What I learned as a Product Manager while creating my product

Design Thinking

The first product I was thinking about was "FVA Tool Set".

Subsequently, another product came to my mind. As a result, a Product Line came about.

• "Hold on, you started from thinking of products, right?", - you will ask me.
• "Nope, I started from... It was ages ago and a whole history is quite big. Being a developer, I started from coding".
• "Was it a good idea to start from coding?", - you will ask me.
• "Again no. I would have started from Design Thinking, if I was familiar with it."

Design Thinking is a process of preparation, which consists of seven stages of creating a product:

• Empathize-who, goal, do Here you need to create an artifact called "Empathy Map" with a formula - who, goal, do;
• Empathize-see, say, do, hear Here you need to create an artifact called "Empathy Map" with a formula - see, say, do, hear;
• Empathize-think and feel Here you need to create an artifact called "Empathy Map" with a formula - think and feel;
• Define: Problem Statement Here you need to describe a problem basing on the "Empathy Map";
• Ideate Here you need to nave a list of raw ideas to explore.
• There are also other stages not mentioned here.

High-level product documentation

Once I came up with product ideas to implement, I realized that a set of documentation artifacts to keep high-level product knowledge had to be established.

Value Propositions

The first artifact to consider was Value Proposition.

which has the following components:

• Mapper for Products and Services to Customer Jobs;
• Mapper for Gain creators to Gains;
• Mapper for Pain relievers to Pains;
• One Pager with Value Proposition.

Business Model Canvas

The next artifact was Business Model Canvas.

I downloaded a template here and filled in the following fields:

• Key Partners to answer the questions: Who are the key partners? Who are the key suppliers?
• Key Activities to answer the questions: What are the main tasks that the company must do well to deliver its value?
• Key Resources to answer the questions: What are the most important physical, financial, intellectual or human recourses the company has?
• Value Propositions to answer the questions: What value do we deliver to the customer? Which customer needs do we want to satisfy?
• Customer Relationships to answer the questions: What type of relationship does each of the customer segments expect us to establish and maintain with them?
• Channels to answer the questions: Which channels do our customer segments want to be reached through? How do we reach them now?
• Customer Segments to answer the questions: Whom are we creating value for? Who are our most important customers?
• Revenue Streams to answer the questions: What value are our customers willing to pay for? What do they currently pay for? How do they pay? How would they prefer to pay?
• Cost Structure to answer the questions: Where do the costs come from?

Product Vision Board

The third artifact was Product Vision Board.

I downloaded a template here and filled in the following fields:

• VISION to answer the questions: What is your purpose for creating the product? Which positive change should it bring about?
• TARGET GROUP to answer the questions: Which market or market segment does the product address? Who are target customers and users?
• NEEDS to answer the questions: What problem does the product solve? Which benefit does it provide?
• PRODUCT to answer the questions: What kind of product is it? What makes it stand out? Is it feasible to develop the product?
• BUSINESS GOALS to answer the questions: How is the product going to benefit the company? What are business goals?

Competitive Analysis Matrix

The last artifact in High-level product documentation was Competitive Analysis Matrix

I filled in the following rows for several products:

• Vision with Goal and Target segment;
• Marketing with Pricing and Unique value proposition;
• End user support with Trainings, User guide and Help desk;
• Features.

Product from user prospective

As soon as high-level product documentation was ready, I decided to go deeper with more detail from the user's point of view.

Persona

The first artifact I created was Persona

I downloaded a template here and filled in the following fields:

• PICTURE & NAME to answer the questions: What does the persona look like? What is his/her name? I chose a realistic and plausible picture and name.
• DETAILS to answer the questions: What are persona’s relevant characteristics and behaviors? I wrote in demographics, such as age, gender, occupation, and income; psychographics, including lifestyle, social class, and personality; and behavioral attributes like usage patterns, attitudes and brand loyalty.
• GOAL to answer the questions: What problem does persona want to solve or which benefit does the character seek? Why would persona want to use or buy the product?

User Journey and User Scenarios

Then I tried to restore user way to achieve the goals.

And I came up with User Journey.

To show the value of the product, I created three user scenarios and posted them on YouTube. Please see the reference to watch them.

Stakeholders

Honestly, a bit later I realized that end users are not the only target audience for this product.

And next artifact - Stakeholders - came into sight.

It looks like a table with the following columns: Group, Stakeholder Role, Concerns, View.

Table rows contain as follows: End users, Suppliers and Team members.

Product requirements

Having defined everything from the user's point of view, I started thinking what exactly the product will implement.

Questionnaire

Having no clue what is important for the user and what is not, I created a questionnaire to clarify user needs.

It is a form to gather information on what capabilities, functions and scenarios are important.

Capabilities

Having gained an understanding of user needs, I started describing Capabilities

Literally, Capabilities describe key requirements.

Features

Having capability list defined, I started preparing features.

They represent significant, central functionality of the final system.

I put them into the table with the following columns: Name, Clarification, Business Value.

The feature set helped me to create a project plan and a road map.

Functional Requirements

Last but not least step in defining product behavior was a list of Functional Requirements, that define system detail behavior.

I settled them into the table with the following columns: Name, Architecture complexity, Business Value, Component, Phase, Feature ID.

Product development documents

Product Road Map

I believe, Product Road Map is the most important document for a product at the development stage.

I downloaded a template here and filled in the following fields and rows:

• DATE with Release date or timeframe;
• NAME with Name of new release;
• GOAL with The benefit a product should provide;
• FEATURES with High-level features necessary to meet the goal;
• METRICS with Metrics to determine if the goal has been met. Columns there are the product different version.

On the top of that, it is quite convenient to keep an online roadmap.