Product Analytics

A mental model and framework you can use for new/existing products (and even PM interviews).

Ahead of launching a product, organizations collect data on what their customers actually need, what they intend to achieve with the product, and of course, they must make sure they have enough capital. However, after launch, most products' key results and value to the customers diminishes. So what should the product managers do to make sure the product is a success? Some of the actions to take would be adding new features to the product to attract customers. Such actions eventually become the product's metrics but how should you really define GREAT metrics for any product?

How To Avoid The Unintended Consequences Of The “One Metric That Matters”.

Product Consultant and Executive coach Vincent Low delivers this piece explaining the basics of metrics, essentially what it is and why it matters, how to develop a metric from scratch, and how to avoid the unintended consequences of the "one metric that matters". Through the article, he tells real-life stories and cases on the impacts of metrics.

The definitive A/B testing resource. Run better experiments, be more confident in your results and become an experimentation expert!

Identify the most important artifacts created by your product.

Show and Tell works by giving your customers a chance to dip into a deeply felt human emotion to show you when and how they are using your product to do their best. By telling you how they are doing the best they can, they will also be telling you how you can help them do it better - by gaining insights into what really matters.

Activity Overview: Ask your customers to bring examples of artifacts created or modified by your product or service. Ask them to tell you why these artifacts are important, and when and how they’re used. Pay careful attention to anything that surprises you – artifacts you expected them to create or modify that they have ignored, artifacts that aren’t used, or artifacts used in unexpected ways.

Identify what customers don’t like about your product or service.

Although most customers have complaints, few customers are genuinely “against” you or your product. Even if they express extreme frustration, the reality is that they want to succeed when using your product. Giving them a way to express their frustration without letting a group mentality or a single person dominate the discussion is what most customers want. Speed Boat creates this relatively safe environment where customers can tell you what’s wrong. You’ll find fresh new ideas for the changes you can make to address your customers’ most important concerns.

How to play: Draw a boat on a whiteboard or sheet of butcher paper. You’d like the boat to really move fast. Unfortunately, the boat has a few anchors holding it back. The boat is your system, and the features that your customers don’t like are its anchors. Customers write what they don’t like on an anchor. They can also estimate how much faster the boat would go when that anchor was cut. Estimates of speed are really estimates of pain.

Create empathy for the customer experience.

When you understand your customers’ needs so well that you can envision solutions to problems they may not realize they have, you are well on your path to creating innovative products and services. The Apprentice provides members of your product team with the opportunity to create the empathy that they need to create innovative products and services. As a bonus, it also provides them with a wealth of concrete, direct experience that they can use during the product development process.

Activity Overview: Ask your development team to perform the “work” of the system that they are building. If they’re creating a new masking tape for painters, ask them to work with real painters, using the masking tape in the field. If they’re creating a new professional oven, ask them to cook meals with a professional chef—not in a classroom, but in a real restaurant, where they have to experience the actual challenges of creating meals. If they’re building work flow management software for furniture delivery people, have them deliver furniture. They will gain direct knowledge of the problems customers face and empathy for how hard it may be to solve them.

We are running experiments like 19th century scientists. We should know better.