Everything is product.
As a product manager, I’ve had my fair share of conversations with user/client meetings and also with team members after they’ve attended client meetings.
Sometimes, the conversation revolves around the technical details of the product, the features that were discussed, and any potential roadblocks that need to be overcome or future plans for the product. But the most productive conversations, don’t.
However, recently, one of the product team members came to me with an interesting observation after attending a client meeting. He said that the client didn’t talk about the product in terms of features or technology, and therefore he said, in a somewhat sad mood, something like “nah we didn’t speak about product”
I asked what was the meeting about then, and the answer was something like “we spoke about some operative issues we’re encountering when working with us, some things that have them worried…”
If that PM still believed that the meeting was a failure because they didn’t speak about the tech or features, then there may be a misunderstanding of what a product really is.
A product is not just a collection of features or technology. It is a solution to a customer’s problem. In any form, can’t stress this enough. If the client was expressing their worries and problems, then they were effectively talking about the product.
Interacting with our user/client
As a product manager, it’s important to understand that successful customer interactions can take many forms. Some meetings may be focused on features and technology to solve customer needs, while others may be focused on the customer’s problems and needs. It’s crucial to listen to the customer and understand their perspective.
When clients talk about their worries, problems and opportunities, they are essentially talking about the product. They are highlighting the pain points and challenges that the product is meant to solve. Understanding these challenges is crucial to building a product that will meet the needs of the customer.
As a product manager, it’s essential to be able to see beyond the technical aspects of a product and understand the broader picture of what the product is meant to accomplish. Focusing solely on features and technology can lead to a product that may be technically sound but fails to meet the needs of the customer. That’s the recipe for brilliantly built dead products.
Furthermore, clients often aren’t concerned with the technical details of a product, as long as it solves their problems. They are more interested in how the product can help them achieve their goals, save them time and money, or increase efficiency. The holy value.
An interesting exercise to practice: be your user’s friend, not their PM
As a product manager, it can be tempting to jump straight into discussing future features or technologies that could potentially benefit our customers or solutions to their problems.
Most of PMs we have this complex about being a superhero that solves everything, at once, right now (or in the next sprint). And that comes from a plethora of insecurities: the fear of saying no, or the strong feeling of wanting to help our user as fast as possible or they will take us for incompetent PMs, or the shame of our own product that still does not include feature X or Y… or all that at the same time.
But what if we try to talk to our user like their husband or wife would do? asking questions like ¿how’s been your day? ¿what problems did you find related with X (job-to-be-done)? ¿What were you doing at that time? ¿what happened with that problem you had in the morning? ¿How did you solve that?
Talking about the present problems tells you way more than speaking about the future. Or the next thing will come regarding the product.
I know all the theory, the vision, the excitement around the product and all that… that’s cool when you’re selling your product; but in my opinion is not that good for product interviews. Use it, but just a little for generate excitement.
Understanding your user gravitates the conversation around the present, not the future. When we focus solely on discussing future features, we risk missing the mark on what our customers actually need. By jumping to conclusions about what they might need, we risk wasting valuable resources on features that may not actually address their needs.
Throw the relationship Feature<->Product to the graveyard, please.
In essence, the conversation the team member had with the client was a complete success in terms of product interview, not a failure. They were able to understand the client’s needs and challenges, their day-today problems and the context where those problems happened; which will help us build a better product that meets those needs.
So If you have an open mind, an insatiable appetite to understand your user and solve their problems, as well as an unwavering desire to listen, you will soon realize that everything you hear and everything you speak is actually product.
