I was in the Bay Area last week, and had the opportunity to attend a meeting of the Silicon Valley Product Management Association.
The meeting had a good interactive panel discussion. Moderated by Rich Mironov, there were several panelists including Forrester’s Tom Grant and Product Management blogger Ivan Chalif, along with Christina Noren of Splunk and Greg Cohen of 280 Group.
The focus was “Skills you need to succeed as a Product Manager in the next decade“. There was a good crowd on hand, and a variety of questions from the audience. But there were a number of people who asked questions about asking questions. 🙂
Looking for requirements validation nirvana
People wanted to know what questions (qualitative vs. quantitative) they should ask in order to identify requirements, and to ensure that what they are (or plan on) building is the right thing.
i.e. what was the shortest path to get the insight they needed to validate their assumptions.
The fact that people asked means two things:
First, it means they realize the answer is neither obvious nor simple.
Second, it means they think there are standard sets of questions they can ask;they’re just not sure what they are.
And it’s this second point that is troubling. I’ve seen it several times before. There are many people who think that there is a “happy path” to gaining insight and achieving a level of certainty for products and plans.
How you ever heard statements like these coming from your executive team or from engineering team members?
- “Just go ask some customers what they think of this idea.”
- “It should be pretty straight forward to determine if this idea is something people need.”
- “Let’s go talk to a few customers and get some feedback.”
The reality is that it’s not that simple. Talking to customers and other external parties is important, but what’s equally, if not more important, is HOW you conduct the conversations with them. And that’s where experienced Product Management can provide significant value.
Asking the right questions is a skill that, like any other skill, takes time and practice, but there are some rules that can help you gain better, more consistent insight.
1. Listen much more than you speak
This is the first and most important thing to remember. The objective is to hear what customers and others have to say, not the other way around. Too often people spend too much time waxing grandeloquent about their upcoming innovation and leave little room for clear customer feedback.
2. Be a neutral party in the conversation
We’re all human and have biases and preferences. It’s easy to (even unconsciously) filter what you hear from your customers. Stay on guard and ask neutral questions and don’t filter out feedback, particularly if it’s feedback that doesn’t match your expectations.
3. Ask open ended, indirect questions
Don’t ask yes/no or other similarly structured questions. Also, don’t ask questions such as “Do you like the idea that I described?” Not only will you not gain much insight, but you’ll corner yourself if you don’t get the responses you want. Like a radar system, ask questions that can sweep across broad areas and let the customer’s responses help you zero in on specific items of interest to them.
4. Make sure to regularly ask “Why”
If there’s one question that brings out juicy details, it’s “Why”. Asking “Why?” (or “Why not?”) in the right circumstances can get to the heart of issues very quickly. And often the answer is not what you would have expected.
I once asked why a customer wanted a particular piece of functionality. He said that a couple of times a week (!) when production problems occurred overnight, he would get a wake up call and have to help fix the problem. The new functionality would mean he could address the problem the next morning. i.e. the customer (and his wife) could get a full night’s sleep. I felt embarrassed our software was causing that kind of pain for our customers (and their families).
5. Ask these questions in a standard way across conversations
It’s difficult to compare data when each conversation is radically different. While it’s important to have an interactive conversation with customers, try to keep the key questions you ask fairly standard so that you can compare answers across conversations. This is the best way to identify patterns for success or common problems that need attention.
6. Use structured exercises to gain quantitative information
Qualitative information is very useful, but without some amount of quantitative data, decisions can appear rather subjective. Define some simple but unambiguous exercises as part of your feedback process. These exercises should provide further details into key aspects of your research.
Conduct these exercises in each of the conversations you have. Ensure the participants clearly follow instructions when completing these exercises so that you can minimize the margins of error in the results.
Although there is no standard “happy path” to gaining insight, following these rules will help you cut through the haze when conducting empirical research and assist in understanding or confirming true customer needs.
Saeed