Presentation from Twin Cities Startup Week 2016. Aurelius CEO and Co-Founder, Zack Naylor presents a framework and approach for creating a clear strategy for your product and experience.

1. Solve the Right Problems
Creating a Clear Product & Experience Strategy
Aurelius
www.aureliuslab.com
@AureliusLab
Brought to you by:

2. Tell Everyone How AWESOME This Is
@zacknaylor
@Aureliuslab
#TCSW16
#productstrategy

3. WHY WE’RE HERE
If we solve the wrong problem,
on time and on budget,
it doesn’t matter

4. WHY WE’RE HERE
Talkin’ ‘bout that sweet product strategy
Creating a clear strategy for your product and user experience
Getting everyone aligned
Solve the right problems
Build stuff that matters most for your company and your customers

5. OUR AGENDA (tentatively)
10:00 Opening Introductions & Voting
10:15 Goals
10:25 User Research
10:35 - break -
10:45 Creating User Research Insights
10:55 Making & Communicating Design/Product Decisions
11:00 Measuring Success
11:10 Final Considerations
11:15 Wrap Up / Q & A
11:30 FIN
11:45 …you ain’t gotta go home but you can’t stay here…

6. SOME OF THE THINGS THAT ARE
NOT ON OUR AGENDA BECAUSE WE
WON’T BE TALKING ABOUT THEM
Marketing Strategy/Execution
Operations & Running a Company
Building a Business End to End
Business Strategy
Legal & Finance (…really?)

7. • why
•
•
•
WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?
Aurelius
aureliuslab.com
CEO, Co-Founder
Zack Naylor

8. GET YOUR
VOTE ON

9. WHAT EXACTLY IS PRODUCT STRATEGY?

10. “An informed, intentional approach
for a product or service driven by
both customer needs/behavior and
the goals that will maximize your
success as an organization.”
@zacknaylor@Aureliuslab #TCSW16#productstrategy

11. WHAT EXACTLY IS PRODUCT STRATEGY?
A collection of smart, informed decisions
@zacknaylor@Aureliuslab #TCSW16#productstrategy

12. DECISION
RESEARCH
INSIGHTS
GOALS METRICS
COMPOSITION OF A GOOD DESIGN OR PRODUCT DECISION

13. GOALS
Define what we are trying to accomplish, how it
will affect the experience and what should
happen as a result of this project or effort.

14. GOALS
• what we are trying to do as a business
• who we are serving
• what problem we are solving for customer, our
company, or both

15. “Goals should convey our intentions
in a way that explains the expected
benefit to both our company and our
customers”
@zacknaylor@Aureliuslab #TCSW16#productstrategy

16. statements to improve a certain metric in a vacuum
profitability targets
prescriptive of a solution or action
GOOD PRODUCT/UX STRATEGY GOALS ARE NOT…

17. EXAMPLES OF GOOD PRODUCT STRATEGY GOALS
“Improve our new customer on-boarding process”
“Provide more meaningful content for our first time visitors”
“Deliver deeper value to product managers with our add on mobile app”

18. “Better enable designers and product managers the ability to
communicate designs, features and product recommendations”
Aurelius
EXAMPLES OF GOOD PRODUCT STRATEGY GOALS

19. “Effective strategic goals provide
definition for what good design or
product decisions are”
@zacknaylor@Aureliuslab #TCSW16#productstrategy

20. DEFINING GOALS
An effective strategic goal for your product/experience should have…
Statement of what we’re trying to accomplish
Expected impact to the product/experience
Success indicators

21. Better enable designers and product managers the
ability to communicate designs, features and
product recommendations
More people signing up for the product
Statement of what we’re
trying to accomplish
Expected impact to the
product/experience
Success indicators
Improve Adoption
Improve Customer Retention

22. DEFINING GOALS
New vs. Existing Product/Service
Company Duration or Maturity
Market and Audience
Considerations to have…

23. TOOLS & TACTICS FOR CREATING PRODUCT STRATEGY GOALS
Stakeholder Interviews
Team Workshops

24. USER RESEARCH
Why user research is absolutely critical…
Identify customer needs and behavior
Define what problems exist and more importantly why
It’s the way we learn how to meet our strategic goals

25. MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT RESEARCH
“we don’t need research”
“too much time/money”
“we lack the expertise”
“quantitative data vs qualitative data”
“our experience vs customer perspective”

26. “In a startup no facts exist inside the
building, only opinions.”
@zacknaylor@Aureliuslab
Steve Blank - The Four Steps to the Epiphany
#TCSW16#productstrategy

27. DOING THE RIGHT RESEARCH FOR YOU
Better enable designers and product managers the ability to
communicate designs, features and product recommendations
Step 1:
Review your goal(s)…

28. DOING THE RIGHT RESEARCH FOR YOU
Better enable designers and product managers the ability to
communicate designs, features and product recommendations
Step 2:
Form research questions…

29. Better enable designers and product managers the ability to communicate designs, features and
product recommendations
How do designers/product managers communicate designs/features/
product recommendations today?
What is the process of creating a design/feature/product
recommendation for most designers and product managers?
What challenges in communication exist for designers/product
managers in their roles today?
What tool(s) do they use to do this work today?

30. DOING THE RIGHT RESEARCH FOR YOU
current tools
Step 3:
Create themes and/or categories to collect notes…
processcommunication challenges
designers product managers

31. DOING THE RIGHT RESEARCH FOR YOU
Step 3:
Choose research methods and have a plan…

32. COMMON RESEARCH METHODS
Usability Testing
User Interviews
Field Study/Contextual Inquiry
Web Analytics

33. CONDUCTING THE RESEARCH
Be relatively organized and prepared
Take notes about EVERYTHING
Follow your themes and categories to ensure you’re
collecting relevant notes and data to your goals

34. OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
How many users/customers to research with
Incentives
Duration of research sessions and your entire study
Where, when and how

35. TAKE A BREAK

36. CREATING INSIGHTS FROM RESEARCH NOTES
Applying meaning to raw research data
Raw Data + Context = Insight

37. CREATING INSIGHTS FROM RESEARCH NOTES
Creating insights beyond raw data is absolutely critical because…
We need to communicate what we learned from
customers about how to meet our goal(s)
Decision-making from singular or raw data points is dangerous
Meaning is worth more than fact

38. Raw Data
tools
process
People struggle to show their
teams why a design decision/
recommendation is best
because they use separate tools
for tracking research and actual
product/project actions
Research notes about…
+ Context = Insight
Understanding of “why”
we saw/heard what you did

39. DECISIONS
What are we doing and why?

40. “You are not entitled to your opinion.
You are entitled to your informed
opinion. No one is entitled to be
ignorant.”
@zacknaylor@Aureliuslab
Harlan Ellison
#TCSW16#productstrategy

41. DECISIONS
Make decisions or recommendations
that create a clear connection between
the research insights and our goals

42. RESEARCH
INSIGHT
GOAL DECISION
+ =

43. RESEARCH
INSIGHT
GOAL
DECISION
Create a page or view that shows the links
between research insights, goals and the
decision/recommendation made
Success Indicators:
Better enable designers and product managers the ability to communicate
designs, features and product recommendations
Which should help us: Improve Adoption and Customer Retention
More people signing up for the product
People struggle to show their teams why a design decision/recommendation is
best because they use separate tools for tracking research and actual product/
project actions
We should…
…because we learned…
…which will help us…

44. METRICS
Measuring the success of your design
and product strategy

45. METRICS
Choose metrics that tie back to our goal
and its success indicators that will
measure the success of each decision.

46. METRICS
Example Metrics:
GOAL
NPS
Total time on site/page
Sign Up Count
Better enable designers and product managers the ability to
communicate designs, features and product recommendations
Success Indicators:
Which should help us: Improve Adoption and Customer Retention
More people signing up for the product
Follow up Surveys/Usability Testing

47. METRICS
Considerations for choosing metrics…
New vs Existing products/features
Quantitative AND Qualitative
Available Measurement Sources

48. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
DECISION
RESEARCH
INSIGHTS
GOALS METRICS

49. PRODUCT STRATEGY
DECISION DECISION DECISION DECISION DECISION DECISION DECISION
PRODUCT STRATEGY
ORGANIZATION VISION STATEMENT ORGANIZATION VISION STATEMENT

50. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
Market opportunity
Industry
Operations and logistics
Resources
Timing
Budget
ROI
“business goals”
Technology landscape or advances

51. CLOSING & THANKS
Aurelius Product Strategy Blueprint:
www.aureliuslab.com/blueprint

52. web: www.aureliuslab.com
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