What I learned as a Product Manager while creating my product
- Tags
- Overview
- Design Thinking
- High-level product documentation
- Value Propositions
- Business Model Canvas
- Product Vision Board
- Competitive Analysis Matrix
- Product from a user perspective
- Persona
- User Journey and User Scenarios
- Stakeholders
- Product requirements
- Questionnaire
- Capabilities
- Features
- Functional Requirements
- Product development documents
- Product Road Map
- Definitions, Acronyms, Abbreviations
- References
Design-Thinking, User persona, Value proposition, Business model canvas, Product vision, Requirements, Stakeholders, Competitor analysis
| # | Abbreviation or Acronym | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Google LLC is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, a search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware. | |
| 2 | User Journey | A user journey is the experiences a person has when interacting with something, typically software. |
It have described author's journey of creating a product line, which started with the idea of developing a single product, the FVA Tool Set, and ended up with the creation of a set of high-level product documentation, a detailed understanding of the product from the user's perspective, and product requirements. Author mentioned that he started from coding but realized later that it would have been better to start from Design Thinking, a process that consists of seven stages for creating a product. Author also mentioned that he established a set of documentation artifacts to keep high-level product knowledge, such as Value Propositions, Business Model Canvas, Product Vision Board, and Competitive Analysis Matrix. Additionally, author focused on the product from the user's perspective and created a Persona, a User Journey, and User Scenarios to show the value of the product. Finally, author identified stakeholders and created a table with their roles, concerns, and views, and created a questionnaire to clarify user needs.
The first product I was thinking about was "FVA Tool Set". Subsequently, another product came to my mind. As a result, a Product Line came about.
- "Hold on, you started from thinking of products, right?", - you will ask me.
- "Nope, I started from... It was ages ago and a whole history is quite big. Being a developer, I started from coding".
- "Was it a good idea to start from coding?", - you will ask me.
- "Again no. I would have started from Design Thinking if I was familiar with it."
Design Thinking is a process of preparation, which consists of seven stages of creating a product:
- Empathize-who, goal, do Here you need to create an artifact called "Empathy Map" with a formula - who, goal, do;
- Empathize-see, say, do, hear Here you need to create an artifact called "Empathy Map" with a formula - see, say, do, hear;
- Empathize-think and feel Here you need to create an artifact called "Empathy Map" with a formula - think and feel;
- Define: Problem Statement Here you need to describe a problem based on the "Empathy Map";
- Ideate Here you need to have a list of raw ideas to explore. There are also other stages not mentioned here.
Once I came up with product ideas to implement, I realized that a set of documentation artifacts to keep high-level product knowledge had to be established.
The first artifact to consider was Value Proposition. which has the following components:
- Mapper for Products and Services to Customer Jobs;
- Mapper for Gain creators to Gains;
- Mapper for Pain relievers to Pains;
- One Pager with Value Proposition.
The next artifact was Business Model Canvas. I downloaded a template here and filled in the following fields:
- Key Partners to answer the questions: Who are the key partners? Who are the key suppliers?
- Key Activities to answer the questions: What are the main tasks that the company must do well to deliver its value?
- Key Resources to answer the questions: What are the most important physical, financial, intellectual or human recourses the company has?
- Value Propositions to answer the questions: What value do we deliver to the customer? Which customer needs do we want to satisfy?
- Customer Relationships to answer the questions: What type of relationship does each of the customer segments expect us to establish and maintain with them?
- Channels to answer the questions: Which channels do our customer segments want to be reached through? How do we reach them now?
- Customer Segments to answer the questions: Whom are we creating value for? Who are our most important customers?
- Revenue Streams to answer the questions: What value are our customers willing to pay for? What do they currently pay for? How do they pay? How would they prefer to pay?
- Cost Structure to answer the questions: Where do the costs come from?
The third artifact was Product Vision Board. I downloaded a template here and filled in the following fields:
- VISION to answer the questions: What is your purpose for creating the product? Which positive change should it bring about?
- TARGET GROUP to answer the questions: Which market or market segment does the product address? Who are the target customers and users?
- NEEDS to answer the questions: What problem does the product solve? Which benefit does it provide?
- PRODUCT to answer the questions: What kind of product is it? What makes it stand out? Is it feasible to develop the product?
- BUSINESS GOALS to answer the questions: How is the product going to benefit the company? What are business goals?
The last artifact in High-level product documentation was the Competitive Analysis Matrix I filled in the following rows for several products:
- Vision with Goal and Target segment;
- Marketing with Pricing and Unique value proposition;
- End-user support with Trainings, User guide and Help desk;
- Features.
As soon as high-level product documentation was ready, I decided to go deeper with more detail from the user's point of view.
The first artifact I created was Persona I downloaded a template here and filled in the following fields:
- PICTURE & NAME to answer the questions: What does the persona look like? What is his/her name? I chose a realistic and plausible picture and name.
- DETAILS to answer the questions: What are the persona’s relevant characteristics and behaviors? I wrote in demographics, such as age, gender, occupation, and income; psychographics, including lifestyle, social class, and personality; and behavioral attributes like usage patterns, attitudes and brand loyalty.
- GOAL to answer the questions: What problem does the persona want to solve or which benefit does the character seek? Why would a persona want to use or buy the product?
Then I tried to restore the user's way to achieving the goals. And I came up with User Journey.
To show the value of the product, I created three user scenarios and posted them on YouTube. Please see the reference to watch them.
Honestly, a bit later I realized that end users are not the only target audience for this product. And next artifact - Stakeholders - came into sight. It looks like a table with the following columns: Group, Stakeholder Role, Concerns, and View. Table rows contain as follows: End users, Suppliers and Team members.
Having defined everything from the user's point of view, I started thinking about what exactly the product will implement.
Having no clue what is important for the user and what is not, I created a questionnaire to clarify user needs. It is a form to gather information on what capabilities, functions and scenarios are important.
Having gained an understanding of user needs, I started describing Capabilities Literally, Capabilities describe key requirements.
Having the capability list defined, I started preparing features. They represent significant, central functionality of the final system. I put them into the table with the following columns: Name, Clarification, and Business Value. The feature set helped me to create a project plan and a road map.
Last but not least step in defining product behavior was a list of Functional Requirements, that define system detail behavior. I settled them into the table with the following columns: Name, Architecture complexity, Business Value, Component, Phase, and Feature ID.
I believe Product Road Map is the most important document for a product at the development stage. I downloaded a template here and filled in the following fields and rows:
- DATE with Release date or timeframe;
- NAME with the Name of the new release;
- GOAL with The benefit a product should provide;
- FEATURES with High-level features necessary to meet the goal;
- METRICS with Metrics to determine if the goal has been met. Columns there are the product's different versions.
On the top of that, it is quite convenient to keep an online roadmap.
| # | Name | Source | Release date | Author | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Roman Pichler Product Manager templates | web | Roman Pichler | ||
| 2 | Business Model Canvas template | web | |||
| 3 | Business Model Canvas for FVAHelpers | local resource | 01/12/2022 | Dmytro Nikulin | |
| 4 | Product Road Map | local resource | 01/12/2022 | Dmytro Nikulin | |
| 5 | Functional Requirements | local resource | 01/12/2022 | Dmytro Nikulin | |
| 6 | Features | local resource | 01/12/2022 | Dmytro Nikulin | |
| 7 | Stakeholders | local resource | 01/12/2022 | Dmytro Nikulin | |
| 8 | User Journey | local resource | 01/12/2021 | Dmytro Nikulin | |
| 9 | User Scenario without FVA Tool Set | YouTube | 01/06/2021 | Dmytro Nikulin | |
| 10 | User Scenario with FVA Tool Set | YouTube | 01/06/2021 | Dmytro Nikulin | |
| 11 | User Scenario - Checking the results of processing | YouTube | 01/06/2021 | Dmytro Nikulin | |
| 12 | Persona | local resource | 01/12/2022 | Dmytro Nikulin | |
| 13 | Competitive Analysis Matrix | local resource | 01/12/2022 | Dmytro Nikulin | |
| 14 | Product Vision Board | local resource | 01/12/2022 | Dmytro Nikulin | |
| 15 | Business Model Canvas | local resource | 01/12/2022 | Dmytro Nikulin | |
| 16 | Value Proposition | local resource | 01/12/2022 | Dmytro Nikulin | |
| 17 | Design Thinking | local resource | 01/12/2022 | Dmytro Nikulin | |
| 18 | What I learned as an Application Architect | GitHub | |||
| 19 | What I learned as a Delivery Manager | GitHub | |||
| 20 | What I learned as a DevOps | GitHub | |||
| 21 | What I learned as a Software Developer | GitHub | |||
| 22 | What I learned as a Subject Matter Expert | GitHub | |||
| 23 | What I Learned As a Tester | GitHub | |||
| 24 | Why I decided to create my photo organizer? | GitHub |