Product Management: Process, Roles & Responsibilities

“Delivering the Goods”

9 – 10 October 2013Moscow, Russia

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Goals

Today’s discussion is designed to give an overview of product management and answer some key questions.

Where does product management fit in the overall business?

What role does marketing play in product management?

What role does metrics and analysis play in product management?

What guidelines or steps can you follow for product development?

How do you maintain and continue to develop a product?

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The Process

What is “product management”? Product management translates between the needs of the user and the capabilities of technology.

• Content Management Systems

• Advertising Serving Systems

• Social Media Systems

• Other Systems

TechnologyUsers

Audience

Advertisers

Editors/Reporters

Ad Sales

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The Process

From a business standpoint, Product Management fits between the “vision” (Strategy/Marketing) and the “execution” (Technology).

• Define the market:- Size; Needs- Revenue model- Competitors

• Business Plan• Priorities for

development

Marketing• Product

functionality• Metric models of

success• User interface

design• Page types

Product Management

• Code development• Operations

planning• Database design• Systems

architecture

Technology• Company ambitions• Company goals• “What business are

we in?”• Priority setting

- What to do AND- What not to do

Strategy

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Strategic Plan Business PlansProduct

SpecificationsTechnical

Specifications

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Marketing

Product Management starts with Marketing answering key questions to lay the business foundations for the product.

1. Define the User: Who is the audience? Who will the product serve?For example:- Young people- Housewives- People who drive motor scooters- Music lovers

2. What problem are you solving for them? - How will you create value for the customer? - How will they know it is a great product?- What will get the audience to use the product again?

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Marketing

The next step is often to look for other products with the same goals.

3. What other companies are targeting your user? What can we learn from them?- Are they successful? Growing?- Why are they successful? What do they do well?- Where are they un-successful? Why?- What can we learn from them? Pricing? Packaging?

Remember!- Very rarely are there completely new problems to solve or products to solve them- Most new products are really new solutions to old problems- Applying new insight about the customer- Applying new technology

So, you can always learn from others in the market!

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Marketing

The next step identifies a plan for how to use your company’s strengths to develop a better solution to the customer’s needs.

4. What are the unique strengths of my company?- Brand awareness?- Large pool of active traffic?- Strong advertiser support?- Technology platform?- Ability to offer existing products at a cheaper price

5. How do I apply these to the customer’s needs?- Unique marketing solution? Build traffic and trial cheaper or faster?- Unique benefits to offer from advertisers?

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Marketing

Marketing produces a business plan to guide product management

The key components of a Business Plan include:• Definition of who the user is?• Definition of the users’ key needs• A description of how to meet these needs

- These often set-up the initial use cases that drive product development• Definition of revenue model and pricing• Guidelines for online distribution and source of traffic and trial• Description of success metrics for each use case

- Example: Low percentage of abandoned searches, total reviews written, …

The Business Plan then goes to Product Management for the detailed work of developing and maintaining the product.

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Product Management

For each of the users, product management will develop “use cases” to build product specifications, the guidebook for technology.

A use case will include:• Who the use case is for – the user• What actions they will take during a particular visit and on a particular page

- Actions are prioritized based on what the product needs for success.• For each user, where will the user come from or how will they be “acquired”

- Direct Login- Referral from other users (Social Networks, email, links in other sites, …)- Search Engines- Marketing (advertising, events, promotions, …)

• For each user, what the ideal next action is after the use case is complete.

For a media product, use cases usually involve at least three user groups.• Audience• Advertisers• Internal users

- Editorial (CMS)- Sales and marketing- Technology

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Product Management

Use case development is a detailed and ideally creative process defined by a combination of brainstorming and creative “copying”.

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Product Management

For each use case a series of functions are defined to complete the action defined in the use case.

Online Classified Site – Example

User: Regular Website User General Use Case: Finding an auto for sale

• Case 1 = On-site Search• Case 2 = Category Browsing• Case 3 = Social Recommendation

Use Case 1 = On-site Search• Search – what type of search experience

- Category specific search- Key search categories (make/model, year, location, …)

• Search Engine Results Page (SERP)- Listings order – closest to me, most relevant listing, most recommended?- Sortable against different criteria,- Listings details on SERP-

• Success Metrics- Percentage of “null” returns

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Product Management

These functions are then organized into systems.

Display = features that are externally facing displayed to the consumer and advertiser

Administration = features that are controlled internally by consumers

Metrics = features that provide information about product performance

Commerce = features that allow the user to purchase services or goods on the site

Security = features that preserve the online security of a user.

Different types of website will define different systems of features depending on the business goals of the site. But there are generally two types of systems:

Front-end Systems = systems that face the end-user

Back-end Systems = systems that face internal users.

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Product Management

For display or front-end systems – the ones the consumer sees – the features are organized into a series of page types.

Structural PagesContent Pages/Content Tools

Search/Search Return Pages

• Pages that point to other pages

• Pages that have limited functionality

• Pages designed to maximize SEO

For example:• Home Pages• Section fronts• About us pages• SEO pages

• Pages that contain content• Pages that contain tools to

use the content• Pages that access the

content directly

For example:• Content Pages• Video Player Pages• Photo Gallery Pages• Tools Pages

- Comments- Email this- Print this

• Pages that access the content archive

• Search tool pages• Internal search engine

return pages

For example:• Archive Search Pages• Search engine return

pages(SERP)

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Product Management

With the page types determined, then pages are built out of generally four layers.

• Google Analytics• A/B testing• Advertising metrics• Internal metrics• …

MetricsUser Interface

Design

Navigation Layout

Guidance

On-site instructions Marketing/

Branding language Etc… Editorial Guidelines

Labels- “Advertisement”- Opinion- etc…

Page Build

• Read Story• Comment on story• See advertising• View photos• etc…

Functionality/Actions

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Product Management

Almost any page will include all four aspects of the page.

Functionality

Navigation

GuidanceMetrics

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Product Management

With use cases, systems and page types defined, product management will create “Product Specifications” to guide the work of technology.

Product Specification Features No two product specifications will be exactly alike – some will be 20 pages and some

will be 200 pages.

The time invested in defining specifications should be proportional to the size of the business opportunity defined in the Business Plan.

Graphics are good – almost required.- Hand drawn graphics are good- References to similar sites are good.Be specific about what you like and what you do not.

Use Cases need to be as specific as possible.

Prioritize features and discuss different solutions with Technology.

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Product Management

A typical Product Specification document has the following outline.

Product Specification Outline1. Purpose of the document

2. Description of the product’s goals

3. Version control – who edited the specification last

4. Display System Features – Front-end Functionality- Common features (navigation)- Site map = list of pages types; their relations to each other. - Visual Requirements including principal pages, navigation/design guidelines

5. Administration System Features – Back-end Functionality- Site management- SEO management- Content creation- Metrics

6. Use cases

7. Priorities

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Product Management

Product specifications are then reviewed with the technology development team.

Technology Review Overall feasibility and system/software recommendations

Understanding of specification feature details

Prioritization of features

Impact of specifications on web hosting

Timelines

After general agreement, technology will begin to build the product.

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Product Management

When the product is “finished” but before it is launched, a period of testing begins.

Quality Assurance Testing – Technology – includes:• Server performance• Database performance• Test of all hyperlinks to identify and remedy “broken links”

- Yandex Webmaster and Google Webmaster both provide broken link reports - Free link checking services also exist = http://validator.w3.org/checklink

• Capacity testing for other key supporting platforms- Email- e-Commerce …

User Testing – Product• Series of internal and external groups are asked to test the product• User testing can be informal, but all asked to perform a series of pre-determined

tests and report the findings• General navigation test to performed• Parties responsible for structural pages may be asked to test their own pages• Bug list is generated and prioritized to make improvements prior to launch

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Product Management

For user testing, users are asked to perform a set of specific actions and then report issues often called “bugs”.

Typical Bug Tracking Tool

1. Bug Title/Name

2. Description of the Problem

3. Steps to create (optional)

4. Screenshot (optional)

5. Nature of the Bug:- Design- Feature- Usability

6. Bug Status

7. Priority

8. Browser Used

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Product Management

After a product is launched, product management must maintain the product to deliver on the business goals.

Product Management must manage website changes at three levels.

Feature Development - Example: Adding e-commerce- Requires business and marketing plan- Requires new product specifications- Integration into existing product comprehensive

Site Optimization- Example: Creating new ad zones on the site- Business/marketing plans optional- Often impacts design and usability - Built using the analysis of metrics

Bug Fixes- Example: Correct size of font to be more readable.

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Product Management

Product management must determine the relative priority for each website improvement.

Development Priorities are needed to:- Maximize the investment in technology (both internal and external)- Avoid unnecessary changes to the site

Priorities have to incorporate the following inputs:- Revenue created- Audience growth- Costs savings- Competitive response

After features have been prioritized, technology can allocate resources appropriately to deliver on the most important items first.

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Product Management

In summary, product management has a variety of inter-related goals.

1. User – Focused, No Surprises!- Designed from 360º; all external and internal users considered- Operations evaluated and included in the product plan

+ Daily volume+ Timing patterns (peaks, day-parts)

2. Efficient Operations- Site performs as expected for key user behaviors- Metrics plan helps to continually improve the site

3. Ongoing Maintenance and Optimization- Product continually improves, audience satisfaction continually improves- Audience returns and becomes focal point for word of mouth marketing.