Combine your product management experience with continuous research and learning

Key points:

• Fail fast
• Fail often
• Learn from those who came before
• Experts should not be ignored
• Bring your brain to the table and listen to the customer

You have heard us talk about our pillars of Product, Process and Proof. the What, How and Why of good product management. We didn’t land on these randomly. Our experience and our education got us here.

This article is a brief overview of the background behind our scientific model pillars and provides some rationale behind the various elements.

Experience is of value and failure is your teacher

Over the years I’ve worked in companies with multiple products, channels and markets. I’ve been responsible for products, mostly in the financial services space and typically with strong digital elements, that have been used in dozens of countries.

This has meant I’ve been involved in more than a couple of products that failed to meet initial expectations. That’s also putting it rather kindly in some cases.

Whenever I have been involved in a product that failed to meet targets, I always have been involved in a long hard look at what went wrong. This is where you pick up gold for the future. Learning from your mistakes is really powerful, and it comes with a sting that helps reinforce the lesson.

Most often, the worst mistakes were due to inward thinking. When you assume you know what needs to be done but neglect to confirm it through the proof.

At other times, poor process was the enemy. Red tape and antiquated thinking can really have you working with one hand tied behind your back.

You can learn from the experience of others

You don’t have to learn everything from your own mistakes. If you keep an open mind and analyse carefully the many stories you can consume in this space you can benefit from those who have already been there.

Methodologies and refined techniques exist for a reason. Standing on the shoulders of giants is the way to get more done than those who came before you.

Read books and articles from reputable and trusted sources. Understand the experience of the author. What is their qualification to reinforce their point of view? How much experience in their field do they have? How does their experience relate to your endeavours?

We have, for some inexplicable reason, developed an aversion to expert opinions of late. This is nonsense. Whilst you shouldn’t just take anyone’s word for anything when you read about it, people’s experience and education should play a major part in how much worth you place on their opinion on a given topic.

If you ignore experts you are doomed to repeat past mistakes. That being said, if you only listen to those who have done it already, you will stifle innovation.

Learn from the past, experiment with the future.

It’s important to do things the right way

When you have a proper handle on the thing that you are looking to take to market, you need to get into execution mode. Chucking some requirements at the wall and hoping for the best is not a recipe for success.

W. Edwards Deming is often credited with inventing the first life cycle for project delivery. The Deming cycle is based on four phases:

1. Plan – figure out what needs to be done
2. Do – do it
3. Study- assess the result against the expectation
4. Act – learn from the process and feed that into the next iteration of the cycle

I’ve also heard this as rolling up a slope which represents quality or improvement and having a wedge that stops it from falling backwards that represents testing. A nice and very true analogy.

We’ve seen powerful and complex things done through waterfall project delivery. We now know that much of these projects would work better in an Agile framework. Doing smaller things with focus and being able to react to changing environments and needs works really well for most software projects in particular.

At the product agency we love growth. The art of breaking your deliverables up into small components. Driven by data. Iterating faster and faster. Pivoting when and where the evidence leads you.

You can’t work in a vacuum

If you just deliver what you have been asked to deliver without understanding it properly, you are not likely to be adding much to the process.

If there is no real rationale behind what is being delivered then you are in big trouble.

Whatever you do, you should always know your customer well. Speak to them. Find where they are. What they like. Why they like it.

If you don’t, then whatever success you have will be more good luck than good management.