Here is a quick round-up of useful product management tools. 

Leveraged Neutral Overhead 

Categorize tasks into three buckets: 

• Leveraged: Do them well – tasks that can significantly amplify your impact. Examples include identifying leverage points within products and focusing on vision and strategy.
• Neutral: Do them ok – tasks that offer regular impact in exchange for time. They are necessary but don’t provide exponential returns. Examples include unblocking engineers on execution details or making a sales presentation.
• Overhead: Reduce/eliminate – tasks that have minimal impact in exchange for the time they take. These administrative tasks often don’t contribute directly to product value creation. Examples include coordination activities, preparing timesheets, and converting emails into Jira tickets.

You’ll make more impact when you can do more leveraged and less overhead work. Obvious but worth reminding. 

The 5 Questions of Product Management 

Use these questions to guide what you should do: 

• Why are we doing things? –> Vision, the overarching purpose or mission of the product or feature. It’s the guiding light that provides direction for all subsequent decisions. A clear vision ensures that the entire team understands the broader goal. It helps align efforts, motivate the team, and ensure that the product serves a meaningful purpose in the market or for the users.
• What are we doing? –> Strategy, the high-level approach or plan to achieve the vision. It’s about setting priorities, deciding on critical features, and determining the product’s positioning in the market. A well-defined strategy helps us allocate resources effectively and focus on working on features and initiatives that provide the most value.
• Who are we doing it for? –> Segmentation, understanding the target audience or user base. It involves segmenting the market into distinct groups based on various criteria like demographics, behavior, and needs. Knowing the target audience ensures we tailor the product to meet its users’ specific needs and preferences. It helps in making informed design and feature decisions.
• When are we delivering it? –> Roadmap, the timeline of product development. It’s about setting milestones, deadlines and deciding on the sequence of feature releases. A clear roadmap provides transparency to stakeholders, sets expectations, and ensures the team has a structured plan to follow.
• How are we doing it? –> Specifications, the nitty-gritty details of the product. It involves creating detailed specifications or requirements that guide the development process. Exact specifications ensure that there’s clarity on what we built. It reduces ambiguity, minimizes rework, and ensures that the final product aligns with the vision and strategy.

Now, Next, Later

When you need priorities on the fly categorize your roadmap into three groups: 

• Now – define the details 
• Next – get the broad strokes 
• Later – identify the big picture 

This approach avoids having specific dates and creates an artifact that’s easy for everyone to use.

Now – Define the Details. This category focuses on the immediate tasks and features currently in development or are about to be started. These items have been thoroughly researched, validated, and well-defined. The team knows what to work on and what we expect. Tickets in this category are actionable, allowing the team to move forward without ambiguity. Ensure that items in this category align with the product’s immediate goals and that you have validated them with users or stakeholders.

Next – Get the Broad Strokes. This category contains items on deck for development soon. While they might still need detailed specifications, the team generally understands what they entail. It gives the team a heads-up on what’s coming next, allowing for preliminary planning and resource allocation. Broad strokes mean there’s room for adjustments based on feedback, changing priorities, or market shifts. It’s essential to balance being too vague and too specific. While details aren’t necessary, there should be enough information to understand the feature’s value and purpose.

Later – Identify the Big Picture. This category captures long-term goals, visionary features, or items that need more research and validation. They represent the product’s future direction. Captured vision helps stakeholders and the team understand the product’s long-term trend. Presenting big-picture ideas can spark discussions, gather early feedback, and refine the product’s future path. Avoid the trap of placing items in this category indefinitely. Regularly review and decide if they should move to “Next” or be discarded based on evolving priorities.

Advantages of the “Now, Next, Later” Roadmap Approach:

Flexibility: The roadmap can adapt to changes without causing confusion or requiring frequent updates without tying items to specific dates.

Transparency: It provides a clear view of the product’s current focus, near-term plans, and long-term vision.

Prioritization: This approach naturally encourages prioritization, ensuring that the team tackles the most crucial items first.

Stakeholder Communication: It’s an easy-to-understand format that can be shared with stakeholders, ensuring everyone is aligned without getting bogged down in dates and specifics.

Considerations

Time Perception: Without specific dates, stakeholders or team members might have different perceptions of when “Next” or “Later” might be. It’s essential to provide context or timeframes, even if they’re broad.

Regular Review: This approach requires regular reviews to ensure items are moved between categories as needed and that the roadmap remains relevant.

Facebook’s 3 Questions 

Use three questions to guide what features to build: 

• What problem are we trying to solve? 
• How do we know this is a real problem? 
• How will we know if we’ve solved this problem?

Facebook’s 3 Questions approach is a simple yet effective framework that guides product teams in determining what features to build. It emphasizes problem-solving and validation at every step of the product development process. Let’s delve into each of these questions:

What problem are we trying to solve? – The team is focused on addressing genuine user needs or pain points. It’s about identifying the core issue that a potential feature or product will address. Starting with a clear problem statement ensures the team isn’t building features just for building. It aligns the team around a shared understanding and purpose. Teams should conduct user research, gather feedback, and analyze data to pinpoint users’ exact problems. This could involve surveys, interviews, or analyzing user behavior.

How do we know this is a real problem? – ensure that the problem you identified is a genuine issue users face. Gut feeling is not a genuine validation method. Validating ensures that the organization allocates resources (time, money, effort) in areas that will provide real value to users and the business. Teams can validate problems through various means:

     – User Feedback

     – Data Analysis

     – Competitive Analysis 

How will we know if we’ve solved this problem? – emphasize the importance of measuring the solution’s impact. It’s about setting clear and SMART success criteria. With clear metrics for success, teams will know if their solution is adequate or needs further iteration.

General benefits are

• User-Centricity
• Efficient Resource Allocation
• Clarity and Alignment
• Continuous Improvement

Certainly! Let’s delve into the concept of the North Star Metric (NSM) and how it relates to the One Metric That Matters (OMTM) and OKRs (Objectives and Key Results).

North Star Metric (NSM) – The One Metric that Matters (OMTM)

The North Star Metric is the single metric that best captures the core value a company delivers to its customers. It’s a guiding metric that reflects the company’s growth and user value. The idea is that by optimizing and focusing on the NSM it will drive sustainable growth across the entire user base.

Key Points about NSM:

Singular Focus: It provides a clear direction and helps align the company around a single goal.

Value-Driven: The NSM should reflect the company’s value to its users.

Growth Indicator: A good NSM should lead to future business success.

Examples of NSM:

– For Airbnb, it might be “number of nights booked.”

– For Spotify, it could be “time spent listening.”

OMTM (One Metric That Matters):

While the NSM is a company-wide focus, individual teams or projects might have their OMTM. This metric is the most important for a specific team or undertaking at a particular time. It allows teams to focus on immediate and impactful tasks.

OKRs (Objectives and Key Results)

OKRs are a goal-setting framework that helps organizations define and track objectives and their outcomes. 

Components of OKRs:

Objectives: These are qualitative descriptions of your goal. They should be short, inspirational, and engaging.

Key Results: These are quantitative metrics measuring progress towards the objective. They should be specific, time-bound, and measurable.

Key Points about OKRs:

Outcome Over Output: OKRs emphasize the results (outcomes) rather than the tasks or activities (outputs) that get you there.

Alignment: OKRs help align different departments or teams toward the company’s overarching goals.

Flexibility: OKRs are typically set quarterly, allowing teams to adapt and change direction based on the latest data or market conditions.

Transparency: OKRs are usually shared openly within an organization, promoting transparency and collaboration.

Relation between NSM and OKRs:

The North Star Metric can be considered the company’s ultimate objective. OKRs, on the other hand, can be seen as the steps (Key Results) that different teams or departments are taking to contribute to achieving that overarching Objective (NSM).

North Star Metric (NSM): A singular, company-wide metric that captures the core value delivered to users and drives growth.

One Metric That Matters (OMTM): The most crucial metric for a specific team or project at a given time.

OKRs: A goal-setting framework with Objectives (the “what”) and Key Results (the “how”). It emphasizes achieving outcomes over merely completing tasks.

KPI (Key Performance Indicator): A measurable value that indicates the effectiveness of a company, department, or individual in achieving key objectives.

OKPS 

The OKPS tree (Objective – Key Result – Problem – Solution) is a visualization tool used in product management to help product teams focus on the proper work, drive consensus across functions, and exceed product OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). 

 Purpose of OKPS:

• Aid in building consensus cross-functionally and within the core product team.
• Reminder about the shared context, focus area, metrics, user problems, what has and what needs to be delivered.
• Visualization of communicating a long list of information without being repetitive.

Components of OKPS:

• Objectives and their corresponding Key Results.
• Root causes of the OKRs (key user or technical problems).
• Source solutions to these causes.

Benefits of OKPS:

• Focus on the Right Work: OKPS forces product teams to link features to metrics, ensuring that they work on features that align with the set OKRs.
• Being User-centric: OKPS emphasizes solving user problems, making product teams more user-centric.
• Setting the Discussion: The OKPS tree provides a framework for product team discussions, ensuring everyone is on the same page.
• Driving Consensus: It helps PMs present a compelling reason for their product decisions to external stakeholders.

Implementation:

• OKPS is a tool, and like any tool, it should be used judiciously. Product teams can adapt the principles of OKPS to their unique situations and needs.

SUCCES 

Have you ever had an idea and wanted others to go with it? Use these six simple principles: 

• Simple 
• Unexpected 
• Concrete 
• Credible 
• Emotional 
• Stories 

Simple – Strip down your idea to its essence. It’s about finding and focusing on the central message that you want to convey. Avoid jargon, unnecessary details, or complexities. Think of it as a proverb or a maxim – something that’s both simple and profound.

Unexpected – Capture the audience’s attention by presenting something surprising or counterintuitive. Use novelty, unpredictability, or mystery to pique curiosity. For instance, giving facts against common knowledge can make your audience want to know more.

Concrete – Ensure your idea can be grasped and remembered by making it tangible and clear. Use specific examples, facts, or analogies. Instead of abstract concepts, provide real-world instances or scenarios.

Credible – Make your idea trustworthy and believable. Use sources, experts, statistics, or demonstrations to support your claims. For instance, if you’re presenting a new strategy, showing its success in another context can add credibility.

Emotional – Make people care about your idea by connecting it to their emotions. Appeal to values, desires, or aspirations. For instance, instead of presenting bare facts about a problem, show its human impact.

Stories –  Narratives are potent tools for driving action and making ideas stick. Share stories that embody your idea. Whether it’s a success story, a cautionary tale, or an inspirational journey, a well-told narrative can make your message more relatable and memorable.

You can read more on that in “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Porter’s 5 Forces 

Porter’s Five Forces is a framework for analyzing the competitive environment within an industry. It’s a business strategy tool that helps you understand the nature of competition within your industry and position your organization optimally to defend itself against these competitive forces. It can also aid in identifying potential opportunities for growth and expansion.

Threat of New Entrants – how easy or difficult competitors can join the marketplace. The easier for a new company to enter the industry, the more an established company’s position could be significantly weakened.

Factors Influencing the Threat:

Barriers to entry (e.g., capital requirements, economies of scale, access to distribution channels)

• Brand loyalty

• Government regulations

Buyer Power – the ability of buyers to affect the price they must pay for items. The smaller and more powerful the customer base, the greater the purchasing power and the greater the influence on price negotiations.

Factors Influencing Buyer Power:

• Number of buyers

• Size of each buyer

• Price sensitivity

• Ability to substitute

Supplier Power – the power of suppliers and how much control they have over increasing prices. Fewer suppliers mean more control over prices and terms, which could lead to higher costs for companies in the industry.

Factors Influencing Supplier Power:

• Number of suppliers

• Size of each supplier

• Uniqueness of services

• Cost of changing suppliers

Threat of Substitutes – the ability of people to switch from your product or service to a substitute. The more accessible and affordable it is to change to a replacement, the higher the threat to the existing products.

Factors Influencing the Threat of Substitutes:

• Availability of substitute products

• Price of substitutes

• Level of differentiation

Competitive Rivalry – This force examines the intensity of the competition in the marketplace. High competition can lead to reduced profitability and the need for competitive advantage and differentiation.

Factors Influencing Competitive Rivalry:

• Number of competitors

• Capability of competitors

How to Use Porter’s Five Forces:

Understanding the Industry Structure – It helps businesses understand the industry context and the dynamics that could impact their profitability.

Developing Strategies – Companies can formulate strategies that enhance their competitive position by understanding the forces that drive competition in their industry.

Identifying Competitive Position – It helps identify the company’s competitive strengths and weaknesses.

Making Investment Decisions – Investors can use it to assess the industry’s competitive dynamics to make informed investment decisions.