Product Management Flashcards
agile vs scrum
agile is a philosophy
scrum is a methodology
tips for communication
- update everyone on developments as much as possible - internal blog they can read if they want to
- if communicating externally, tell stakeholders the why of the solution, tell them the other solutions you considered and why they weren’t the best
tips for working with designers
- give them all the design limitations early so they don’t go out of scope
- make sure they can always give you feedback on everything
- show them data to support why you need to build something
- don’t tell them what to do - you tell them what and why, not how
- always talk about user problems first, solutions second
tips for working with engineers
NAME?
tech debt
the future work you build up because you didn’t get something right the first time
methods to prioritise tasks
assumption testing
MOSCOW method
MOSCOW method
method for prioritising tasks based on identifying which is a
must have
could have
should have
would have
how to do assumption testing
when trying to prioritise what tasks to work on
- identify the biggest riskiest assumption you are making for each potential task
- rank it out of 1 - 10 for how big/risky the assumption is, so 10 being v risky
- rank it out of 1 - 10 for how important it is, so 10 is it will make a huge impact
- add the two scores together
- sort all the tasks based on this score
assumption testing
a method for prioritising what to work on
what can be more useful than roadmapping for company planing
establishing short, mid and long-term goals
this way the top priorities get worked on and the less urgent things get looked at later
not set to a calendar date so more flexible
why are roadmaps not always v helpful
they aren’t agile - you can’t plan months in ahead what will be best for your team to work on
they provide a nice rough guide but company plans change much more quickly
why use a roadmap
- for executives and investors to see quarterly plans
- you have an external company deadline e.g. investors need a certain function by a certain date
roadmap
a long term plan for the company set into quarters (seasons of the year)
average sprint velocity
the average velocity your team has over time (weeks, months) to help predict how long tasks might take in future
what is the best way of predicting how long a task/ticket will take your software team to build?
- ask multiple engineers to predict how long it will take and how many story points it is (how hard the task is)
- use this to create the velocity (number of tasks completed + how hard they were)
- over a few weeks, create an average sprint velocity to help predict future work timelines
purpose of story points
to help with guaging the amount of work a task/ticket will take
story points
ranking of how hard it is for a software team to do something
e.g. 1 - 5 where 5 is really hard
velocity (in product management)
number of story points that were completed in one sprint
backlog
the place where we hold things we plan to do later but aren’t working on just yet
acceptance criteria
written inside a ticket, it is a very specific description of what the ticket should accomplish
e.g. “Given I am a user who has succesffully uploaded a photo from my computer, when I click send, the image is sent to my friend through the direct message and it appears in the chat”.
what should a ticket include
NAME?
is a user story the same a ticket?
No, a ticket is the task itself that the team needs to action to create the desired functionality, but the ticket should be written as a user story if possible so the team knows why the ticket is needed
what is the format of a user story
as an X i want to do Z, so that I can do Z
user story
a description of the functionality we want to build e.g. “as a user, I want to send pictures in direct messages so I can share them with my friends”
what needs to be covered in the product requirements section of an epic specs sheet
NAME?
what needs to be covered in the introduction of an epic specs sheet
- what the features you’re building are for
- why you’re building it
- what metrics you are trying to improve
- early wireframes and ideal look in future
- links to additional documents (legal requirements, etc.)
4 parts of an epic specs sheet
- introduction
- product requirements
- design requirements
- engineering requirements
epic specs sheet
document that allows anyone in your company to understand what you’re building
guide for your team to build it
(kind of like a protocol)
what’s the difference between an epic and a feature?
a feature is an epic, the term feature just only applies to aspects that the product that are rolled out publicly
so epic is a broader term for all funactionalities built
epics
a group of functions and features that a PM wants to build
usually 3-5 epics are rolled out in a quarter
takes longer than 1 sprint to build
e.g. translate the app to Spanish
or
implement photo sharing in messages
releases
when a company roles out a bunch of new features to the public
usually specified in the company initiatives
initiatives
what the company does to achieve their vision goals
e.g. translate the app into three different languages this year
tools for tracking metrics
google analytics
crazy egg (shows heatmap of users)
kissmetrics
mixpanel
optimizely - A/B testing tool
segment - services hub for overview of all other tools
what type of metrics is the HEART framework for?
reporting
NPS
net promoter score - way to measure user happiness through likert scale
what are the 3 columns in the HEART metrics framework
goals, signals, metrics
what order should the HEART framework be in?
- adoption
- task success
- engagement
- retention
- happiness
HEART metrics framework acronym
Happiness - how happy is your user?
Engagement - how engaged are they in the short term?
Adoption - how many users have tried your product?
Retention - how many do you retain longterm
Task success - how successful are you at allowing users to perform the most valuable task?
what makes a good metric?
- simple e.g. tracks just one action
- rate or ratio e.g. active users / total users
- measures actual impact - doesn’t assume correlation is causation
- changeable e.g. tracks per week to allow time to see changes
difference between exploratory and reporting metrics
exploratory - data points for your specific team to improve the product e.g. how many people click this button
reporting - metrics your company cares about over a long period of time e.g. number of new users
example of revenue metrics
NAME?
MRR and ARR
monthly recurring revenue
annual recurring revenue
How much are we making with all our customers combined?
CAC / CCA
Cost of acquistion of customer
aka
Cost of customer acquistion
How much do we have to spend to acquire a customer?
LTV
life time value
e.g. over 1 year, on average, how much does each customer generate us?
example of engagement metrics
NAME?
example growth metrics
NAME?
when wireframing, what should you ask yourself?
- what is the point of this page?
- users should be able to…x,y,z.
difference between wireframe, mockup and prototype
wireframe is initial step of conceptualisation, low fidelity
mockup is where the design elements (typeface, photos, etc.) are added
prototype is when functions are added (e.g. buttons work)
prototype tools
keynote
pop
axure
prototype
the initial product mockup but with usability
test user flow
the step after mockups
who is in charge of mockups?
designers
mockup
a static display of what the product will eventually look like
comes after the wireframe stage
list some mockup tools
photoshop
sketch
adobe illustrator
list some wireframing tools
figma
balsamiq
axure (pronounced “azure”
wireframe
a blueprint, initial plan, for developers and designers for a product
low-fidelity wireframe
first broad and basic wireframe
landing page
single webpage you are taken to after clicking on a link (usually for purchasing or email sign-ups)
shadow button
a fake button about your new product on your website to see if people click on , this will then say “sorry, coming soon”
- a type of MVP testing technique
how to define a MCS
NAME?
what are the two sides of a MCS
reward (e.g. revenue, time on page, number of likes)
cost (e.g. developer’s time, labour wages)
how to write a hypothesis for MVP experiment
We believe [user group] has [x problem] because of [reason]. If we [our action], this [metric] will improve.
what is the risk/difficulty square?
a decision tool to help determine which assumptions to test first in an MVP experiment
prioritise high risk, low difficulty
then high risk, high difficulty
list the assumptions in an MVP experiment that tend to be riskiest and therefore need to be tested first
- assuming users have a problem when they don’t
- assuming x matters to users
- assuming there are no alternative solutions to your problem
- assuming users will pay for your solution
What phrase should you use when trying to identify assumptions in an MVP experiment?
“In order for my idea to be successful the following must be true…”
7 steps to running an MVP experiment
- product idea/solution
- identify assumptions - which is riskiest?
- build hypotheses
- define MCS (minimum criteria for success)
- pick MVP strategy
- execute, iterate, evaluate
- decide if it’s worth it
MCS
minimum criteria for success
purpose of the MVP
NAME?
validated learning
research done in a test environment i.e. with users without bias
MVP
minimal viable product - an experiment; the simplest the product can be for you to get feedback on
CRM
Customer Relationship Manager
who are usually the people who make user personas?
UX designers / the design team
what is the purpose of user personas
makes it easier to talk about your main types of users
increases empathy as you have named them, rather than just being user data
how to create a user persona
- interview or observe large number of users
- identify patterns of user behaviour
- give that type of user a fictional name
- give them a description and background info
what to say when you can’t think of anything to say in an interview
“that’s interesting, tell me more”
how to get customers to talk to you when cold emailing
- 4 to 7 sentences
- be personal - how did you find them?
- value - what do they get out of it? money or helping people out
- mention you are not from sales
- make them feel special - you need their specific feedback
ways to reach out to customers to get interiews
NAME?
process to figure out your best customers to talk to
- create a spreadsheet with potential customer groups in columns and 3 criteria (market size, pain to payment, and accessibility) in rows
- rank each customer group out of 10 for each criteria
- add up scores to identify your best potential customer
3 criteria to figure out who your best customers to talk to are
- market size - the bigger the better e.g. speak to estate agents rather than CEOs
- pain to payment - how much do they need the product (pain)? how likely are they to pay for a solution?
- accessibility - how easy are they to contact?
what is customer development
talking to customers about a pre or post-product
4 types of user interviews
- exploratory - e.g. what’s the worst part of your commute?
- validation (hypothesis testing) - e.g. what do you use the app for?
- satisfaction e.g. what should we stop doing?
- efficiency (do they use it well) e.g. how would you do x in the app?
what is a feature table
comparison chart to show if you are competitive or not in the market
how to keep track of your competitors
- funding - follow them on crunchbase.com
- acquisitions - crunchbase.com
- new features/products - mention.com or Google Alerts
five criteria for understanding competitors
- product core (the product team) - is their team better?
- size of user base - are they larger?
- design - is their product prettier?
- brand - do they have a better brand?
- speed - can they build new products quicker?
steps for finding and prioritising competitors
- capture: create an Excel sheet of all your competitors (known and unknown)
- label each as a direct, indirect, potential or substitute competitor - and organise in this order
substitute competitors
addresses same problem but in entirely different way e.g. store-bought pizzas vs your Italian restaurant
potential competitors
same target audience but don’t address same problem you do e.g. Italian grocery store to your Italian restuarant
indirect competitors
solving same problem as your company but in different way
e.g. Greek restaurant in nearby neighbourhood to your Italian restaurant
direct competitors
solving the same problem you are in the same way
e.g. an italian restaurant across the road from your Italian restuarant with same price range and menu
4 types of competitors
direct
indirect
potential
substitute
how to find unknown competitors
Strategy 1
ask yourself
- what problem does my product solve?
- for whom?
do a google search pretening to be your user to
- identify companies that are using your search vocab
- find complaints online
Strategy 2
Google the problem your product solves
Google potential pitches for your product
Use quotations in google search to lock in that specific phrasing
how to find your known competitors
search “your comany vs” and google will show you the suggestions
tools to use to look at your market competitors
compete.com - compares website traction
google adwords keyword tool - volume of related search terms on google to get amount of interest for your product
twitter/reddit - what are users saying about your product
questions to ask yourself about user needs as a PM
NAME?
why do ideas come from? EMUC
Employees
Metrics - inefficiencies
Users
Clients
when does waterfall work?
- when there are loads of functionalities e.g. Microsoft tools as you can’t pick easily what is most important to focus on
- when you don’t need feedback e.g. a skyscraper you’d build in one go, not the first few floors and get people to stand in it
waterfall
working on all parts of the product at once
vs agile which focuses on a few at a time
kanban vs scrum
kanban is for teams where they need to complete continuous tasks e.g. customer service
scrum is for solving more complex problems
kanban vs scrum
- kanban does not use sprints, so work isn’t timeblocked for teams
- kanban has no sprint backlog, only the product backlog itself
- kanban doesn’t have meeting types
- kanban only has a certain number of items that can be in progress at the same time (differs between company)
scrum stages
- sprint planning meeting
- sprint itself - using tickets
- standup meetings (during sprint)
- retrospective meeting (end of sprint)
retrospective meeting
review of the last sprint
what worked, what didn’t, questions
opposite of sprint planning meeting
standup meetings involve
NAME?
tickets
essentially tasks, these are completed during the sprint phase
What happens in a sprint planning meeting?
NAME?
agile
way of iteratively developing software, breaking things down into smaller groups to save resources
e.g. designing and launching 2-5 features in an app first and seeing the user feedback, rather than all 10 at once
Lean Product Development
philosophy where you don’t use resources until absolutely necessary for customers
e.g. food delivery company, you drive orders yourself until you have too many orders so you need to hire another driver
sunsetting
killing a product
slow transition to end of life for product
let users know and next steps e.g. back up data for users
maintain or kill phase
how frequently are people purchasing it?
are we paying to maintain it?
decide if it needs to be killed or maintained based on value or company vision
steady state
analysis on how it is performing
marketing continues
how likely to continue moving forwards with this product?
launch phase
marketing, legal team collab
make product public
iterate phase
finish the MVP
early feedback from users
test assumptions we made
alpha and beta testing
develop
make timelines
write features
user stories
specific details for developing
plan phase
market research
customer interviews
resources and time planning
concieve phase
ideas phase
collect user problems and brainstorm solutions
ideas come from inside the company
7 phases of the product development process
- concieve
- plan
- develop
- iterate
- launch
- steady state
- kill or maintain
A/B testing
A/B testing is a method of comparing two versions of a marketing element to determine which one performs better based on predefined metrics.
3 characteristics of the introduction phase of product management
- introduction to market
- no / little competition
- lose $$
how do you know what stage of product development you are in?
it is based on amount of revenue
wireframe
2D illustration of a page’s interface
decline phase of product management
- sales diminish
- products phased out as it’s old
3 characteristics of the growth stage of product management
- accepted by marketplace
- sales rise
- make improvements
- few competitors
four stages of product development
introduction
growth
maturity
decline
maturity phase of product management
- sales reach peak
- high competitors
SQL vs NoSQL databases
SQL = data stored in tables i.e. more rigid but secure
noSQL = data stored in documents i.e. quicker and more flexible, but harder to manage and report
an object
a way to store related information together
e.g. an object to represent a person would have properties such as name, age, gender, address
const person = {
name: “John”,
age: 25,
gender: “Male”,
address: “123 Main Street”,
}
name 3 main data types
integers e.g. age = 30
strings e.g. name = Sonia
booleans e.g. has_allergies = true
an array
a collection or list that stores multiple values of the same type in a single variable
e.g. an array to store the scores of a basketball team: [85, 76, 92, 80, 88]
which language allows you to interact directly with the DOM
javascript
DOM
Document Object Model
a family tree for everything on your webpage
javascript is primarily for
the interactivity of front-end web development e.g. animations, changing the DOM, web extensions
what’s the difference between a programming and markup language?
programming = to create applications, algorithms and data analysis
(python, C++, Javascript, Ruby, etc.)
markup = format and organise content for display, typically in web pages or documents
(HTML, XML, etc.)
which common software developer languages are not programming languages?
HTML, CSS
CSS is primarily for
the styles and positioning of front-end web development e.g. fonts, colours and sizes
HTML is primarily for
the structure of front-end web development
front-end developers specialise in which languages
HTML, CSS, javascript
client-side technologies
they run inside your browser (e.g. HTML, javascript), not your server
list some client-side technologies
HTML, CSS, javascript
API
Application programming interface
ways for software applications to communicate and interacte with each other
e.g. google maps API lets developers use their interactive maps on other applications
SaaS
Software as a service
B2B PM
Client’s are other companies
e.g. Monday, a product that is meant for work organisation
Why are B2C and B2B PM roles different?
B2B work with sales teams a lot, so are told exactly what to build
B2C doesn’t get told exactly what the consumer wants so has to do their own research and data analysis to make the best decisions
internal PM
build tools for people inside the company
e.g. changing passwords for your colleague’s logins
B2C PM
Product is for average consumer e.g. patients, music-lovers, etc.
B2C
Business to consumer
3 different types of PMs
NAME?
