8 Product Management Principles to Keep in Mind
Product management is an essential practice that must be done well to ensure that your product remains competitive in the industry. And that necessitates implementing the right set of product management principles to make correct product decisions.
So, what are these principles all about, and which are the most important ones you should know? Let’s discover it all.
TL;DR
- Product management principles serve as the guiding core of your product. They ensure that your product abides by its basic values. But, they are different from the product vision.
- You must know your customers extremely well. Leverage user research, conduct interviews, and track reviews for this.
- The outcomes a feature delivers should take precedence over its concept. Use the JTBD framework and develop a product-thinking mindset for it.
- Always prioritize the features that must be developed first. Your product can’t have everything. Build an internal product roadmap, have a vision for your product, and use frameworks like RICE.
- Your team members must take ownership of the product they’re working on. Assign SMART goals to them, use project management tools, and try not to micromanage them.
- Collect and use product data to inform future decisions. Use product analytics tools to get insights from the data, create a data collection culture in your team, and create shared reports for your team.
- Experiment regularly to make sure the best version of your product/feature remains live. Use A/B and multivariate testing. Also, implement conversion rate optimization techniques to drive conversions.
- Communicate everything with your team to keep everyone on the same page. Use collaboration tools like Slack or automate the sending of product messages using SaaS automation tools like Zapier.
- Adapt to changing user preferences and industry trends. Pivot regularly to keep your product competitive. Embrace A/B testing, do beta releases, and be open to changing your product roadmap.
- Userpilot helps you with A/B testing, in-app feedback collection, data analysis, and in-app messaging. Book a demo to see it in action.
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What are product principles in product management?
Product management principles are the base of developing and managing a product. Every action or decision taken by the product team is solely based on these principles.
This way, they serve as an essential guide and ensure that the team sticks to the values it has to maintain.
That said, product principles are different from company vision and product goals. They also don’t have any metrics for measurement. In a nutshell, you can’t really reach any product management principle—it’s always there.
8 essential product management principles
Now that you know what product management principles are all about and their importance, let’s take a look at some of the most useful ones you should consider.
They’ll guide your product management and help your product teams work effectively.
Know your customers inside-out
Knowing your customers well is critical as you’re developing the product solely for their use.
So, you must understand every segment of your customer base—their needs, behavior, pain points, and expectations.
By delving into these aspects of your customers, you’ll figure out exactly what needs to be built into your product to improve customer satisfaction. It’ll also help you solve customer problems and elevate their experience.
How to put it into practice?
To understand your customers well, you’ve got to start with customer research. There are several ways of going about this.
- Leverage user research to learn about your customers using tools like customer surveys to collect constructive feedback directly. Alternatively, you can track user behavior across your product to understand their needs with path analysis, event tracking, and more.
- Conduct customer interviews and ask important user research questions to gain detailed insights into their requirements. You could also create focus groups and interview them.
- Track user reviews on search engines and review sites to find out more about their needs and pain points.
- You can also use whiteboard tools like Miro to build your user persona and define it well. This can help you dive deeper into their needs.
Outcomes over feature ideas
One of the other key principles you should keep in mind as a product manager is the importance of value.
Your product must be valuable for the users, irrespective of the number of features it has to offer. It’s important to keep this in mind during feature ideation.
Your focus must be on creating hyper-targeting features toward your users and their requirements. Otherwise, you’ll end up with unsatisfied customers even if your product is feature-rich.
How to put it into practice?
Throughout your product life cycle, you must prioritize the relevance of features and not the number of them. Here’s how you can deliver value with your product:
- Develop a product thinking mindset where you consistently align your user value with business value. It helps you satisfy users while meeting your business goals.
- Use the 5W1H (What, Who, Why, When, Where, and How) framework to help you look at a particular feature from multiple angles. You can also use The Mom Test to validate your feature ideas by asking customers the right questions.
- When you’re planning a new feature or updating one, use the jobs-to-be-done framework. It looks at each feature through the job it helps customers accomplish (the outcome of using the feature).
Learn to prioritize as a product manager
As a product manager, you must realize that you cannot build everything into your product.
Otherwise, your product risks becoming overly complex, making it difficult for users to find the features they need. This could also lead to an overwhelming amount of work for your team.
Instead, you’ve got to prioritize and choose specific features or improvements that can boost your customer value.
How to put it into practice?
Instead of getting your team to create a bunch of features that don’t provide value, here’s how you can get your feature development right:
- Much like a mission statement, have a product vision and encompass it in a statement, if possible. It can help you develop features that guide your product toward it and avoid wavering away from the goal.
- You can also implement certain prioritization frameworks, like RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort), MoSCoW (Must-Have, Should-Have, Could-Have, Won’t-Have), and the Kano Model.
- As a product manager, you should also build an internal product roadmap. It can give you an insight into the product’s vision, direction, and progress over a certain time period. This way, you can stick to the features that will help realize this vision.
Build a product team of owners
Your team is central to your product’s development and management. And that’s why it’s critical to ensure that every team member takes ownership of the product’s success and works toward the company’s mission.
It’s important to empower your team members. They must feel that they’re working on something meaningful and have a say in how it’s developed.
How to put it into practice?
Product managers shouldn’t be the sole owners of a product. Instead, the entire product team should take ownership. Here’s how:
- Start by establishing goal-setting frameworks like SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely) goals for every team member. This way, they’ll know what they’re working toward, and you can also measure their progress.
- You can also use project management tools to plan and assign tasks to your team effectively. They can also provide progress reports to track the progress toward individual goals. Additionally, team members can understand their performance and contribution.
- Finally, trust your team and make them feel heard. Also, hold them accountable for the work given to them and try to reduce your interference in it. The idea is to adopt lean management principles (much like lean experimentation) and provide complete ownership of each task to every team member.
Leverage data for decision-making
Nothing shows you the truth like data does. And that’s why it’s crucial to analyze it thoroughly to uncover insights that can inform future product management decisions.
You can collect data and use it to validate your hypothesis related to product features. Similarly, you can use it to track progress toward a particular goal. Finally, you can use it to make data-driven decisions.
How to put it into practice?
Data collection and analysis is important if you want to use it for decision-making.
You can start fostering a data-collecting culture in your team. Get your team on board with the idea and teach them how they can collect data on customers, manage, and analyze it. Make sure they understand its value and lead by example.
Leverage no-code/low-code product analytics tools like Userpilot to collect and analyze data. This way, both technical and non-technical users in your team will be able to derive insights from the data.
For instance, Userpilot comes with auto-capture events, so you won’t have to do anything to gather data.
To derive insights from such event data, product managers can create shared data analysis reports on Userpilot so that everyone on the team is on the same page. They also help you break down data silos so the team is aligned on the key metrics and trends.
Embrace the experiment
User preferences change over time, and your product must keep up with them. You must continuously keep abreast with new trends and experiment regularly.
By embracing this product management principle, you can discover areas where you’re lagging and work on those to improve your product offerings. You can learn from the failures and iteratively develop a better product through these experiments.
How to put it into practice?
There are several ways of experimenting with your products to improve them. Here are some reliable methods:
- Use A/B testing to figure out which feature variant resonates better with your users. Using a tool like Userpilot, you can run such tests for various segments to derive insights about your product.
- If you have multiple variables that you’d like to test between your feature variants, you could deploy multivariate tests. This way, you’ll know which combinations work best for your product.
- Use experiments for conversion rate optimization as well. See which variants of your landing pages or in-app experiences are driving better conversions and opt for those. For instance, you can test a version of an upgrade prompt with a short video vs. one with a GIF.
Ensure effective communication among the entire team
Miscommunication among the team or even with external stakeholders could lead to issues in product management.
As a product manager, you must ensure that all the stakeholders are informed and aligned on matters related to your product.
Ensure constant communication with your team and brief them on the product goals and vision. This way, they’ll all work in the same direction and help you build successful products.
How to put it into practice?
Product managers must also communicate well and foster such a culture within the team.
You can start using collaboration tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams to start sharing important details about your product with your team. Alternatively, you can use tools with sharing features to share product updates. The idea is to make sure everyone’s on the same page.
It’s also possible to automate sharing with a tool like Zapier. For example, you can use Zapier Connects to send product notifications to Slack. This way, everyone will know exactly what’s happened to the product without requiring additional manual effort from product managers.
Adaptability is essential for product growth
User preferences change, and so do markets and technologies—think how AI has made its way into every field. You must be prepared for such fluctuations and be ready to pivot your product strategy accordingly.
The idea is to keep your product competitive by staying abreast with the latest developments and adapting quickly to them.
How to put it into practice?
Product managers must be open to ideas and work toward building an adaptive product and team.
Build a culture of experimentation within the team. Conduct A/B and multivariate tests regularly to see which variant works better.
For example, when you launch a new feature, you should opt for user testing to see how users receive it. This could be done through A/B tests, surveys, heatmaps, and session replays.
You can also release beta versions of your feature and collect feedback from users through in-app surveys to identify areas for improvement.
You must be willing to adjust your product roadmap based on changing market conditions and circumstances. Whether that involves introducing new features or launching new product verticals, you must be open to the idea. For instance, ride-hailing services had to introduce delivery features during the pandemic to remain competitive.
Conclusion
Product management principles serve as the north star for your product and ensure that it always moves in the right direction. And that’s why you must implement each principle well to ensure a smooth product management journey. While you’re at it, make sure you get the right tech stack to support this process.
Userpilot can help you with a variety of tasks, from A/B testing and surveys to user tracking and data analytics. Book a demo now to see how it can support your product management process.
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