and for changing the system.
• When analysing a system, look primarily into four things — Business Model, Entities, Flows and Infrastructure
  - Identify the actors in the system
  - Actors interact with each other and form an information flow.
  - Three primary flows: information flow, material flow, cash flow
• Pay careful attention to two things:
  a) Information flows
  b) Rules/Constraints
• Information flows:
  - How does information flow through the system?
  - What info is shown, how and to whom ?
  - Who can manipulate and control the info ?
• Rules/Constraints:
  - Who are the actors involved ?
  - How can the actors engage ?
  - What actions can they perform ?
  - What are the constraints and rules for the actor roles in the system?
• There are four main aspects to marketplace systems: Demand, Revenue and Costs, Supply, Tech Infrastructure and Data Platforms:
  1) Demand: Target users, how they are acquired, how to engage them, how to further generate demand (e.g., apps/web, notification system, referrals, user generated content etc.)
  2) Revenue and Costs: What is the business model, how do we make money, what are our costs.
  3) Supply: Who are the sellers/service providers/creators, how do we acquire them, how do we help them grow, how do we generate supply( e.g., registration, listing, pricing, support and more)
  4) Tech Infrastructure and Data Platforms: How is data stored, how do we use this data, what is the information flow across systems.
  There are clearly many microsystems interacting with each other.
• Few more important points and questions to ponder on:
  - Understand the actors involved.
  - What is the PM optimising for in the onboarding process ?
  - Calculate time to value.
  - What are the emotions you want your target audience to feel while interacting with your product?
  - What are the design elements/interactions you hate/like? Why?
  - What experiments would I run to improve the metrics?
  - What information is being collected and how might it be stored ?

One can follow this thought process to gain product knowledge and insights and also understand what’s relevant and what’s not.

This is the third among a series of articles by Adithya Sailesh, aimed at consolidating the product management knowledge that I gained from my structured and otherwise learning journey and successful career switch from software development to product management that started over a year ago. The primary goal of this series is to help aspiring/beginner product managers by comprehensively covering all the essential fundamentals, making this leap a lot easier and fruitful.