Understanding Product Thinking

Everyone might have across product thinking keywords at least once, but what is product thinking.

In order to understand product thinking lets first understand:

1. Problem space
2. Solution space

Problem Space: It is the area where the problems are identified by asking questions like who are users, what problems they are facing, how it impacts. Problem space also talks about why current solutions in the market is unable to resolve the problems at hand. It essentially means picking right problems to solve.

Solution Space: This space concerns on list of solutions that will benefit user to solve their core issues. Trade-offs often come along with solutions. The solution once identified will have to be measured and feasibility will have to be decided.

Now, Problem thinking is the Journey that one take from problem space of users to the solution space of business. The goal of this journey is to reduce the gap between users and the business.

what are the product thinking rules?

• Love the problem, Not the solution:

Thinking this ways helps one to avoid innovator bias and embrace the problem space

Start with problem and ask questions which will lead you to market and introduce you to a persona who represents a bunch of people having same problem, assigning jobs to that persona is when the problem discovery starts.

• Thinking in product and Not in Features:

Zoom-off your product manager lens and think in macro level and see the whole problem and not getting lost in solution. Embracing the collaboration and creating a market fit product rather than a bunch of features.

• Having product Heuristics in place:

Heuristics or guiding principles have to be in place which aligns with the users needs and helps us in decision making process through out the product development journey.

They are like basic rules of simplicity that needs to be followed in every feature that will be built. It could be User Experience Design principles, coding practices etc

How do you cultivate the product thinking?

Problem Space Tools

• 5W1H:

In order to narrow down the solution and expand the problem statement, we have to frame questions containing what, who, why, where, when and How. When applied to the problem space, it helps teams and individuals thoroughly understand the context and nuances of a problem

• Mom's Test:

It is set of simple rules for creating good questions that even a mom cant lie to us. Anchoring your questions in a manner that gather information about user's past but not the future.

• Jobs To Be Done (JTBD):

What are the jobs in people lives that your product can do which the competitors product can't. The different elements of JTBD are :

Functional Jobs, Emotional Jobs, Social Jobs, Variables of Success

Note: I will publish another article in detail about JTBD.

Solution Space Tools:

• Creating Good Hypothesis:

Hypothesis is a testable explanation of an idea.

Relationship between Idea, hypotheses and assumptions

Hypothesis template validates an idea and capture testable aspect of underlying assumptions.

Example: We believe that

[Building this product]

[for the people]

will achieve [this outcome]

we will know all are successful when we see

[this signal from market]

• Get creative with problem solving:

Starting out any task is difficult, so use generic proven methods as a starting point in problem solving

-> Transform: Transfer solution from one area of another like uber extended their ride business to food delivery business

-> Minimize: Reduce existing solution like Khan Academy just picked particular segment from youTube business model

-> Maximize: Expand the solution to cater to new market like snapchat to Insta to TikTok

-> Modify or Rearrange: Modify an existing solution like Evernote to notion

->Substitute: Substitute a part of existing solution

Combining above theory we can think below 7 steps in product thinking:

1. Find Goals: User-centric goals enables Growth, Retention, Revenue, Engagement
2. Identify Users : Create persona and label, identify interests, motivations and context
3. Friend Their Problems: Using interviews, Observations, Pain/desires
4. Prioritize Problems: Alignment with the goals is important

Note: The above 4 steps belong with problem space

5. Explore Solutions: Brainstorm the solutions and list down them.

6. Prioritize Solutions: Various techniques exists to do prioritization like Impact Vs Effort

7. Metrics: Identify different metrics and track the success of the solution.