5 Pillars of Product Mindset
Listing down the 5 pillars which can provide a structure to developing a Product Mindset.
Recognize Goals
Goals can be categorized into various buckets like Organizations goals, User goals, Performance based-goals, etc. Do ensure to jot down all the possible goals which you are going to target. Also, keep an eye for unknowable goals. They might not be part of the target list of goals but might be achieved through your initiatives.
In fact, it’s a best practice to connect with key teams such as Customer Support, Operations, Marketing & Revenue to get a holistic view about different kinds of goals. The more exhaustive you are in fetching goals, the easier it will be for your to address them in the next stage.
Rank the goals
Once the exhaustive list is ready, you can try to map the goals based on the Organization’s Objective. For instance, Zoom’s mission is to deliver happiness to customers. So in this case, how the goals will align towards this mission statement.
Every cross-functional team or department will mention their goals as most important & would urge to prioritize but do have buy-in from all the stakeholders & post analyzing the trade-offs, you need to come up with the rank against each goal.
Scout for clever & chic design
Open dribble & check out how the design has evolved in the current space. The old designs are getting obsolete at a rapid pace.
For instance, take the example of CRED. It has built its audience based on one of the best-designed apps in the industry. Swiggy which offers both convenience & enhance user experience usually launches the industry-first designs.
Reactions got their traction from Instagram & now they have made their way to Twitter & Linkedin as well. Designer cohorts ( 10K designers ) are getting popular & helping in driving innovation at a fast pace among designers.
As a PM, research & check out the new trends and industry standards on regular basis. Brainstorm with designers in your team to benchmark each solution.
Create solid success criteria
You haven’t entered the Product management space to churn out sub-standard products or features. You are owning the failure & success of your product so it is key to create a solid list of success criteria. Here’s how you can build the same:-
- Avoid Copy Mistakes
If you come across poorly written copy or mistakes, don’t hesitate even for a second & get those corrected on priority. These are the low-hanging fruits & if missed can bring serious credibility issues for you in the organization. - Perform Cost-benefit Analysis in addressing issues
It’s a fact that you can’t fix all the issues in one go so it is important to analyze the business impact of all the issues ( involve relevant stakeholders ) & then align the team accordingly. In parallel, create a roadmap for fixing the issues as well so that those are not missed out. - Weed out quality issues
It can be pertaining to poor alignment or misplace UI elements, debugging the flows based on user personas, identify if there is any learning curve to be followed for users. Do onboard the User researcher SPOC from your team to identify these issues.
Visualize Constraint-free solutions
Often we talk about thinking solution in constraints and within the realm of practicality but it is often a great practice to visualize the solution undermining all the below mentioned 6 constraints 👇
If there is no restriction on team size or engineers, there was no deadline, what kind of solution you would have thought of?
This approach early in your career will further help to sharpen your thought process while working under constraints.
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