Product Management Fundamentals

Chris Lange
Chris.Lange.pub@gmail.com
Core Elements to Product Management
Posted for general distribution. Adapted
from product management consulting.
Topics:
• Don’t compromise on outcomes
• The imperative to recognize uncertainty
• The value of Customer Fail-Gaps(CFG’s)

Product Management – Some First Principles
1. The goal of effective product management is to continuously
build the right product for your customers
2. Successful products deliver superior value propositions for
both articulated and unarticulated customer needs
3. Solutions require leading cross-discipline collaborations and
rapid iterations to solve high-value Customer Fail-Points (CFPs)
4. Success is being able to achieve a desired user behavior in the
context of a successful business model
Chris Lange: chris.Lange.pub@gmail.com

First Principle 1: Don’t Compromise Your Outcomes
Achieve
Product/Market fit
• You have a problem worth solving
• There is a sufficient market size
• You’ve developed a superior way of meeting
customers needs
• Customers would be unhappy if the solution
went away
Establish a flourishing
business model
This is what you are
trying to do:
These are your
conditions of success:
Your runway will
always seem limited by :
• The need to move quickly
• Seemingly insufficient resources
• Assumptions to validate
Keep your focus on the opportunity, ahead of resource concerns. Opportunities that are truly
valuable right now, rarely fail due to insufficient resources.

First Principle 2: Get Focused
• The ability to learn rapidly translates into value
• Value grows when you learn at greater speed and with lower cost
Revenue =
Information
Time*
• Learning = demonstrating the ability to move users’ behavior (actions)
• Your learning should equate to progress on a quantitative metric
(e.g. conversion, activation, repeat actions, etc.)
Why
important
How to
apply
Determine
your focus
• Ask: what is the most important thing you need customers to do,
to move your business forward - right now
• What is the biggest risk facing you that you need to understand how to
mitigate - right now
A powerful focusing framework
* Dan Milstein Lean conferenceChris Lange: chris.Lange.pub@gmail.com

First Principle 3: Recognize Uncertainty
1. In innovation, the level of uncertainty present is rarely
acknowledged
2. Organizations frequently act on what they think vs.
what they know
3. Generate customer learning that is behavior-based,
not-prediction based
Critical
Considerations
In a world where you can build anything – the challenge is determining
the right thing to build.* This is the Product Manager’s opportunity.
*= Eric Ries – The Lean Startup
Shift your product approach to acknowledge the level of uncertainty present.
Recognizing what you know/don’t know about the critical assumptions or risks your product
rests on, will empower you to put them at the front of your validation or learning efforts.

First Principle 4: Choose Your Product Development Approach
• Focuses on moving quickly to MVPs, makes
presumptions about solutions
• Performs better with less uncertainty present
• Works well when the org. can run experiments
quickly and cheaply
• Risks waste and lost time – especially with long
engineering cycles, which may also drive more
expensive late stage changes
• Implies a level of confidence already present
regarding customer needs
Build then ask (the solution space)
• Directly customer centered. Built off a
foundation of customer interviews used
to understand high value needs.
• The Initial focus on customer problems
risks slowing down delivery
• Will deliver high accuracy, due to roots in
customer problems
• Good in opportunity areas of high
uncertainty
Ask then build (the problem space)
Select a development approach that aligns to the level of uncertainty present and your ability
to execute rapid learning. Here are 2 approaches to reference.

First Principle 5: Find the Customer Fail-Gap (CFG)
The Customer Fail-Gap is the shortfall in a customer’s own solution to an unmet need. Target this
area for discovery to maximize the ROI of customer development.
The
Customer
Fail-Gap (CFG)
1. Use questions about workflow and task outcomes to surface customer pain
associated with poor processes
2. Look for elaborate work-arounds in customers’ current solutions
3. Probe for areas the customer’s own solutions still can’t solve
4. Customer emotions provide strong clues about which considerations are
the most important (look for undercurrents of resignation or frustration)
A product that addresses the Customer Fail-Gap inherits the benefits of 2 powerful forces: existing
customer motivation for solutions and inferior alternatives

First Principle 6: Establish a Rationalized Starting Point
Importance
Of a need
to a user
Dissatisfaction w/Current Options
Opportunity
zone
Ignore Insufficient
momentum
to dislodge
Good
enough
• Segregate high-value opportunities from low-value options when prioritizing learning and
development efforts
• Mapping customer comments by: importance vs. dissatisfaction reveals opportunities to
create drivers for customer adoption or deeper engagement
• Important need
• Dissatisfied with
options
Low High
LowHigh

Summary
• Benchmark your current efforts against the above
• Implementing changes within a discrete initiative may drive more
success than a large scope of changes
• Contact me to learn more
1. In a world where you can build anything, your goal is to build the right product for your customers
2. Recognize the level of uncertainty present. Focus on validations and mitigations to the challenges
that are most important right now
3. To make progress, create learning goals that specifically require you to demonstrate the ability to
achieve intended user actions
4. Select a development approach that both aligns to the level of uncertainty and provides agility to
execute rapid learning
5. Focus your efforts on the Customer-Fail gap. Solutions benefit from 2 powerful forces: existing
customer motivation for solutions and inferior alternatives.
Your Next
Actions:

Product Management Fundamentals

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to Product Management Fundamentals

Similar to Product Management Fundamentals (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Product Management Fundamentals