Fernando Fernandes — The 5 What
Fernando Fernandes
Product Owner at RyanAir, lives in Dublin, Ireland
About
Began his career as a systems analyst and programmer. After a few years migrated to the product world. In the meantime, besides dedicating his professional skills to product development also found time to be a Course Facilitator at Tera digital school. Also in his free time, he practices meditation.
Contact
The 5 What
What is the most valuable thing you carry with you from the beginning of your journey as a product person?
All I know is that I know nothing, and still, I am not sure.
Joke aside, the mindset that helps me a lot in my daily life is to create empathy with the environment in which I am inserted. Before thinking about solving problems, finding solutions, etc many complexities influence the success of initiatives I need to prioritize. And being concious that I have no control over all these complexities allows me to adopt a humble posture to make the “stupid questions” that proves to be essential for increasing the chances of success of my initiatives.
When I say complexities I am referring to some terms product people face since day 1 of their journey: Business culture (top-down decisions, work silos, personal interests, pressure for delivery dates, etc.), Absence of reliable metrics / information for decision making, what the customers say versus what they actually do, economic situation, competitors, etc.
What do I mean by empathy with the environment? I mean that knowing the company culture, my team, users/consumers of my product, my competition, etc. allows me to use these elements to validate and support my prioritization. As human beings we learn throughout life to create mental shortcuts to solve problems, which are useful in the context of productivity because we don’t need to re-think everything from scratch.
But at the same time these same shortcuts can become biases and this can limit our chances of success. We know that a given problem can be attacked in several possible ways but what will be the ideal one for the type of corporate culture, consumer, market, competition, etc. in which I am currently inserted?
What do you identify as a common thing among people working on product development?
“Every madman has his mania.”
I met many amazing people in my journey and I am very grateful to have “landed” in product, precisely because of the diversity of profiles that are possible to meet. I can’t think of anything very specific but I feel that product people in general have a passion for making things better in diferent levels: social, technological, economic, scientific, psychological, etc. how can that be bad?
What do you think will be the next big trend in product development?
I believe that great innovations and gains in the product area will come from the psychological area and consumer behavior applied to usability. Technology in general is reaching its physical limits (e.g.: the phone with a super definition camera, then what? A phone with two cameras, three, ???), but at the same time this technological development facilitated the analysis of problems from a different perspective, this time focused on discoveries in the field of neuroscience and behavior.
In this new field we can understand that, maybe we don’t need a faster train in an already existing train line, but a way to entertain the passengers so that the trip is more pleasant and consequently appears shorter. Note that in this simple example we are dealing with 2 aspects:
1- Objective time of the trip
2- Perceived time of the trip
In Behavioral Economics as a rule of thumb, the Perceived effort usually accounts for ⅔ of the experience versus only ⅓ represented by its Objective effort. There are various other hacks in this area, I would like to give you a taste of that by sharing some interesting references for you to explore:
Mental accounting
Pain of paying
Fairness and Reciprocity
What have you learned recently?
In the last 2 years I developed an interest in psychology and consumer behavior. I have read and participated in courses in behavioural economics, consumer psychology, neuroscience, etc.
Course
Books
- Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness — Richard H. Thaler , Cass R. Sunstein
- Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions — Dan Ariely
- Thinking, Fast and Slow — Kahneman
- The Enigma of Reason — Hugo Mercier, Dan Sperber
- The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone — Steven Sloman, Philip Fernbach
- How Emotions Are Made — Lisa Barrett
- Alchemy: The surprising power of ideas that don't make sense — Rory Sutherland
- Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade — Robert Cialdini Ph.D.
What would you like to say to the product people who are reading this text?
For those who are starting or thinking about entering the product world, I can only offer my support and ensure that there is plenty of market and opportunities in this field.
Product development offers you the chance to experience various environments, act in the solution of various problems at various industries. I have been in fashion, sports, beverages, grocery, marketplace, now I am in aviation. I worked in b2c, b2b models, mobile technologies, and apps.
I am also very grateful for being able to work anywhere in the world, different from areas such as medicine, law, accounting, where usually the diploma obtained in Brazil needs validation. The diversity in the product area is welcome and your diploma doesn’t count as much when compared to your ability to create and add value to a team.
I couldn’t forget to mention our natural impostor syndrome. You know that feeling that we’re not ready? That inner voice that keeps repeating that there’s still a lot to learn, etc? my advice is: get used to it. Is what I have to say to you, because this feeling will always be there and trust me, that’s good. Given the scope of the product area it’s natural to have several points to be improved/developed all the time — as a good product owner, prioritize your learning backlog and move on doing your best!
