I recently prepared this deck for Product Management workshops in Pakistan at Product School in Lahore, and a similar event in Islamabad. It covers various stages of the lifecycle of an Enterprise SaaS product, including Problem Discover, Hypothesis, Design, Build, and Launch. All confidential material has been redacted.

1. How to
Product
@asim_fayaz

2. How I got here
Free group-texting with ads2007
2011
Automated monitoring of government
employee performance and bribes
2013
Crime mapping and hotspot analytics
for police forces
2016
Data collection marketplace for
emerging markets
2019
Supply chain visibility and incident
management

4. How to become a
Product Manager

5. What is Product
Management
How to become a
Product Manager

6. Before we begin...
Who’s in the room
This isn’t everything
Confidential content
Questions

7. What is
(SaaS)
Product
Management
Discovery Hypothesis
DesignBuild
@asim_fayaz

8. Product
Lifecycle
Discovery Hypothesis
DesignBuild
@asim_fayaz

9. Discovery
What do buyers want? What do users want? WHY?
How valuable is the problem? Is it externally valid? (“Solution”)
User Needs vs Contractual Commits vs Company Strategy →
What’s the right thing to do?
Ignore all problems that won’t “move the needle”
Tools: Amplitude, Zendesk, Product Advisory Council, User
Forums, Prioritization Framework, Trade Reports and Fairs @asim_fayaz

10. Notes from
Product Discovery workshop
(Redacted)

11. Problem
prioritization matrix
(Redacted)

12. Hypothesis
What’s the storyboard? Describe the Scenario(s)
Who are the actors? Define the Persona(s)
What outcomes do they want? Identify the Job(s) to be Done (?)
Draft reqs in a Product Requirements Document, socialize
widely, get beat up… iterate, iterate, iterate
Kill all hypotheses that “don’t make sense”
Tools: Google Docs, Google Sheets, Journey Maps, Wireframes,
All-hands meetings, Zoom@asim_fayaz

13. Example of a PRD
(Redacted)

14. Comments / debate on the PRD
(Redacted)

15. Design
Research, Prototype, Validate… on repeat, until
you discover a simple, intuitive UX
Don’t invent, “borrow” → Use established design patterns (?):
- Already familiar for users (“Don’t make me think”)
- Much cheaper to implement and work better
Shelve all prototypes that are not “usable” or “feasible” (?)
Tools: Design Sprint, Balsamiq, Invision, Zoom, Screencastify,
Moderated / Unmoderated Usability Testing
@asim_fayaz

16. Design Sprint

17. Design Systems
Atlassian.design
Material.io
Bootstrap
Salesforce Lightning
Baseweb (Uber)

18. Build
Write epics and stories in “English language” and
communicate in writing and verbally (“Good PM/Bad PM”)
Religiously participate in all Scrum Ceremonies -- Daily,
Planning, Grooming, Retro (?) -- and Architecture Design
Fight for a “Product team”! Eng Lead, FE, BE, DevOps, UX, PM
Only launch when you have MVP (?)
Tools: JIRA, Sumologic, SQL, Amplitude
@asim_fayaz

19. Backlog on JIRA
(Redacted)

20. Kanban Board on JIRA
(Redacted)

21. Product
Lifecycle
Discovery Hypothesis
DesignBuild
@asim_fayaz

22. Product
Lifecycle
LAUNCH
+
Discovery
Hypothesis
DesignBuild
@asim_fayaz

23. Manage product / feature rollout:
- All customers? All users? Phased? Tiered?
- Product marketing collateral → Newsletters, Release notes
- Driving adoption → Conversion funnels (?), Outreach
Support your users and mature your product / feature:
- Support docs, train help desk agents
- Bugs and ERs → Triage, prioritize, communicate
What’s next on the roadmap?
Tools: Amplitude, Zendesk, Hubspot, Smartsheet
Launch + Discovery
@asim_fayaz

24. Product Newsletter
(Redacted)

25. Conversion Funnel on Amplitude
(Redacted)

26. Product
Lifecycle
Launch
+
Discovery
Hypothesis
DesignBuild
@asim_fayaz
$ $$
$$$$$$$

27. How to
Product
@asim_fayaz