Product Related Questions Flashcards
Product Improvement Lifecycle
- Not linear
Agile vs Waterfall
How does PM role differ
Technical
Explain x (API etc)
Software Delivery Lifecycle
northstar
What Makes a Strong Product Vision Statement?
1️⃣ Aspirational – Inspires the team beyond just incremental improvements.
2️⃣ User-Centric – Focuses on solving a key customer problem.
3️⃣ Broad Enough for Growth – Allows flexibility while maintaining direction.
4️⃣ Clear & Concise – No jargon; easy to understand
How does the product vision align with strategy?
✅ The product vision guides the long-term direction, while strategy focuses on how to achieve it.
✅ Vision helps set priorities for product development.
✅ Strategy ensures that decisions made are consistent with the vision and move the product closer to its goals.
✅ Both need to be constantly evaluated to stay aligned with changing markets and user needs.
Can a PM change the product vision?
✅ Yes, the vision can evolve based on market feedback, user needs, and company direction.
✅ A PM should revisit the vision periodically and adjust if new information or opportunities arise.
✅ However, major changes to the vision should be validated with leadership and stakeholders.
What challenges might a PM face when defining a product vision?
✅ Stakeholder alignment – Ensuring leadership and cross-functional teams agree on the vision.
✅ Overcoming vague goals – Ensuring the vision is specific, actionable, and not too broad.
✅ Balancing short-term vs. long-term – Keeping focus on both immediate needs and future aspirations.
✅ Adapting the vision – Making sure the vision evolves as the product grows and market conditions change.
What is the role of a PM in defining a product vision?
✅ The PM owns the product vision, ensuring alignment with company goals.
✅ They gather user insights to understand needs and pain points.
✅ Collaborate with stakeholders (engineering, marketing, leadership) to align vision.
✅ The PM communicates the vision clearly to all teams to drive consistent decision-making.
What are the key steps to define a product vision?
1️⃣ Understand company goals & mission to align the vision.
2️⃣ Conduct user research (surveys, interviews) to identify pain points.
3️⃣ Define the core problem the product will solve.
4️⃣ Create a clear, concise vision statement that inspires and guides.
5️⃣ Validate the vision with key stakeholders and adjust as necessary.
6️⃣ Communicate the vision to ensure all teams are aligned.
How should a PM craft a product vision statement?
✅ The vision statement should be:
1️⃣ User-centric – Focused on solving a key user problem.
2️⃣ Aspirational – Provides long-term direction and motivation.
3️⃣ Clear & concise – Easy to understand and remember.
4️⃣ Scalable – Allows room for growth and evolution.
What is a product vision and why is it important?
The goal of a product vision is to provide a clear and compelling picture of the future state of the product — including its purpose, value proposition, and long-term goals — that guides the team’s efforts and decision-making.
When can the Product Development Lifecycle be used?
- New Product
- Enhancement / Improvement to Products (this is faster, more data driven and can benefit from A/B testing)
How does a PM conduct competitive analysis?
✅ Identify direct & indirect competitors.
✅ Fully immerse in competitor products (use the product, read reviews online etc.)
✅ Assess strengths & weaknesses of competitors (SWOT analysis).
✅ Analyse market gaps & opportunities.
✅ Use insights to differentiate product positioning.
How do PMs decide what features to prioritise?
✅ Use data & user feedback (surveys, NPS, analytics).
✅ Assess business impact vs. effort (RICE framework).
✅ Consider strategic alignment (does it fit our vision?).
✅ Balance innovation vs. incremental improvements.
How Does a PM Develop a Product Vision & Strategy?
1️⃣ Define the Vision (The “Why”)
✅ What does success look like in 3-5 years?
✅ Align with company mission & market trends.
✅ Ensure it’s inspiring but realistic.
✅ Example: “Enable seamless, affordable urban mobility for all.” (Uber)
2️⃣ Understand the Market & Users (The “Who”)
✅ Conduct user research, interviews, and surveys.
✅ Analyse competitor positioning & market gaps.
✅ Prioritise customer pain points to solve.
3️⃣ Set Business Goals & Metrics (The “What”)
✅ What outcomes drive growth? (Revenue, engagement, retention).
✅ Define a North Star Metric (e.g., Monthly Active Users for a social app).
✅ Balance customer needs with business impact.
4️⃣ Define a High-Level Strategy (The “How”)
✅ Prioritise key problem areas (e.g., accessibility, speed, pricing).
✅ Choose a strategic approach (e.g., expand to new markets or improve existing experience).
✅ Develop an execution roadmap.
5️⃣ Get Buy-in from Stakeholders
✅ Align with leadership, engineering, sales, marketing.
✅ Present a clear vision deck & data-backed rationale.
✅ Ensure company-wide understanding and commitment.
How Does a PM’s Role Change Once the Vision & Strategy Are Defined?
🔹 Execution & Prioritisation – Ensure the team is always building towards the vision.
🔹 Roadmap Management – Adjust priorities based on market shifts & feedback.
🔹 Cross-Team Alignment – Constant communication with engineering, design, sales, marketing.
🔹 Measuring Success – Regularly track key metrics & course-correct if needed.
🔹 Iteration & Adaptation – If assumptions change, pivot without losing focus.
A PM owns the vision, ensures it’s practically implemented, and continuously refines it based on data & market changes.
When Might a PM Deliver Features That Don’t Fully Align with the Vision?
🔹 1. Customer or Market-Driven Requests
Some customers (especially enterprise clients) may require features that don’t fit the long-term vision but are critical for retaining key accounts.
Example: A SaaS company with a vision for automation-first workflows may still build manual data export options if customers demand it.
🔹 2. Short-Term Revenue Needs
In some cases, the business may need a quick revenue boost (e.g., upsells, partnerships).
Example: A B2C streaming service focusing on AI-driven recommendations may temporarily launch branded ad-sponsored content to hit revenue targets.
🔹 3. Competitive Response
If a major competitor releases a game-changing feature, a company might need to react quickly, even if it’s not part of the original strategy.
Example: A ride-hailing app might prioritise multi-stop ride bookings after a competitor launches it, even if the vision was focused on single-trip efficiency.
🔹 4. Technical or Compliance Necessities
Features related to security, legal, or technical debt reduction may not be directly tied to the vision but are necessary.
Example: Adding **GDPR compliance
A good ideation is guided by what…
🔹 Good ideation is guided by strategy & vision, but there’s room for flexibility.
🔹 Not every feature has to match the vision 100%, but strategic alignment is key.
A great PM does both—they use strategy to frame ideation while ensuring ideas are rooted in real challenges and feedback.
1️⃣ Strategy as a Guiding Framework
✅ Helps teams focus on the right opportunities.
✅ Ensures ideas contribute to long-term goals.
✅ Prevents distractions from “shiny object syndrome” (chasing random trends).
✅ Example: If a fitness app’s vision is “AI-driven personalised training”, ideation should focus on features that enhance personalisation rather than just adding generic workouts.
2️⃣ Challenges & Feedback as the Source of Ideas
✅ Identifies real pain points users face.
✅ Ensures features solve meaningful problems rather than assumptions.
✅ Keeps product development data-driven & customer-centric.
✅ Example: If drop-off rates are high after 3 weeks, ideation should focus on habit-building features, not just new exercises.
How a Good PM Balances Both
1️⃣ Start with Data & Insights – What are the biggest user pain points?
2️⃣ Filter Ideas Through Strategy – Do these solutions align with our vision & goals?
3️⃣ Prioritise Based on Impact – Will this move key business & user metrics?
4️⃣ Keep Some Flexibility – Sometimes, great ideas emerge outside the strategy but still add value.
🚀 Best Approach: Strategy provides the direction, while challenges & feedback provide the substance. A strong PM ensures ideation is both user-driven & strategically aligned.
Stages of Product Development Lifecycle
- Ideation
- Research
- Product Definition
- Solution Design
- Development
- Launch
- not always a linear fashion, phases can be done in parallel etc
Ideation Stage of PDL
🧠 Ideation Phase
The purpose: Generating a wide range of creative ideas & thinking about what we want to do / solve/change/improve/create?
Important not to limit ideas with constraints
Ideas may come from: customer feedback, market research (including competitor), problems.
Output: list of ideas (and create a backlog of ideas)
Involvement of various team members (normally lead by product, the more people the better)
Research Stage of PDL
(closely linked to ideation, researching ideas from ideation to validate which are worth pursuing to produce a short list of validated ideas)
Primary research: focus groups, surveys, collecting raw feedback about the idea from customers and internal stakeholders (do they like it? would they use it? what are their use cases?)
Secondary research: competitor analysis, market trends (e.g. consulting reports to understand markets)
May be supported by dedicated researcher / UX researcher
Product Definition Stage of PDL
Assumes you have landed on a feature or new product that we want to deliver and start to consider what do we want the product to do
- Use cases and JTBD help understand the goals of users and need to be understood before features/functionality are defined
- problem definition also help justify features and functionality
- define features, functionality and requirements (including UI/UX support via low fidelity mockups), and prioritising them ruthlessly (all are needed so engineers and technical team are provided with all they need)
- start to have conversations about metrics here and a draft release plan
Output is product definition doc
