Using data to make product decisions that influence your product roadmap

Key points:

• Data is your friend
• It comes in many forms and at varied times in your process
• Without data you are flying blind
• Navigate politics and people from a position of strength using data

We have all been in a situation where a senior team member has given us the “gift” of a new product idea. An idea that they would buy themselves. They can’t understand why nobody has ever thought to put it in place. Handling that situation with tact can be challenging. Data is your ally here and can put you back on track.

A good product manager leverages data to convey the truth of their customer’s wants and needs. They ensure that changes move forward in the right direction. He or she pays attention to the changing environment and upcoming trends. Looking to make changes that can be validated before and after launch. In essence, their backlog is steeped in data and grounded in reality.

Here is a general overview and some tips on various related techniques, along with how and when to use them.

What do we mean by data and proof?

Proof is evidence of something that is true. Data is a discreet element of proof. It can be something like a metric that you measure, such as how many visitors go to your website. It is a fact not an opinion.

Everybody seems to talk about data these days. It has been a buzz word dropped into conversation in most industries for years now. It sounds far more complex than it is in reality, yet it is even more important.
We look to categorise proof into five main areas:

1. Market and competitor information e.g. industry size
2. Research e.g. focus groups with potential audience
3. Analytics e.g. downloads, active users, and page views
4. Business results e.g. sales, revenue, and profits
5. Customer Feedback e.g. interviews with existing customers

There are many ways to get these insights that vary in cost, difficulty, and value.

What data should I look at before I launch?

Before launching a product to market you should seek to understand the opportunity and demand. Any new product or even new feature should have a business case. This need not be over complicated, sometimes a simple calculation will suffice. Whatever the approach, it must leverage proof.

Understand the true potential for your product by knowing your market. Figure out what products solve the job you are looking at today and how popular those products are. Look at the untapped potential and think about how you will reach this audience.

Research is a powerful tool to shape your product. The first phase in the Design Thinking approach is Empathise. Many other approaches start in a similar way. Knowing your potential customer and their needs are where good product development begins.

There are many techniques to learn about your audience through research.
Surveys can tell you what a large audience may think by using a statistical sample audience. They are informative but limited by the ability to ask questions en masse. The language used, sample type/nature can also skew results.

Focus groups can give you insight into more specific feedback from individuals. They can yield insights that surveys cannot as a result but limited by their size. They can also suffer group think if not facilitated well.

Ethnographic research can get you deep into understanding behaviours. They put people into their usual context of where they may use your product. They are yet again restricted by sample size.

Techniques like Conjoint Analysis can be powerful. They ask a user to trade off between features. It is a good way to know what is most important to your audience and what they may be willing to pay for it.

You can assess the demand for your product through a lean product approach. Set up a landing page with your product features to test before you build. You can instruct potential buyers that the product is coming soon. The prospective buyer can be contacted when the product or feature is available.

The best approach employs a combination of these techniques.

What data should I look at after I launch?

Here is where the power of proof shines brightest. Using proof to inform changes to your product that comes unfiltered from the users.

Track your actual business results against those that you set out to reach in your business case. This tells you the actual truth of the situation and helps you to improve how you build these cases in the future. It also informs you when you need to react to financial needs or when you can afford to invest further.

The other metrics can be even more powerful. Take for example an ecommerce website. Analytics on conversion rates for sales can tell you where your funnel has flaws. Make a change (an experiment) to this sales funnel based on this insight and measure the result. This will tell you if the change was a good one or not and the process is then repeated.

Doing this in a structured way and at pace is known as Growth Hacking. A powerful tool in the digital arsenal to unlock the potential for your business.

Another concept around this type of metric is the North Star Metric. This centres around the idea that a company picks a single metric to focus on for the whole team. A solid example of this is Daily Active Users which such as Facebook has used. This metric must represent success for the company. It should not be something that can mislead like acquisition alone. It may also change over time as your business evolves and the market changes.

Customer feedback is like gold when it comes to proof. Hearing from them in the form of interviews or observing them using the product can lead to key insights. Reviewing the data that you capture (like reasons customers call your call centre) can bring new clarity. This type of proof should always feed into your backlog to improve your future releases.

How do I make the best use of this information?

This proof must inform your product development efforts. Building and prioritising your backlog informed by data is the only way to be successful.

Having structured processes for capturing and analysing data can make all the difference. You must also have a sound approach to defining enhancements informed by data.

Using proof from more than one of these techniques should inform your discussions. This is the way to negotiate with the team members who bring unvalidated new ideas forward.

They may be right, or they may be wrong but validating through data will provide you the proof you need to know. You are then armed to make good decisions, as a good product manager should be.

Are you using data to deliver the right results in your business? Contact us to see how we can help you leverage proof to win in digital today.

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