This document outlines a framework called the Product Livelog to collect, structure, evaluate, and prioritize product ideas in a transparent way. The framework uses 5 simple questions to build business cases for proposed solutions: 1) What is the problem? 2) Who is the customer? 3) How do we know it's a problem? 4) How big is the opportunity? 5) What is the proposed solution? Answering these questions creates transparency into why certain initiatives are prioritized over others. The framework is meant to make prioritization simple, transparent, inclusive, impactful, and objective.

1. Product Livelog
Balaji Nageswaran
Chief Product Officer
Framework to collect product ideas and
drive alignment

2. The easiest way to rent a home from your phone

3. Framework to structure and evaluate your initiatives
Source best ideas + Secure alignment
Real-life example
3 main things:

4. Problem statement
Ideas are presented as solutions
“I want a pop-up window with blue background and an orange button”
Not clear what the product teams are working on
“I don’t understand why the team chose to work on a certain initiative. It
doesn’t help my team.”
Challenging to stack rank
“Here are the 10 things I want you to work on – all are equally important”

5. Problem
statement…continued
Hard to say no to ideas that come from the top
“No matter what we prioritize, we end up working on what the <insert c-
level title> wants. Sigh!”
Product ideas come from only a few people
“I have good ideas, but don’t know who to talk to”

6. Guiding Principles
Priorities are decided by business cases, not by who comes up with the idea.
Best ideas come from people who are closer to the problem.
Priorities are not set in stone; can change based on new data.
It’s ok to disappoint customers or internal stakeholders by saying no.
Don’t agree with priorities? Disagree and commit.

7. Assumptions
It is clear to you and everyone in the company:
Target customer
Value proposition
Metrics that matter
Goals

8. Solution
A light-weight framework to make product prioritization:
simple
transparent
inclusive
impactful
objective
A living, breathing document that is open for inputs
from anyone, any time

9. 5 simple questions
1. What is the problem to solve?
2. Who is the customer?
3. How do we know it’s a problem?
4. How big is the opportunity?
5. Proposed solution: Hypothesis

10. What is the problem?
Users can’t search for properties
by neighborhoods or their
desired location. So, they
abandon their search.
Here is one example
Who is the customer?
Tenants
How do we know it’s a
problem?
In the most recent user research
study, x% of participants cited
the lack of neighborhood filter
for abandoning their search.
From one of our smoke tests in
Madrid, y% of users clicked on a
button to apply neighborhood
filter.

11. How big is the opportunity?
Across all the 10 cities in 7
countries we operate in, we
estimate Booking Requests to
increase by xx% (based on data
from user research + smoke test).
Here is one example
Hypothesis: Users have their
desired location(s) to live in
mind when they search for
properties. Providing this
feature will lead to more users
finding and booking their
desired properties.
Solution: Add a list of
neighborhoods for users to filter
their search results.
What is the proposed solution?

12. How does the Product Livelog look in practice?

13. Gotchas to watch out for…
Not everyone knows how to build a business case
Why should we change? This is not how we prioritized in the past
Collaboration takes time
I don’t agree with the priorities

14. Thanks for your time
Questions?