Software Product Management SEZG685

Module 1 Introduction 1
Contents 1
Software products scenario 2
Software product revolution started in Silicon valley 2
How Silicon Valley became successful? 3
Today there are 950+ unicorns across the world 3
Unicorns by industry 4
Growth of start-ups in India 4
Upcoming unicorns start- ups in India 5
Tech start-ups growth in India 6
Tech start-ups Advanced technology (India) 7
Tech start-ups job creation (India) 7
What is spurring product industry? 8
Product categories 8
Industry segments 9
Product platform 9
Product family 10
Product line 11
Product business and Project business 11
What is Product Management? 12
Product Management role 12
Examples of Products 13
Module 2 Overview 16
Contents 17
Evolution of product organizations 17
Startup stage 18
Product Markect fit 18
Startup stage examples 19
Growth stage 19
Growth stage example 20
Enterprise stage 20
Enterprise stage: Examples of consistent innovation 21
Why products fail? 21
What do best product teams do? 22
Tackle risks early 22
Tackle risks early - Example 23
Define and design products collaboratively 23
Solve problems, not just implement features 24
Product management: Relationship with
rest of the company 25
Product lifecycle 26
Technology adoption lifecycle 26
Multi-faceted role of a Product manager 28
Journey of some product companies: Exercise 29
Module 3 Core concepts 29
Contents 30
Principles of product management 30
Different aspects of a product 31
Product-Market fit 31
Problem space vs Solution space 32
Problem space vs Solution space: Case study 33
User vs Buyer 34
Continuous discovery and delivery 34
Product eco-system 35
Critical success factors 36
Case study 36
Module 4 Product process 37
Contents 38
Overview of product process 38
Build-Measure-Learn cycle 39
Identify opportunity 39
Identifying underserved needs 40
Observe 40
Experience 41
Opportunities are in plenty at the bottom of the Pyramid 42
Social entrepreneurship 42
Case study: Qalara 43
Sources of Innovation: Peter Drucker 43
Principles of Innovation Peter Drucker 47
Identify opportunities 48
Ideation techniques (Cooper & Edgett) 48
Case study: DBS 49
Case study: ID Fresh Foods 49
The Lean Startup 50
Assess opportunity 50
Contents 51
Define value proposition 51
Define value: Examples 52
Define value: Exercise 52
Assess value of the product 53
Interview customer: Example 53
Mom Test: Part 1 54
Mom test: Part 2 54
Tips for customer interview 55
Insight to be gathered during opportunity assessment 55
Also try to signup pilot customers, during this phase 56
Assess opportunity: Exercise 56
Role play: Interview 57
Possible questions to ask the students 57
Assess opportunity: Exercise 58
Software Product Management Risk assessment 58
Contents 59
Introduction 59
Test value 60
Qualitative testing 61
Quantitative testing 62
Test Usability: How? 62
Test feasibility 63
Test business viability 63
Marketing 64
Sales 65
Customer service 65
Finance 66
Legal 66
Exercise: Risk identification and mitigation 67
Software Product Management Create business plan Lean Canvas 68
Introduction 69
Business Model Canvas by Alexander Ostervald 69
Lean canvas a simplified model 70
Lean canvas 70
Some explanations 71
Amazon Lean Canvas 72
AirBnB Lean Canvas 73
Exercise 73
Software Product Management Specify product features Story Map 74
Contents 74
Introduction 75
Story map: Job portal 75
About Story map 76
Exercise 77
Solution 77
Classification of features: Example: Laptop 78
Classification of features changes over time 80
Exercise 81
Story map: Email system 81
Create Minimum Viable Product 82
Contents 82
Introduction 83
What is MVP? 83
MVP need not always be a product 84
Different types of MVP 85
Facebook MVP 85
Uber MVP 86
Dropbox MVP 86
AngelList MVP 87
Buffer MVP 87
Buffer 88
AirBnB MVP 88
Aardvark MVP 89
Oculus VR MVP 89
PopSocket MVP 90
Summary of MVP types 90
When to use which MVP? 91
Exercise 91
Possible solution 92
Build Measure learn and Pivot 92
Contents 93
Introduction 93
Build-Measure-Learn cycle 94
Build 94
Measure 95
Growkit case (Lean Startup) 96
Growkit case 96
Importance of A/B testing 97
Metrics should be actionable, accessible, auditable 98
Votizen case 99
Votizen: MVP 100
Votizen: Pivot (Zoom In) 100
Votizen: Pivot (Customer segment) 101
Votizen: Pivot (Platform) 101
Votizen: Quick iterations 102
Votizen: Lesson 102
Votizen: Achievements 103
Types of pivots 103
Pivot case study: Netflix 104
End-to-end Case study 104
Module 5 Rapid Solutioning - Testing technique 105
Contents 105
Introduction 106
Idea in brief 106
Steps in detail 107
Map the problem 107
Flatiron 108
Map for Robot server in hotel 108
Map: Online coffee sales 109
Map: Identify the key challenges to be addressed 109
Exercise 110
Sketch the solution 111
Identify standout ideas by voting 111
Create Story board 112
Create a prototype 112
Test the prototype to get customer feedback 113
Test: In detail 113
Case study: Slack 114
Exercise 114
Example of HMW questions 115
Exercise 116
Principles of UX Design 116
Contents 117
Introduction 117
Dimensions of Usability 118
Exercise: Give examples 119
Exercise 120
Basic steps 120
Example: Overall structure 121
Example: Sketch of overall structure 121
Example: Scenario: Searching & selecting products to buy 122
Example: Navigation 122
Example: Screen design 123
Ideal sequence for design 124
Different aspects of creating UX 124
Conceptual design 125
Exercise: Conceptual design 125
Information architecture 126
Information architecture: Example of bad design 126
Exercise: Info architecture 127
Interaction design 127
Customer journey mapping (different touch points) 128
Exercise: Customer journey mapping 128
Visual design (Graphic design) 129
Visual design: Hierarchy 129
Evaluating design: Nielsens heuristics 130
Summary 130
Information architecture: Example of poor organization 131
Elegance & Simplicity 131
Balance 132
Design Thinking 132
Contents 133
Introduction 133
5 steps of Design Thinking 134
Example of design thinking at Kaiser hospital 134
Case study: ANA Tomo 136
Agile Method 139
Agenda 139
Introduction 140
Agile manifesto (Agile values) 140
Agile framework 141
Sprint phases: Planning,Execution, Review & Retrospective 141
Agile team 142
Agile team: Roles and responsibilities 142
Product Roadmap 143
Requirements, User stories, Release plan 143
Product features, Priority, Estimation, Release plan 144
Estimation techniques 144
Estimation poker 145
Example of Poker estimation 146
Exercise 146
Estimation 149
Experience sharing 150
Affinity estimation 150
Sprint planning 151
Sprint 1 plan for Hotel room reservation mobile app 152
Sprint execution 152
Burndown chart 153
Feedback cycles 153
Velocity 154
Challenges 154
Case study: Pharma company Inventory management 155
Results 155
Experience sharing 156
Scrum framework 156
Requirements, User stories, Release plan 157
Roadmap to value 158
Product vision 158
Product vision: Example 159
Difference between Agile and Scaled Agile 159
Visual progress tracking (Kanban) 160
Software Project Management Engineering best practices 161
Agenda 161
Continuous integration (CI) 162
Single code case 162
Product configuration capability 163
API for integration 163
Component based design 164
Prove value of product, Scale later 164
Be open to re-architect 165
Platform as a product 165
Case study: Visio graphics- charting software 166
Module 7 Measurements and Analytics 166
Contents 167
Introduction 167
Types of analytics 168
User behaviour analytics 168
Sample User journey metrics 169
User behaviour analytics 169
Business analytics 170
Dave McClures AARRR framework 170
Order of optimization 171
Case study: Intuit 172
Measuring retention rate 173
Measuring improvement in retention rate 173
Revenue related metrics 174
Sentiment analysis: Net Promoter Score (NPS) 174
A/B testing 175
A/B Testing: Example 175
Concept of statistical significance 176
A/B Testing in Netflix 176
Friendster Viral Loop Metrics 177
Baseline metrics 178
The Upside Potential of a Metric 178
Action to improve 179
Outcome 179
Module 8 Ongoing Product Management 180
Contents 180
Introduction 181
Customer support 181
Support channels 182
Service Quality 183
What are the characteristics of a service quality (SERVQUAL)? 183
Service Quality 184
Exercise: SERVQUAL 184
Product improvements & enhancements 185
Release planning 185
Case study of product improvement: Word 6.0 186
Situations triggering Product change 186
Continuous product innovations 187
Software Product Lines 187
Lessons in Product lines 190
Module 9 Team & People Aspects 190
Contents 191
Product Team roles 191
Product manager 192
Designer 192
Engineer 193
Product marketing 193
Rat Fax case study 195
Different stages of a team 196
Why teaming is important? 196
Case study in building a good team 197
Creating a good vision 198
Characteristics of good teams 198
Power of a common goal 199
Example of great team work in nature 199
Some aspects of team: Few Questions 200
How PM roles different in different companies? A survey 200
What it takes to be a good PM? 202
Core competencies 203
Emotional Intelligence 203
Scene in an emotionally intelligent office 204
Example of High EQ person JRD Tata 205
Leadership styles 205
Company fit 206
Module 10 Bussiness Plan 207
Contents 207
Purpose 208
Contents of a business plan: Typical 208
Product & its value 209
Market size 209
Competition 210
Marketing strategy 211
Operational plan 212
People strength 214
Financial forecast 215
Sales forecast 215
Break Even Analysis 216
Exercise in Break even 216
Profit & Loss statement 217
Cash flow statement 217
Risks and mitigation plan 218
Risks & mitigation plan 219
What investors look for in the business plan 220
Business Models 220
Revenue streams 221
Exercise 222
Funding a startup 222
Contents 223
Funding sources 223
Funding stages 224
Angel investors 224
Venture Capital firms 225
Example of returns on investment for VCs 225
Example: VC Firms 226
Crowd funding 226
Incubators & Accelerators 227
Example incubators and accelerators 227
Module 11 Marketing management 228
Marketing concepts for Product managers 228
Contents 229
Definition 229
Concepts in Marketing 230
How does Salesforce address different customers segments? 230
Concepts in Marketing 231
Ways to position 231
Exercise 232
Messaging 232
Messaging: AirBnB 233
Messaging: Example 233
Messaging example: iPad 234
Concepts in Marketing 234
Product Hunt: Best new products in tech website 235
Trust Radius: Software reviews 235
Concepts in Marketing 236
Competitor analysis 236
Concepts in Marketing 237
4Ps of marketing 238
Pricing example: Kissflow 238
Pricing considerations 239
Exercise 239
B2C: How they got their first 1,000 users 240
B2C: How they got their first 1000 users B2C 240
B2B: How they found their first ten customers? 241
Content marketing 241
Examples of content marketing 242
Content: Zendesk 242
Zendesk: Content 243
Product marketing 244
Go-to-market strategy 244
Buyer Persona 245
Competitor analysis 245
Messaging and Positioning 246
Go to market process 246
Pricing: Kissflow 247
Marketing High tech Products: Crossing the Chasm 247
Contents 248
Product Adoption Lifecycle 248
Technology adoption lifecycle 249
Innovators 249
Early adopters 250
Early majority, Late majority & Laggards 250
Marketing High tech Products 251
The chasm (the big gap) 251
How to bridge this gap? 252
Module 12 Product management in the enterprise 252
How is product management different for the enterprise? 253
Innovators dilemma 253
1
 Software products scenario

Software product revolution

started in Silicon valley

Stanford
University

Silicon valley
Early companies in Silicon valley: HP, Xerox, Apple, Oracle,….. 2
How Silicon Valley became
successful?
• Convergence of Academia (Stanford, UC Berkley), the Private
Sector, and Government
• High Density of Wealthy Investors and Funding Institutions
• Inspiration From Past Success Stories
• Cultural diversity: Half the startups belong to Indians and Chinese
• Level-headed Approach to Failure

Today there are 950+

unicorns across the world

Country # of Unicorns
United States 300+
China 140+
India 50+
United Kingdom 30+
Germany 12
South Korea 11

https://www.cbinsights.com/research-unicorn-companies 3
 Unicorns by industry

Industry # of Unicorns
Fintech 80+
Internet so ware & services 70+
E-commerce & direct-to-consumer 70+
Ar ficial intelligence 50+
Mobile & telecommunica ons 35+
Health 35+

https://www.cbinsights.com/research-unicorn-companies

Growth of start-ups in India

The number of start-ups has grown from 7,000 in 2008 to

50,000 in 2017, according to the latest report by KPMG
on the startup ecosystem in india

KPMG report: https://home.kpmg/in/en/home/insights/2019/01/startup-landscape-ecosystem-growing-

mature.html

4
Upcoming unicorns start-
ups in India
India has 73 potential unicorns in 2021, up from 52
soonicorns in 2020, with Bengaluru leading the list
followed by Mumbai and Delhi-NCR
The emergence of new models in fintech, consumer
services and ecommerce has revitalised funding in
these sectors
As startups raise capital at high valuations, investors
caution against short-term thinking around growth at the
cost of unit economics

https://inc42.com/features/the-next-unicorns-soonicorn-startups-in-india/

5
6
Tech start-ups – Advanced
technology (India)

KPMG report: https://home.kpmg/in/en/home/insights/2019/01/startup-landscape-ecosystem-growing-

mature.html

Tech start-ups – job

creation (India)

KPMG report: https://home.kpmg/in/en/home/insights/2019/01/startup-landscape-ecosystem-growing- 7

mature.html
What is spurring product
industry?
• Global market reach
• Cloud resources – Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, IBM, Google
• Funding - 100 angel investors in 2020
• Talent pool

Product categories

• By industry – Finance, Health, Retail, Travel

• By technology – AI/ML, Analytics, Robotics, IoT
• B2B vs B2C
• SaaS vs On-premise
• Mobile vs Web
• Regular vs API products (Payment gateway, Google Maps, SMS
gateway, Banking API)
• Product vs Product-cum-service (Ola, Uber, Flipkart)
• Product (Paytm), Product platform (Ola), Product family (Office on
Windows, Office on Mac, Office on Android), Product Line (Roclwell Collin
avionics)
• Any other?

8
Industry segments

• E-Commerce – Amazon, Flipkart

• HealthTech – Practo, Tata Health, CogniAble
• FinTech – Paytm, Wealthy
• EdTech - Byju
• TravelTech – MakeMyTrip, Tripadvisor
• Logistics – Ecom express, Dunzo, Delhivery
• Consumer services – Swiggy,
• Enterprise Tech – Zoho, Kissflow, Wooqer
• Deep tech - Niflr, Logically, AskSarkar
• Software dev – Postman, WorkDuck

Product platform

Product platform: Amazon AWS, Android, Uber, PayPal,

Facebook

– The technical foundation / eco system on which several software products are
based.

9
Product platform

Image Source:
https://hbr.org/2016/04/pipeli
nes-platforms-and-the-new-
rules-of-strategy

Product family

Product family: Microsoft Office (Word, Excel,

PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook)

– A group of software products that are marketed as belonging together under a

common family name

10
11
What is Product
Management?
• “The job of a product manager is to discover a product that is valuable,
usable and feasible.” – Marty Cagan, Author of ‘Inspired’

• “Product management is an intersection between business, user

experience, and technology” – Martin Eriksson, Author of Product
Leadership

• “Product management is the glue that holds together all the various
functions” - Ken Norton, Product Partner at Google Ventures

Product Management role

• You need to be really good at strategy, be inspirational, and understand

the long-term picture.

• At the same time, you have to be really good at the operational side and
making things happen
• Setting a vision
• Creating a roadmap
• Build the product
• Talk to customers

• You need the soft skills of persuasion, negotiation, storytelling, vision

setting and communication

12
Product Management role

Ref: Product Plan.com

Examples of Products

• Zoom – Simplified Cisco Webex

• Ola – Built a platform
• Postman – Eco system for API development
• Slack – Simplified Team collaboration
• Twilio – Tool to Integrate messaging
• Kissflow – Business workflow implementation easily
• Rivigo – Innovation in logistics
• MyGate – Spotted an opportunity

13
14
15
16
Contents

• Evolution of product organizations

• Why products fail?
• What do best product teams do?
• Product management: Relationship with rest of the company
• Product Lifecycle
• Technology adoption lifecycle
• Journey of some product companies
• Multi-faceted role of a Product manager

Evolution of product
organizations
A product organization goes through the following stages:

• Startup
• Growth stage
• Enterprise

Let us see what are the characteristics of each stage…

17
Startup stage

• Trying to achieve product-market fit,

• Limited funding,
• Learns quickly
• Little bureaucracy,
• Many fail,
• Those that succeed are good at product discovery,
• Risky but rewarding if things go well.

Examples: WhiteHat Jr, Simpl

Product-Market fit concept

18
Startup stage examples

WhiteHat Jr
• Founded in 2018
• Offers coding & AI courses to children aged 6 to 14 years.
• Aims to empower children to become creators
• BYJU‘s acquired it for $300 million

Simpl
• Started 2016
• Online payment method that allows a consumer to buy now and pay
later
• Digitalizing the old Khata system of payment to grocer, milkman, etc.
• Simpl under-writes customer payments based on machine learning
• USP: Transparent financial services and single click payment

Growth stage

• Scale up – more customers

• Replicate earlier successes with new, adjacent products and services –
MakeMyTrip flight, train, hotel
• Technology infrastructure is stretched (Netflix during the growth stage)
• There is technical debt (Amazon monolithic to microservices)
• Goes for IPO or gets sold (MakeMyTrip IPO, WhatsApp sold to
Facebook)

• Examples: Bounce (2016), Postman (2014), KissFlow (2013).

19
Growth stage example

Kissflow
• Business Process management software
• Self-service setup / configuration
• 50 process templates to choose from – employee on-boarding, travel
reimbursement
• Strong after sales support
• Product led growth - leading to pull rather than push
• 10,000-plus clients, including biggies like Airbus, Danone, Michelin and
Pepsi
• Competitors - Pega, Appian, Outsystems
• 200 employees

Enterprise stage

• Focus is on consistent product innovation, stay ahead

• But many companies are satisfied with leveraging the value created and
brand created, leading to slow death (ex. Kodak)
• They work hard to protect what they have created and less on new
ventures & initiatives
• There is lack of vision, increased bureaucracy, resorts to acquisitions or
creating separate innovation centers to incubate new business or
products (example Cisco).

• Companies that failed to innovate: Xerox, AoL, Motorola

• Strong enterprise companies: Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google,
and Netflix

20
Enterprise stage: Examples of
consistent innovation

Netflix Amazon Facebook

• DVD movie sales • Books • Wall & messaging
• DVD rentals • Electronics, Others • News Feed - streams
• Online booking of DVD, • Recommendation friend’s activity
delivered via Post feature • Sell stuff to other
• Streaming video • Amazon Prime Facebookers
• In house production of • Alexa • Tagging and
serials and movies • Kindle attachments
• Movie / Serial Award • AWS • ‘Like’ button
function (akin to Oscar) • Firestick • Timeline feature
• Amazon Pay • Buys Instagram,
WhatsApp

Why products fail?

• Most companies start with ideas generated internally or got from existing
or potential customers.
• Example: HP’s AI-enabling technology on a low-cost,
general-purpose workstation developed by Marty Cagan & team
(1980s), DB designer – I worked on (1989)
• Based on these ideas they create a business case, roadmap, build the
product and deploy
• It is then that they realize that there are no takers

• More examples of failed products:

• Apple Watch Gold edition
• Google+ social media
• The Daily - Digital newspaper in collaboration with Apple

21
What do best product teams
do?
• Tackle risks early
• Define and design products collaboratively – PM, Designer, Engineering
• Solve problems, not just implement features

Tackle risks early

There are 4 types of risks:

• Value – Does customer find value in the product

• Usability – Is the product easy to use
• Feasibility – Is the product techically feasible to build
• Viability - Will be business be viable, can we break even

22
 Tackle risks early - Example

Bounce, AirBnB, Slack

• Bounce spotted an opportunity in Bangalore: Provide scooter to reach the

nearest metro station
• Bounce experimented their concept with a few scooters to determine
value. Once the demand / value was established, they expanded

• AirBnB rented their house to test value. A conference was being held in
their city and people would be looking for accommodation

• Slack requested friends and cajoled 6-10 companies, to use their product
and give feedback to determine usefulness / value and usability and
improved the product based on user feedback.

Define and design products

collaboratively

• Product, design &

engineering work side by
side in a give-and-take
manner
• Leads to better solution
ideas & higher ownership

Example: Amplitude

• A product analytics s/w

• Engineers stay connected
with customers by
participating in client calls

23
Solve problems, not just
implement features
Example: Kissflow

• Workflow automation improves employee productivity

• Provides 50 ready-to-use workflows from travel reimbursements to
employee on-boarding
• Easy diagramming helps model a company’s process just as it appears in
the business manager’s mind.

Solve problems, not just

implement features
Example: Wobot Intelligence

• Helps organizations in the Food, Retail, and Manufacturing sectors to

reduce risk of non-compliance & pilferage
• Has process compliance modules like hygiene, workforce & workplace
safety, customer SOPs, and more
• Uses deep learning Video Analytics to identify people, objects and their
activities
• Customers - IRCTC, Rebel Foods, CureFit, Kitopi, Travel Food Services,
Burger Singh, G4S, Max Estates, Blue Tokai, Apparel Group and
Smartworks

24
Solve problems, not just
implement features - Example
Example: Logically

• Detects fake news & inaccurate news using AI & ML

• Finds out who is spreading misinformation to enable authorities to take
action

• Examples:
• Detected misinformation during the death of a Bollywood actor
Sushant Singh, during conflict with China in Ladakh, and during the
Kashmir issue with Pakistan.
• Detected bots originating in Pakistan that were interfering with
geopolitical and sensitive issues within India

• Customers: Indian Election Commission, Pharma companies to prevent

anti-vaccine information, Mysore Police

Product management: Relationship with

rest of the company

• Development team relies on product management to define a plan and

write user stories, requirements, and acceptance
• Marketing team relies on Product management for product information,
value proposition definitions. They collaborate to define product position,
launch product, define Go-to-market strategy
• Sales team relies on Product management for demo cases, answering
detailed inquiries, and helping to close deals.
• Finance and Product rely on each other to build the business through
determining pricing, margins, discounting, and so forth.

25
Product lifecycle

• Determine your target customers

• Identify underserved customer needs
• Define your Value Proposition
• Assess value through customer interaction
• Specify your Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
• Create your MVP prototype
• Test your MVP with customers
• Iterate
• Launch product & support
• Grow & build adjacent products
• End of life

Technology adoption lifecycle

Products using new technology such as AI, NLP, Blockchain, Robotics are
adopted gradually

26
Technology adoption
lifecycle…
• Innovators are the first to get interested on new products and novelties. They even
accept incomplete or defective products just for the pleasure of being the first ones
to use this new product.
• Early adopters, also known as visionaries or enthusiasts, who accept the risks of
testing a new product, but not for the pleasure of coming first but because they
see the potential in it. Usually, they are influencers within organizations and
communities in which they participate.
• IBM Watson was adopted by a Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center,
Cleaveland Clinic, MD Andersen Cancer Center, to get advise on Cancer
• Early majority, also called pragmatic, buy new products only after they got
references.
• Manipal Hospital Bangalore, Georgia tech teaching assistant, H&R Block for
tax preparation, Several startups use it for developing cognitive apps
• Late majority are the conservatives, in other words, those who buy only after the
price has dropped substantially. Example late majority users of SalesForce
• Laggards, who only buy a new product if this is the only option available.

Technology adoption
lifecycle…
Example:
• IBM Watson & Robotic surgery (Da Vinci) used by one or 2 hospitals.
• In 1999 Salesforce.com was the first to use Cloud to offer applications on
the Cloud. 3 years later the industry grew massively with video, music and
other media being hosted and delivered online.

https://www.scality.com/solved/the-history-of-cloud-computing/

27
Technology adoption
lifecycle…
S-curve: By calculating the integral (who remembers the calculus classes?)
we can obtain the famous S-shaped technology adoption curve.

Multi-faceted role of a Product

manager
• Deep knowledge of customer, your business, market & industry
• Nium - money transfer to foreign countries
• Had deep knowledge of money transfer markets in Singapore,, Indonesia,
Japan, etc.
• Had good knowledge of forex – how it works, who are the players, banking
• Engage with customers, understand their business, process, pain points
• Slack understood the collaboration needs of teams
• Twilio understood the messaging needs of companies
• Wobot understood the process compliance needs of food, pharma, retail
industries
• Prioritize ideas, features & projects
• Slack focused on Search, synchronization, file sharing
• Collaborate with Design, Engineering, Marketing, Legal, Finance
• Recruit, Train & develop the product team
• Manage upward & outward: Tell a story, sell a vision, get funcding
• Align & focus the organization
28
29
Contents

• Principles of product management

• Characteristics of a holistic product
• Product-Market fit
• Problem space vs Solution space
• User vs buyer
• Continuous discovery and delivery
• Product eco-system
• Critical success factors

Principles of product
management
• Establish compelling value. Examples:
• MakeMyTrip – a one stop shop for travel,
• Postman – Make API testing easy
• Many of our ideas won't work out, and the ones that do will require several
iterations. Examples:
• Slack - Initially they developed a multi-player online game which did not
succeed, but the inbuilt messaging feature became successful.
• MakeMyTrip initially targeted Indian travellers, but was not successful. Later
targeted NRIs
• We must validate our ideas on real users and customers. Examples:
• Bounce – Validated the ‘Rent-a-bike’ idea by investing in a few scooters
• AirBnB – Rented their apartment to conference attendees
• Validate ideas fast and with minimal cost – the more we delay, we may be
expending more effort & cost on an idea that does not have a market.

• Have you experienced any of these principles? 30

Different aspects of a product

• Functionality: Example booking tickets is one function of MakeMyTrip

• Technology: Example: Microservices architecture used by Amazon,
Encryption used by WhatsApp, AI/ML used by Logically
• User experience: (UX): Example Tally’s ease of use for non-finance
people
• How do we monetize?: Example through transaction fee of Payment
gateways or subscription fee of SalesForce
• How we attract & acquire customers? Example: Freemium of Zoom, cash
back of Paytm, Search Engine Optimization, Ads
• Offline experience: Example: Merchandise fulfilment experience and
merchandise return experience of Amazon & FlipKart, support experience
by call center personnel, self help material on website

Product-Market fit

• It is about how well the product meets the needs of the customer (market)
• Good Product/market fit results in happier customers, lower churn rates, shortened
sales cycles, and rapid organic growth. (Inspired)
• You can always feel when product/market fit isn't happening. The customers aren't
quite getting value out of the product, word of mouth isn't spreading, usage isn't
growing that fast, press reviews are kind of "blah", the sales cycle takes too long,
and lots of deals never close.

31
Product-Market fit

• Marc Andreessen coined the term product-market fit in a well-known blog

post titled “The only thing that matters.”
(https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part4.html)

• In a great market -- a market with lots of real potential customers -- the

market pulls product out of the startup. Example
• eCommerce, EdTech, FinTech
• Conversely, in a terrible market, you can have the best product in the
world and an absolutely killer team, and it doesn't matter -- you're going to
fail. Example:
• Video conferencing (2007), Iridium satellite phone
• Do you know of any great product that failed?
• Great products sometimes create huge new markets – examples:
• Virtual machine by VMWare, smart phone by Apple
• Any other?

• The only thing that matters is getting to product/market fit.

Problem space vs Solution

space
• Problem space consists of customer needs and pain points.
• However problems are not always easy to know:
• Customers express their needs in terms of existing solutions.
• For example they say “I need a cab in 5 minutes”, because they think cab is
the only solution
• The real need is to go from A to B.
• There can be many solutions for this:
• Hire a cab,
• Use self-driving scooter or car,
• Hail a bike taxi.
• Any other?
• Therefore before finding a solution, we need to understand the real need / problem
• Understand what customer needs and why
• Observe what he does, why he does it, etc. (Persona)
• “If I had only one hour to solve a problem, I would spend up to two-thirds of
that hour in attempting to define what the problem is.”
32
33
User vs Buyer

• In large enterprises the decision makers are not the end users
• Decision makers are usually VP and SVP. They want to solve a business
problem / pain point.
• Their concerns are functionality that brings business value (increase
customer satisfaction, customer growth, reduce customer churn),
productivity, security, reliability / stability / quality of solution
• The end users typically do not have the power to approve the product. But
ultimately they are the ones who are going to use the product. Hence it
needs to be user friendly, efficient in performing their functions.
• Example
• Lotus Notes: It was a very secure team database and Email system. But not
very user-friendly.
• Cisco WebEx – very reliable but not very user friendly. But corporates prefer it.
• Do you know of any other examples?
• But this is changing with SaaS product. Management is becoming more
aware of UI / UX

Continuous discovery and

delivery
• Discovery and delivery are our two main activities on a cross-functional product
team, and they are both typically ongoing and in parallel.
• We are always working in parallel - to both discover the necessary product to be
built—which is primarily what the product manager and designer work on every
day—while the engineers work to deliver production-quality product.
• The engineers are also helping daily in discovery (and many of the best innovations
come from that participation, so this is not a minor point), and the product manager
and designer are also helping daily on delivery (mainly to clarify intended behavior).
But this is what's going on at a high level.
• Example Postman, Slack
• Does this happen in your product company?

34
Product eco-system

Product should address the total customer experience (the whole offer)

• Kaagaz & MS Office Lens (document scanner app on mobile) does not only scan
but allows us to share the image via email, WhatsApp etc. Because the customer is
not just interested in scanning and storing, he wants to share with others
• Xerox started with photo copying facility but soon realized people need to staple the
pages, need cover page in different colour, etc. So they enhanced the machine to
address the total customer experience
• Clarify: customer support software that involves tracking customer interaction,
product details, knowledge base, workflows
• No Broker.com: Find house, pay advance, get painter, get packer & mover

• Have you come across other products that address total customer experience?

Product eco-system

Creating Partnerships & alliances

• Xerox tied up with paper manufacturers to ensure steady supply of paper

• SAP partners: DataXtream for POS solutions, DocuSign for eSignature
integration with SAP
• Netflix tied up with telecom service providers such as Verizon, Airtel to
host their content at ISP gateways, so as to ensure fast response time to
customers
• MakeMyTrip built alliances with Airlines, hotels, etc.

• Any other examples you have come across?

35
36
37
Contents

• Overview of product process

• Identifying opportunity

Overview of product process

• Identify opportunity
• Assess the opportunity
• Create business plan
• Specify product features
• Specify Minimum Viable Product (MVP) feature set
• Test your MVP
• Iterate & Pivot to improve product-market fit

38
Build-Measure-Learn cycle

Customer interviews Agile

Root cause analysis Continuous integration

Minimize total time

through the loop

• # Visits, conversion, retention

• How many use new feature?

Identify opportunity

• Identify underserved customer needs (LPP)

• Sources of innovation (Peter Drucker)
• Hack days (Inspired)
• Ideation techniques (Cooper & Edgett) (SPM book)

• Case study: DBS Bank

• Case study: Innovation ideas from ID Foods - Mustafa

39
Identifying underserved needs
• Observe
• Experience
• Fortune at the bottom of the Pyramid – CK Prahlad
• Desire to do social good can find new opportunities

Observe

• Toyota Sienna
– The car was successful in Japan
– Toyota wanted to understand the specific needs of US market
– A senior manager spent several months driving 70,000 miles across
length & breadth of US observing how people use cars
– In US children sit in the backside of the mini van
– So changes were made to make the back seats more comfortable,
safe, etc.
– When it was launched the car became a big hit

40
Observe

• Oyo: Economy hotels were not clean, lacked basic amenities, etc.
• Sketch: Observed that Photoshop was not easy to use
• Slack: Collaboration between teams was clumsy
• Spotify: People wanted to listen to music legally when illegal music
sharing sites were banned

Experience

• Ola cabs: Founder was travelling in a cab and cab driver demanded
exorbitant amount to change the destination
• DropBox: Founder kept forgetting to carry files in pen drive
• Tally: Experienced that existing accounting packages had a User interface
that catered to accounts / finance professional. But not to non-finance
folks

41
Opportunities are in plenty at
the bottom of the Pyramid
• Opportunities are aplenty if look at the right market
• CK Prahlad wrote a book ‘Fortune at the bottom of the Pyramid’
• Large business tend to target the middle class and upper middle class
• However there is a huge market at the bottom of the pyramid of society
• They need products but can not afford high price
• If the products are priced right, there is a big opportunity
• Examples:
– Shampoo sachet for Re.1
– Micro credits to rural people to buy a sewing machine, a cow to start
milk business, etc. It was observed that default by rural people is
significantly less compared to urban people because of the fear of o
– Jio, Nirma are other examples of targeting the bottom of the pyramid

Desire to do social good can find

new opportunities
(Social entrepreneurship)
• Grameen Bank: Mohammad Yunus helped poor to stand on their own legs
through micro-businesses
• Aravind Eye Hospitals: Free eye surgery for poor, funded by rich patients,
developing low cost intraocular lenses
• Narayana Hrudalaya: Dr Devi Shetty offeres low-priced heart surgeries by
employing efficient operation procedures, low cost insurance schemes
• Selco: Dr. Harish Hande developed solar lamps to helps silk farmers
harvest mulberry leaves which needs to be done during cooler hours –
late evening or early morining
• Rivigo: Helped truck drivers lead a stigma free life through relay based
truck logistics
• Apna: Developed an app for finding blue collar jobs such as delivery boys

42
43
Sources of Innovation: Peter
Drucker
Drucker argues that most innovative business ideas come from methodically
analyzing seven areas of opportunity

• Some of which lie within particular companies or industries

• Some of which lie in broader social or demographic trends.

Astute managers will ensure that their organizations maintain a clear focus
on all seven

Sources of innovation: Peter

Drucker
• Unexpected occurrence
• Incongruities (incompatibilities)
• Process needs
• Industry & market changes
• Demographic changes
• Change in perception
• New knowledge

44
Sources of innovation: Peter
Drucker
• Unexpected occurrence
– IBM developed accounting machines in 1930s. Banks did not have
money to buy. But libraries had money and they bought 100 machines

– Ford Edsel was very carefully designed. But people bought cars for
lifestyle. This resulted in newer models like Mustang

Sources of innovation: Peter

Drucker
• Incongruities (incompatibilities)
– Cataract operation: Cutting eye ligament is difficult. Instead used
enzyme to dissolve ligament

45
Sources of innovation: Peter
Drucker
• Incongruities (incompatibilities)

– Shipping industry trying to improve speed and fuel efficiency. But

problem was time wasted at ports to load & unload. Adopted
containers used in railroad and trucks

Sources of innovation: Peter

Drucker
• Process needs
– Newspapers needed a faster way to print. This resulted in Linotype
machine
– Those days newspapers did not make much money. So they invented
advertisements and kept the cost to customer low

• Industry & market changes

– Retail industry changes: E-Commerce
– Banking changes: Payment banks

46
Sources of innovation…

• Demographic changes
– 1970s saw baby bust and education explosion. This led to shortage of
workers. Japan created Robots
– Affluent educated young people wanted a different kind of holiday.
This led to resort business
• Change in perception
– In spite of fall in mortality rates, Americans were concerned about
cancer, heart disease, etc. This led to health mags, gym, healthy
foods
• New knowledge
– Computers
– Etc.

Principles of Innovation –
Peter Drucker
• Go out, look, ask, listen, because innovation is conceptual & perceptual
• Keep innovation simple and focused. Else people get confused
• Start small: Example putting the same number of match sticks into a
matchbox (it used to be 50), gave Swedes a world monopoly for half a
century
• Aim at leadership from the beginning, else it is unlikely to be innovative
enough
• Innovation requires knowledge, ingenuity, and, above all else, focus.
Edison worked in electric field only. Citibank did not venture into health
care
• If diligence (careful), persistence, and commitment are lacking, talent,
ingenuity, and knowledge are of no avail. Like in any other endeavour

47
Identify opportunities…

• Annual Idea generation by Bill Gates

– 2 weeks shut out from world
– Go through ideas submitted by employees
• Hack days (Inspired)
– Hack days – directed and undirected.
– Eg of directed hack day with a theme – reduce customer churn, increase life
time value (Inspired)

Ideation techniques (Cooper &

Edgett)

48
49
50
Contents

• Define value proposition

• Assess value of the product
• Assess the risks

Define value proposition

Steps:
• Define Customer problem / pain point
– Ex. Difficult to reach Metro station (Bounce)
• Explain how your product solves customer problems or improves their
situation (relevancy)
– Ex. Rent a bike – pickup near your house & drop anywhere (Bounce)
• Determine a specific set of benefits it delivers, preferably quantifiable
(Value)
– Ex. Easy to reach Metro station. Saves 30 minutes.
• Explain why the customer should buy your product instead of the
competition’s (Differentiation)
– Ex. More convenient than walking to bus stop, then taking a bus and
then once again walk to the Metro station

51
 Define value: Examples

Product Pain point How does it Benefit / Value Differentiation

solve prop. from
competition

Bounce Difficult to reach Provide bike on Easy to reach More convenient

Metro station rent – pickup & Metro station than bus
drop anywhere

AirBnB Unable to get a Rent room in a Get unique Hotels do not

feel for the city & house instead of experience of provide this
its people & hotel local culture experience
culture

Zoom Poor video Better Superior Superior quality

quality technology experience compared to
WebEx

Define value: Exercise

Product Pain point How does it solve Benefit / Value Differentiation
prop. from competition

Rivigo

OYO

Postman

52
53
 Mom Test: Part 1

What wrong questions were asked?

• Asking close ended question “You like your iPad right?” instead of “How
often do you use the iPad?” or “What do you use your iPad for?”

• Asking whether you will buy the product without first explaining the
product: “”Would you ever buy an app which was like a cookbook for your
iPad?”

• Telling the features without first trying to understand what features are
needed “you can share recipes with your friends, and there’s an iPhone
app which is your shopping list. And videos of that celebrity chef you love”.

Mom test: Part 2

Did Mom have a need for recipe book on iPad?

Probably for healthy dishes

What market segments could be were discovered from the conversation?

Young people

What kind of recipe books could be targeted to young people?

Basic dishes

What is good about this question: “What’s the last cookbook you did buy for
yourself?”

54
Tips for customer interview

• Go with intention to learn – Ask about their work, how they do it

• Meet customer in their location – This will make them comfortable
• Go with Product manager, UX designer and engineer – to brainstorm later
• Do the customer's job for them, to understand the problem

Insight to be gathered during

opportunity assessment:

• Do consumers have the problem you are trying to solve? – Is our

hypothesis true?
• If there was a solution, would they buy it? – Is the need compelling?
• Would they buy it from us? - Are we better than competition?

55
Also try to signup pilot
customers, during this phase
• Identify 6 customers who truly feel the pain and are near desperate for the
solution we plan to build, who are willing to test the product and buy it
once ready and willing to be reference.
• If you are unable to find even 4 or 5, then we are probably chasing a
problem that is not very important.

• It is important to explain that you are trying to build a product useful to

many customers and not a custom solution.
• Explain that you will dive deep into the problem and build a single solution
that works well for all 6 customers.

Assess opportunity: Exercise

Design a set of interview questions to assess the following product idea

a) Online book library for students - technical & management books that
allows student to borrow & read digital books (similar to Spotify) (B2C)
– Pain point: Students need to refer to many books. But only some
parts of the book are useful. Buying the whole book is not value for
money
– Solution:
• Tie-up with publishers to make books available online
• Students pay a monthly subscription
• Students get to borrow 5 books at a time and read them online
• Publishers gets commission based on books borrowed and the
duration the book was used

56
Role play: Interview

Let us do a role play

• Need 2 volunteers – Interviewer and Interviewee
• Interviewer: Vinay Adaki, Shashank
• Interviewee: Dewraj, Vinay
• Let us observe the conversations and note down which questions were
good and which could have been better
• Please note that if we were the interviewer, we might have fared in a
similar way
• This is only a learning exercise and not a test of your interview skills

Possible questions to ask the

students…
• What courses are your doing?
• How many hours do you study every week?
• What resources do you use to study?
• How sufficient are these, for your study?
• What kind of additional resources would help?

57
58
Contents

• Value risk
• Usability risk
• Feasibility risk (technical feasibility)
• Business viability risk

Introduction

Key risks to be assessed are:

• Will the customer buy this, or choose to use it? (Value risk)
• Can the user figure out how to use it? (Usability risk)
• Can we build it? (Feasibility risk)
• Does this solution work for our business? (Business viability risk)

59
Test value

• Good product teams spend most of their time on creating value. If

the value is there, we can fix everything else.

• If value is not there, then it does not matter how good our usability,
reliability, or performance is.

• Just because someone can use our product doesn't mean they
will choose to use our product.

Test value

• Identify 6 customers who truly feel the pain and are near
desperate for the solution we plan to build, who are willing to test
the product and buy it once ready and willing to be reference.

• If you are unable to find even 4 or 5, then we are probably chasing

a problem that is not very important.

• It is important to explain that you are trying to build a product

useful to many customers and not a custom solution.

• Explain that you will dive deep into the problem and build a single
solution that works well for all 6 customers.

60
Test Value

2 types of testing value

• Qualitative
• Quantitative

Qualitative testing

Qualitative testing is focused on the response, or reaction:

• Do customers love this?

• Will they pay for it?
• Will users choose to use this?
• And most important, if not, why not?
• Are they willing to recommend?
• Are they willing to spend significant time to work with you to
develop the product
• Any other?

61
Quantitative testing

Techniques to do quantitative testing:

• Landing page technique (also called Fake door)

• Crowd funding technique
• A/B testing for features
• Use pre-selected / agreed customers who have agreed to be
partners / to discover the product – how many of those want it

• Any other?

Test Usability: How?

• Get sample users to test. Tell them it is just a prototype of an early
product idea, request for honest feedback
• See if they can tell from the landing page what the product is
meant for
• Observe if users can easily do the tasks
• Identify places where the model presented by the software (design
model) does not match with how the user is thinking (mental
model)
• For example, a user clicked on a button and you are not sure
why he did it (these need to be fixed in next iteration)
• Wrap up by asking:
• Which features were valuable? (value)
• How easy to use was the product? (usability)
• How likely are you to buy the product? (value)
62
• Experience sharing….
Test feasibility
(Technical feasibility)
• This is needed when we need to use new technologies like AI /
ML, Robotics, Augmented reality
• Getting the engineer's perspective earlier also tends to improve
the solution itself, and it's critical for shared learning

• Example: There can be multiple ways to solve the problem of

preventing leakage of confidential company data
– Check when data is being sent out: High on safety, low on
performance, low on deployment
– Check after data is being sent out: Low on safety, High on
performance, high on deployment
– Which solution is better is for the business to decide

• Experience sharing…

Test business viability

Business aspects to be considered:

• Marketing
• Sales
• Customer service
• Finance
• Legal

63
Marketing

Your product must fit within the brand (image) promise of your company's
other offerings.

• HSBC PayMe Moble app example:

• HSBC bank is known for high quality customer service.
• They planned to introduce a Mobile app PayMe which should have
highest quality of UX, performance and security.
• It can not have afford to have a login feature, where the user logins
with Facebook user id / password or Google user id / password, even
though this may be good enough.
• The perception created will be that the bank is compromising on
security by depending on external entities such as Facebook

Marketing…

Your product must fit within the brand (image) promise of your
company's other offerings.

IBM Mainframe example:

• IBM is known for highly reliable products and high customer
service.
• Once a customer’s mainframe crashed
• An engineer flew from Bombay to Delhi with a small part to fix a
mainframe, because it was mission critical for the org.
• If the new product idea is not backed up by a solid customer
support plan, it will not fit in the brand promise of IBM

64
Sales

Do the sales people / channels have the skills to sell the product?
– Our sales people may be familiar with selling business oriented
products such as Payroll, Customer support or Expense
process.
– Now if we are introducing a tech oriented product for detecting
autism using AI that analyses videos of patients who have
autism (CogniAble), then the sales staff may not have the skills
to handle this product and we need to have a plan to address
this.
– If we are used to sell product a B2C via channel partners and
now we are planning to do direct sales because it is a B2B
product, then our sales people may not be able to handle this.

Customer service

Do we need a high touch customer service model or low touch?

– Twilio offers simple API such as: Dial, Play, Disconnect

– Open API of banks: This may require a high level of support
since it involves money

65
Finance

The costs to produce, market and sell your product must be

sufficiently less than the revenue your product generates. What is
the RoI, break even?
– Let us say we are going to spend 100 on building, marketing
and selling and recurring operational costs are negligible
(hypothetical)
– If the cost of the product is 1 and sales per month is 2 copy,
then it will take 4 years to recover the cost. The break-even
period is 4 years
– RoI in 10 years is 240 (10 years * 24 copies per year * 1) - 100
= 140

Experience sharing…

Legal
Are there any Privacy concerns, compliance concerns, intellectual
property, and competitive issues
– Privacy & Compliance:
• EU data should be stored in EU data centers only
• HIPAA compliance for health records related data
• SOX
• GDPR
– Intellectual property
• Are we using any IP without purchasing them – eg.
Samsung, Nokia, Apple
• Open source software licence usage: what can be
distributed freely
– GNU General Public License (GPL)
– Apache license
Experience sharing…. 66
Exercise: Risk identification
and mitigation
• Vedicure is a medical device company that wants to develop a device
(hardware + software) to cure fever, stomach pain, headache, etc.

• The device produces sound waves (vibrations) based on Vedic mantras,

which has a positive effect on the patient.

You are a mentor to the product team. What prominent risks do you see &
what mitigation approach would you suggest?

Answer:
• Feasibility risk – Create a PoC
• Marketing risk (acceptance by market may be a challenge) – Get Vedic
scholars like Baba Ramdev, to endorse the product

Exercise: Risk identification

and mitigation
• Ad-creator is a software that creates an ad based on product,
its value and the target segment.

• The ad consists of heading, description text and a picture.

• This ad can then be published in newspapers.

You are an Angel investor. What prominent risks do you see &
what mitigation approach would you suggest?

Answer:
• Feasibility – Create PoC
• Marketing risk – Sign up high profile pilot customers

67
68
69
 Lean canvas – a simplified
model
• However when are in the early stage, it may not be necessary to
go so much into detail, because our product is not yet ready, it has
not been validated and many things will change which will yield
the model redundant / waste.

• Hence a simplified canvas called Lean Canvas is recommended

at this early stage. This was proposed by Ash Maurya. Helps get
your idea(s) out from your head into a tangible format so that you
can communicate that with others

Lean canvas
Imag e for post

70
Ref medium.com
Some explanations

• Channels can be email, social, CPC ads, blogs, articles, trade

shows, radio & TV, webinars etc.

• Metrics can be how many visited, how many signed up, what is
the usage, how many continued using

• Unfair advantage can be insider information, a dream team,

getting expert endorsements, existing customers etc

71
Amazon Lean Canvas…

https://railsware.com/blog/5-lean-canvas-examples/

72
AirBnB Lean Canvas…

https://railsware.com/blog/5-lean-canvas-examples/

Exercise

Create a Lean Canvas for

1. Rivigo
2. Qalara

73
74
 Introduction

• Once we have understood the need and we have assessed the

need by interacting with customers & users, we need to capture all
the requirements / features / functionality

• Story map is an effective tool to capture the features

• Invented by Jeff Patton

Story map: Job portal

Find job Manage Recruit
vacancy candidate User
Activities
(backbone)

Browse Post Receive job Post Cancel Search Contact User

jobs resume alert vacancy vacancy candidates candidates Tasks
(skeleton)

Search jobs Upload Subscribe Submit job Select job See job Send
(basic) resume - for job alert vacancy vacancy applicants message
PDF

Search Upload Receive Remove Read

jobs - resume – SMS for job vacancy message
location MS Word newly posted (applicant)
jobs User
Build resume Receive Send stories
with resume SMS alert - interview
builder last date request
approaching
Respond to
interview
request

h ps://www.visual-paradigm.com/guide/agile-so ware-development/what-is-user-story-mapping/
75
 Story map: Job portal
Find job Manage Recruit
vacancy candidate User
activities

Browse Post Receive job Post Cancel Search Contact User

jobs resume alert vacancy vacancy candidates candidates tasks

Search jobs Upload Submit job Select job See job Send
(basic) resume - vacancy vacancy applicants message
PDF
Release
1
Search Upload Remove Read
jobs - resume – job vacancy message
location MS Word (applicant)
User
stories

Build resume Subscribe Receive Send

with resume for job alert SMS alert - interview
builder last date request
Release approaching
2
Receive Respond to
SMS for interview
newly posted request
jobs

h ps://www.visual-paradigm.com/guide/agile-so ware-development/what-is-user-story-mapping/

About Story map

• Story map
• Uses top down
• Helps organize features based on importance
• Helps plan releases

76
Exercise

Create story map for:

• Hotel booking software

Solution

77
 We need to classify and prioritize
features: Kano model

Classification of product features:

• Must have
• Wants
• Delighters

Classification of features:
Example: Laptop

Must have Wants Delighters

• 2 Ghz CPU • OS pre-loaded • Green PC (low power consumption)

• 4 MB RAM • Anti-virus • Spill proof (water proof) key board
• 1 TB Disk • Finger print scanner • 4G card for internet
• Touch screen
• Dolby sound
• Log battery life
• Light weight

78
Classification of features: Job
portal software

Must have Wants Delighters

• Post vacancy • Get job alert • Resume builder

• Apply • Hot job indicator • Good Interview videos
• View • Tips to negotiate salary
applicants • Psychometric test

Classification of features: Job

portal software

Must have Wants Delighters

• Post vacancy • Get job alert • Resume builder

• Apply • Hot job indicator • Good Interview videos
• View applicants • Tips to negotiate salary
• Psychometric test

79
Classification of features
changes over time…

As people start
using the products,
some features move
on from Wants to
Must haves and
Delighters to Wants.

Classification of features
changes over time…
Example of delighters becoming wants: Job portal software

Must have Wants Delighters

• Post vacancy • Get job alert • Resume builder

• Apply • Hot job indicator • Good Interview videos
• View applicants • Tips to negotiate salary
• Psychometric test

80
81
82
Introduction

• Product is a risky business

• We should not wait to develop all the features to launch it.
• Rather we should develop a product with just enough functionality
for users to use it meaningfully and derive significant value from it.
• Such an approach will reduce risk

What is MVP?

• Frank Robinson says ”The MVP is the right-sized product for your
company and your customer. It is big enough to cause adoption,
satisfaction, and sales, but not so big as to be bloated and risky

• Eric Reis says ““The minimum viable product is that version of a

new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount
of validated learning about customers with the least effort.”

83
What is MVP?...

• A Minimum Viable Product helps entrepreneurs start the process

of learning as quickly as possible. It is simply the fastest way to
get through the build-measure-learn feedback loop with the
minimum amount of effort.

• Its goal is to test fundamental business hypotheses

• Is this the need?
• Is there enough value? (Product–Market fit)
• Does it make business sense?

MVP need not always be a

product…
It can be a

• Prototype
• Video
• Anything that allows us to test the value

84
 Different types of MVP

Facebook MVP

• Facebook used a simple platform that connected students from

the same classes by allowing them to post messages to shared
boards.

• By introducing Facebook to a super-narrow segment of the

market, Zuckerberg managed to validate his idea

85
Uber MVP

• When Uber (then called UberCab) launched in 2009, it only

worked on iPhones or via SMS, and it was available only in San
Francisco.

• Uber’s MVP was enough to prove that the idea of a cheap ride-
sharing service had a market.

Dropbox MVP

• Dropbox used a video to test hypothesis

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy9nSnalvPc&feature=em
b_title

• The video led to 75,000 people waiting for a beta invite, literally
overnight

86
AngelList MVP
• AngelList is a vast directory of startups and investors, powered by
intelligent match-making algorithms and search functionalities.
• Babak and Naval were doing manual email intros between startups and
investors using their broad network of contacts.
• Only after they saw a potential in their idea, did they build their first
website.

‘Buffer’ MVP

Buffer:

• Buffer is tool that allows scheduling your Tweets

• The founder Joel Gascoigne did something similar to Dropbox’s
MVP.
• However, instead of a video, the smoke test was a minimal
landing page.

87
88
Aardvark MVP

• Wanted to develop a product which will answer questions like

”What is a good place to have Italian food?”

• They developed a front-end to ask questions, but these were

answered by humans. There was no software in back-end.

• Once they found that there was a demand, they automated it.
(Lean Startup)

Oculus VR MVP

Oculus VR

• Founder/s: Palmer Luckey was 20 years when he got the idea

• The Idea: Oculus Rift was created with a simple idea of bringing
VR experience to passionate gamers
• Crowdfunding: Kickstarter campaign started in 2012
• Funded: $2,437,429 USD
• Backers: 9,522 people
• Business Today: Revenue from Oculus Rift is forecasted to
amount to 4.95 billion U.S. dollars worldwide in 2019 and that’s
only from hardware
• Website: https://www.oculus.com/

89
PopSocket MVP

PopSocket

• Founder/s: David Barnett, professor of philosophy in Colorado

• The Idea: First version of PopSocket was created to keep the
cables from the earphones organized and tied to the smartphone
• Crowdfunding: Campaign started in 2012 on Kickstarter
• Funded: $18,591 USD
• Backers: 520 people
• Business Today: In 2018, PopSocket LLC’s revenue was over
$200 million U.S. dollars, with a profit of over US$90 million.
• Website: https://www.popsockets.com/

Summary of MVP types

Video : DropBox
Simple product : Facebook, Uber
Concierage : AngleList, AirBnB
Landing page : Buffer
(Fake door)
Wizard of Oz : Aardwark
Crowdfunding : Oculus

Have you come across any other types of MVP?

90
 When to use which MVP?
MVP type When to use
Video When product is simple and when it is easy to explain using
(Dropbox) Video
Simple product When investment is hot high and when experiencing the
(Facebook) product is important to get a feel
Concierage - do it manually When the concept is very new and when developing a simple
(AngleList, AirBnB) version is me consuming
Landing page When you do not have money to develop
(Buffer)
Wizard of Oz - do it manually When developing the product is me consuming
behind the scene
(Aardvark)
Crowdfunding When investment is high
(Oculus, Popsocket)
Prototype - clickable When product has many features

What do you think?

Exercise

Which type of MVP would be suitable for these products?

• Online library
• Software product finder / advisor
• Apna – job finder for blue collar workers

91
92
Contents

• Build – Turn ideas into product

• Measure – See how customers respond
• Learn – What is valuable to customer
• Pivot or persevere

• Profile: Kate Arnold of Netflix (Inspired)

• Case study: Slack journey (FirstRound)
• Case study: “Design Within Reach” (4 Steps to Epiphany)

Introduction

• Growth should be measured by the value it creates, not by the

funding, amount of advertisement, etc. – Eric Ries of Lean Startup

• Financial valuation of a company may increased for different

reasons – venture funding, lack of competition, etc.

• Real growth should be measured by the growth in value to

customers

Example:
– Are ecommerce customers finding it convenient shop?
– Are they finding the products they want?
– Are the products delivered on time?
93
Build-Measure-Learn cycle
So we need to constantly learn what is valuable to customers

Customer interviews
Root cause analysis

Agile
Continuous integration

Minimize total time

through the loop

• # Visits, conversion, retention

• How many use new feature?

Build

Build the product with minimum features, yet bringing compelling value

Example: Bounce

Minimum feature:
• Book
• Unlock
• End ride
• Pay

Features that can be left out for now:

• Give feedback (assuming there is a call center)
• View bike model and year of manufacturing
• Frequent user analytics
94
Measure

Identify the right metric that indicates that customers are getting value
from the product

Example:
• # of rides per day in case of Bounce
• # of messages / team in case of Slack

Eric Ries calls this as Innovation accounting (as opposed to

accounting profit or review)

Measure …

A disciplined approach is needed to figure out if we are making progress

through validated learning

Steps:

• Establish a baseline using real data based on MVP

• Example: 20 rides per day during MVP
• Set a desired target: Reach a target of 100 rides in 3 months (based on
certain assumptions)
• Tune the engine, ie. make optimizations (such as UI improvements or
adjust price) and measure again to see the difference
• Pivot, ie. Make change to product feature or change target customer or
some other change, if the desired outcomes are not met
• Example: Provide helmet, Target delivery boys instead of Metro
riders (based on a new hypothesis)
95
Growkit case (Lean
Startup)
Farbood Nivi was a popular & effective teacher

He discovered that a combination of following approaches is needed

effective teaching:

• Teacher led lecture

• Individual home work
• Group study (Peer-driven learning)

Growkit case …

Step1 :

• Used WebEx to teach (Teacher-led learning)

• Measured # of customers, # of questions answered, etc.
• Added new ways for students to interact with each other.
Conducted split (A/B) test. But this did not improve customer
behavior.
• Allowed lazy registration feature. Conducted split (A/B) test. But
this also did not have any impact (Optimization)

96
Growkit case …

Step2:

• They had missed implementing one important need: Choice of

solo learning and group learning
• Introduced this feature and did A/B testing
• This led to significant increase in customer behavior

Importance of A/B testing

Do not add a feature unless A/B testing reveals value to customer

97
Metrics should be actionable,
accessible, auditable
Actionable:
– We should be able to take some action based on the metric. Example:
– Consider 2 metrics in a gaming software
• % of visitors who signed up for a gaming software
• # of chat messages exchanged between players
– Signup % is actionable. If it is not improving, we can try to investigate
and make changes
– # of chat messages exchanged: This metric is not a very actionable.
We are not sure what action to take

Metrics should be actionable,

accessible, auditable

Accessible:
– The metrics should be easy to understand. Eg. IMUV – a multi-player
game
• How many downloaded
• How many used trial version
• How many upgraded to paid version

98
Metrics should be actionable,
accessible, auditable
Auditable (verifiable):

• Sometimes when A/B test reveals that a feature is not impactful, some
people who proposed the feature do not want to give up and start
questioning the veracity (dependability) of the data.
• They say that the data collected may be inaccurate
• In such situations it should be possible to know which users preferred the
new feature and who did not.
• Then we can do a random check by calling those people and validating
the data.
• So we need to record customer names and contact details of customers
who used the feature and who did not

Votizen case

• David Binetti started Votizen (he was earlier manager of

USA.Gov)

• He wanted to tackle the problem of civic participation in the

political process

99
Votizen: MVP

• Hypothesis: People interested in civic matters would like to engage with

other similar people
• Created a social networking platform for verified voters to get together,
share ideas, recruit friends
• Only 5% signed up
• Tried to make it easier to use. Signup increased by 17% (used A/B
testing)
• He did more optimization. But sign up remained at 17%. Which means
the citizens were not getting much value.
• He had heard recurring feedback that citizens wanted to get more
involved
• So he decided to change the strategy

Votizen: Pivot (Zoom In)

• New hypothesis: Passionate activists would be willing to pay for

facilitating contacts with elected representatives
• Converted into social lobbying platform “@2gov” that enabled
citizens to reach elected representatives
• Citizens would use existing social media platform such as Twitter
to send message to @2gov and this message would be passed
on to the elected representatives on paper since the politicians
were less tech savvy
• Signup increased to 42% but people willing to pay was just 1%.
Revenues remained low

100
Votizen: Pivot (Customer
segment)
Hypothesis: Large org, non-profit org. and fund raisers who are
interested in political campaigning would be interested to contact
the elected representatives
• David contacted them and many signed LoI (Letter of Interest).
• After developing the product, org did not show interest in paying
for it ,in spite of multiple follow up

Votizen: Pivot (Platform)

• Getting inspiration from Google AdWords platform, he converted

the product into a self-serve platform for citizens to send message
to elected representatives at 20 cents per message.
• Revenue increased significantly from 1% to 11%

101
Votizen: Quick iterations

1st MVP took 8 months

2nd 4
3rd 3
4th 1

Votizen: Lesson

• We should not get stuck on our ideas and replace the hypothesis
based on new learning about the customer.
• The company could have got funding and survived but the value
would not increase.
• That is why we must measure the impact of each change and
decide if we should pivot or persevere with what we have.

102
Votizen: Achievements

• The company got a funding of $1.5 million from Facebook’s initial

investor Peter Thiel.
• Startup Visa campaign used Votizen which resulted in the
Startup Visa Act (S.565).
• This was the first legislation introduced via social lobbying.

Types of pivots
• Zoom in: One feature blown up
• Zoom out: Many features combined into one as there is not much interest
in so many features. Example
• Customer segment: Individual or Organization
• Customer need (through customer intimacy)
• Eg. Pot Belly sandwich which started as an antique store (1977)
gave sandwiches to customers to make them stay. But they found
that customers like sandwiches more than antiques
• Platform pivot: A specific use application to a platform (like AirBnB)
• Channel pivot. Instead of selling a product via consulting firms, a
company may decide to sell directly (SaaS).
• Business architect pivot: Low volume high margin to High volume low
margin. Example Clinic shampoo Sachet
• Technology pivot: Same solution using different technology (eg mobile)
this is used by large corp to improve their service.
• Engine of growth pivot: Viral, sticky or paid growth 103
104
105
Introduction

• Quick solutioning & testing its effectiveness is important

• Sprint is technique developed by Jake Knapp who used this

technique in Google

• He found ‘Sprint’ more effective than brainstorming to find

solutions to problems, irrespective of the product – software,
robot, healthcare

• In brainstorming, he observed that much time was spent in

discussing pros & cons of each solution. Also he found that
resulting solutions were not always the best (Why?)

Idea in brief…

1. Map the problem: Draw a high level process map (swim lane), identify
the key challenges to be addressed in the process

1. Sketch the solution: Create rough solutions – one per team member

1. Choose the best solution: Identify stand-out ideas in each solution, by

voting

1. Storyboard: Create a storyboard by putting together the standout ideas

1. Prototype: Create a prototype – PPT, video, mockup, wireframe, etc.

1. Test: Show to potential users and get feedback

106
Steps in detail…

Map the problem

Process for enrolling patients for drug trials 107

Flatiron

• Flatiron is a heath care company that analyses medical records and test
data of cancer patients and help doctors to choose the right treatment.
• Objective: Increase enrolment in clinical trials for new drugs (medicines)
• Problem: Only 4% of cancer patients enrol for clinical trials. Increased
enrolment would increase the collection of data about cancer treatment
data which can be used by doctors to better treat future patients
• There are different types of trials: Trials for drugs for common types of
cancer, trials for drugs for rare forms of cancer. The types of trails are
very many and it is hard to track humanly.
• To determine which trial a patient should undergo (match), the doctors
have to go through a lot of data such as treatment history, blood count,
DNA mutations in cancer cell, and much more.

Map for Robot server in

hotel
Picture of robot

108
Map: Online coffee sales

Map: Identify the key

challenges to be addressed

HMW: How may we?

109
Map: Identify the key
challenges to be addressed
How may we make it easy for customers to re-order?

Exercise

AirBnB: How may we questions:

What are the key challenges AirBnB needs to answer for their
offering – stay in a house instead of staying in hotel?

• How may we make it super easy to book a place to stay?

• How may we create trust between two complete strangers?

110
 Sketch the solution

Step 1

How may we Step 2

make it easy for
customers to re-
order?

Step 3

Identify standout ideas by

voting

111
Create Story board

• Pick the best solution based on votes. Product manager gets extra
voting rights

• If there are some stand out ideas in another solution, try to

integrate the idea into the best solution

• Put together story board of the final solution

Create a prototype

• Divide prototyping work among team members

• Prototype can be a video, mockup, wireframe, etc.

• Build the prototype: Assemble the parts

112
Test the prototype to get
customer feedback
Studies have shown that 5 users are enough to get 80-90% feedback

• Understand customer background

• Introduce prototype
• Let customer use the prototype while someone takes notes
• Quick debrief: Good aspects, aspects toimprove

Test: In detail…
Studies have shown that 5 users are enough to get 80-90% feedback
Welcome
– Thank for coming
– We are trying to improve our product,…
– I will be asking a lot of questions as you use the product but I am not testing you, I am testing the product
– If you get stuck or confused, it is not your fault. It helps us find problems.
– I will start by asking some background questions, then I will show you somethings we are working on
Understand customer background
– What kind of work do you do?
– How long have you been doing that?
– What do you do when you are not working?
– Have you used any products to ….? What did you want them to do for you? What do you like or dislike
about them?
Introduce prototype
– Would you be willing to look at some prototypes?
– Some things may not work quite right yet – if you run into something that is not working, I will let you know
– Remind the customer, you are not testing the customer
– Encourage the customer to think aloud as she uses the product – say what she is trying to do, how she
plans to do, share what she likes, what she is confused about, etc.
Let customer use the prototype while someone takes notes
– Ask questions to understand what the customer thinking or getting stuck about 113
Quick debrief
– What did you like about the product, what did you dislike?
Case study: Slack

• Slack messaging software had become hugely successful in tech

companies. 500,000 users were using it for one-on-one messaging, chat
room messaging,.. It had changed the way teams communicate. It had
integrations with lots of other application and had become a hub.
• Now Slack wanted to expand to non-tech companies. The marketing had
not made much impact. So they got together to use Sprint approach to
answer the questions – what is the best way to explain what Slack can do
for you?
• The team came up with 2 competing ideas – tenacious tour and Bot. They
developed a prototype for each. One was a step by step explanation of
Slack usage. Another was a mock up of a Bot – messages typed by the
user will be answered by a Slack employee at the other end mocking a
Bot.
• The team showed these prototypes to 2 sets of users. The tenacious tour
got better feedback though with some room for improvement. Thus they
avoided the effort of developing the Bot which would have been quite
expensive.

Exercise

Product: Digital music player device for senior citizens

1. What are the key questions / challenges?

1. Sketch a solution / UI for downloading a song and storing it in the

device

114
115
116
Contents

• Dimensions of Usability (Jakob Nielsen)

• Steps for UI design
• Different aspects of UX design
• Evaluating UX – Nielsen’s heuristics

Introduction

Have you come across User interfaces that exhibit the following:

• Unintuitive and hard to use.

• You can't find what you're looking for
• You're not clear what to do next.

117
 Introduction

One way to evaluate UX is to consider how much it helps or hinders

the functionality / features in realizing the value proposition (the
desired customer benefits) (Product – Market fit pyramid)

Dimensions of Usability

• Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the

first time they encounter the design?

• Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can
they perform tasks?

• Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not

using it, how easily can they re-establish proficiency?

• Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these
errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?

• Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?

118
Dimensions of Usability
Consider the following:

• Learnability: How quickly can you learn to use these - washing machine,
Gmail, online banking

• Efficiency: How efficiently can you accomplish your task using these – MS
Word, 50 process templates to choose from in Kissflow

• Memorability: How long does it take to use these when you return again to
use them - Airport kiosk to print boarding pass, Movie theatre kiosk to print
ticket

• Errors: How many errors do you make while buying a product on Flipkart?

• Satisfaction: How pleasant was your experience using MakeMyTrip.com?

Exercise: Give examples

Dimension Good product example

Learnability

Efficiency

Memorability

Error

Satisfaction

119
Exercise

Comment on the “Efficiency” dimension of booking an flight ticket in

MakeMyTrip.com

Basic steps

1. Design the overall structure

2. Consider the different scenarios (use cases)
3. Design navigation & screens for each scenario

120
Example: Overall structure

Example: Sketch of overall

structure
Portal for travelling
nurses

• Show different
areas using
rectangles

• This is an iterative
process

121
Example: Scenario: Searching
& selecting products to buy

Example: Navigation

122
Example: Screen design

Example: Screen design

123
Ideal sequence for design

Sketch => Wireframe => Lo-fi Prototype => Hi-fi Prototype => Code

Different aspects of
creating UX
• Conceptual design
• Information architecture
• Interaction design
• Visual design

124
 Conceptual design

Should resonate with how the users think (Mental model)

Examples:
– Quicken used checkbook as a metaphor, which customers found very
intuitive.
– Uber's conceptual design was to show users the location of nearby
cars in real time:
– Tally: User’s language not Accountant’s language
– MakeMyTrip: Steps to book ticket match users expectations

Need to understand users and their goals (personas)

• How tech savvy is the customer?
• What is the age?
• What is the environment in which he will be using the product (in a car
while driving, in a noisy factory)

Exercise: Conceptual
design

• Comment on the conceptual design of the “Funds

transfer” feature of your bank’s online banking software

125
Information architecture

• Deals with how you organize information on the screen

• Findability is a key measure
• Organize features, label them in a way that is easy to understand
• Organize in sections and screens within sections (Site map)
• Global navigation pattern

Information architecture:
Example of bad design
How you like this screen design?

126
Exercise: Info architecture

Comment on the “Findability” aspect of your bank’s online

banking software

How easy or difficult it is to find the following features:

a) Order cheque book
b) Block debit card
c) Access Form 16

Interaction design

Deals with:
• What actions can the user take at each step, and how will the
product respond?
• How will the user interact: click, hover, drag, type, tap, swipe, etc.
• What navigations needs to be provided?
• Depicting the state, such as - Product selected, checkout, payment
• How does the product provide feedback?
• Error messages,
• confirmation,
• acknowledgement for pressing a button,
• wait indicators (hour glass),
• progress bar,
• ‘you are here’ indicator in a multi step process

• Which product you have used that gives good feedback? 127
Customer journey mapping
(different touch points)
A customer journey is the end-to-end process that a customer goes through
in order to complete a task over time

Customers interact with an application using multiple devices – laptop, smart

phone, kiosk – and in multiple ways – email, browser, sms. (touch points)

Example: Airline travel

• Book ticket using laptop

• On day of journey, the airline sends me a notification to check in
• I show my phone boarding pass at gate
• I print boarding pass on kiosk
• If there’s a flight delay, I’m updated immediately by text message or email.

Exercise: Customer journey

mapping
Can you give example of customer journey mapping for
Customer complaint of lost credit card?

128
Visual design (Graphic
design)
Deals with:
• Colour (highlight, borders, title)
• Hierarchies (Heading, sections, …)
• Brand personality (Company logo)
• Fonts
• Images (AirBnB)
• Icons (Save, Edit, …)
• Style guide for consistent design

Visual design: Hierarchy

129
Evaluating design:
Nielsen’s heuristics
• Simple & Natural dialogue – minimize concepts, match user’s mental model
• Speak user’s language – avoid codes such as 44 for UK, 1 for US, avoid technical
terms such as memory overflow
• Minimize user memory load - Use menus and drop downs
• Consistency – Example menu items across Word, Excel, Powerpoint
• Feedback – Confirmation of action, Progress indicator
• User control & freedom – Example Home, Back, Undo, Redo
• Clearly marked exits – Cancel, Logout
• Shortcuts – Ex. Word shows last files opened, prefill preferences, default values
• Good error messages – Precise and helpful: Can not open file Chapter 5 because it
is not on disk”. It is possible that the file has been moved to new directory or might
have been renamed”
• Prevent errors – Example Drop down values, Calendar to select date, Describe the
format ex. dd-mmm-yyyy 2-Oct-2048, Make primary action prominent
• Help & Documentation – Task oriented search

Revised & Excellent: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-

heuristics/

Summary

We looked at:

• 5 dimensions of Usability: Learnability, Efficiency,

Memorability, errors & Satisfaction
• 4 aspects of design: Conceptual, Information
architecture, Interaction design, Visual design
• Evaluation heuristics of Nielsen

130
Information architecture:
Example of poor organization
Al Gore from the Democratic Party, lost many thousands of votes,
which instead went to the Reform Party.

Elegance & Simplicity

131
132
Contents

• Introduction
• Steps in Design thinking
• Examples
• Case study

Introduction

• Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation—

anchored in understanding customer’s needs

• Design thinking believes that Innovation is powered by a thorough

understanding, through direct observation, of what people want
and need in their lives

133
5 steps of Design Thinking
• Empathize: Understanding the user and the problems they face through
conducting user interviews, creating empathy maps, and listening to user
stories.

• Define: Organizing and analyzing the research information to produce a

concise problem statement and possible solution or hypothesis.

• Ideate: The brainstorming phase. Designers think of a wide variety of

possible solutions and evaluate each one.

• Prototype: Turning ideas into a physical representation of the product

that will solve the user’s needs, slowly adding greater detail and
complexity as designers move between testing and iteration.

• Test: Putting the prototype in the hands of the user and determining
whether the product has solved the problem at hand and reduced friction
or frustration.

Example of design thinking at

Kaiser hospital
Problem statement

• At Kaiser hospitals, nurses routinely spent

the first 45 minutes of each shift at the
nurses’ station, debriefing the departing shift
about the status of patients
• Nurses often failed to learn some of the
things that mattered most to patients, such
as how they had fared during the previous
shift, which family members were with them,
and whether or not certain tests or therapies
had been administered.
• For many patients, each shift change felt
like a hole in their care.

134
Example of design thinking at
Kaiser hospital

Solution

• The design that emerged for shift changes had nurses passing on
information in front of the patient rather than at the nurses’ station.
• In only a week the team built a working prototype that included new
procedures and some simple software with which nurses could call up
previous shift-change notes and add new ones.
• They could input patient information throughout a shift rather than
scrambling at the end to pass it on.
• The software collated the data in a simple format customized for each
nurse at the start of a shift.
• The result was both higher-quality knowledge transfer and reduced prep
time, permitting much earlier and better-informed contact with patients.

Example of design thinking at

Kaiser hospital
Method

• The core project team included a strategist (formerly a nurse), an

organizational-development specialist, a technology expert, a
process designer, a union representative, and designers from
IDEO.
• This group worked with innovation teams of frontline practitioners
in each of the four hospitals
• Close observation, combined with brainstorming and rapid
prototyping, produced new procedures and software that radically
streamlined information exchange between shifts.

135
Case study: ANA Tomo

A travel companion for the elderly to navigate through the airport

Case study: ANA Tomo

Challenge

• ANA is Japan’s biggest airline.

• Has a large pool of businessmen customers

• ANA seeks to adjust to Japan’s upcoming demographic

circumstances: the aging society.

• ANA wants to cherish the retired businessmen who accompanied

ANA throughout their careers

136
Case study: ANA Tomo

Solution

• ANA Tomo, best travel companion.

• ANA Tomo is a portable connected object designed with the active

retiree in mind.

• It serves ANA elder passengers with live navigation to their

boarding gate at the airport.

• ANA Tomo also gives passengers relevant, informative cues,

ensuring ANA is by its customers’ side throughout their journey.

Case study: ANA Tomo

137
Case study: ANA Tomo
Impact

• Easily understood by all passengers, ANA Tomo allows them to enjoy their time at
the airport while approaching their gate at their own pace, stress free

• ANA can find passengers in case they are lost, speeding up the boarding process.

• Currently the device is being designed for the duration of one's stay in the airport,
but future expansions can include the duration of the flight and even the duration of
one's travel. ANA Tomo can easily become the future air ticket.

Ref: https://sugar-network.org/
https://www.me310kyoto.org/anatomo

Key takeaways from the 5

examples:

• Whether it’s a new app, a community service, or a physical product, the

best thing you can do to innovate successfully is keep your user in mind at
every step in the design process. It can be tempting to create a flashy,
high-tech product.
• Instead, focus on what your users are asking for.
• It’s easy for designers to become disconnected from their user. Don’t be
afraid to take risks and immerse yourself in the lives of the people who will
actually interact with your product. Then implement their feedback and test
your results. Eventually you’ll land on that final iteration with the potential
to change the world around you.

https://careerfoundry.com/en/blog/ux-design/design-thinking-examples/

138
139
Introduction
• Traditional software development methods such as Waterfall model
have a major drawback – late detection of defects

• Agile breaks the development into short-duration iterations, enabling

early detection of errors

• Benefits
– Improved quality due to quicker feedback
– Focus on business value by implementing features of greater value first
– Transparency of progress

Agile manifesto (Agile

values)
• Individuals & interactions over process & tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

140
Agile framework

Source: “Agile for Dummies” by Mark Clayton

Sprint phases: Planning,

Execution, Review & Retrospective

141
Agile team

Agile team: Roles and

responsibilities
Product owner:
• Expert in customer business need
• Prioritizes requirements
• Does acceptance

Scrum master / Agile coach

– Expert in Agile process
– Communicate with stakeholders
– Clears roadblocks

Development team
– Multi-skilled – set up environment, automate builds, continuous
integration, refactoring

142
143
Product features, Priority,
Estimation, Release plan

Source: https://www.scrum-institute.org/Release_Planning.php

Estimation techniques
• Estimation Poker
• Affinity based estimating

144
Estimation poker

Poker cards
Numbers represent relative effort of user stories

Steps:
1. Provide a deck of estimation poker cards.
2. The team agrees on one user story that would be a 5.
3. The product owner reads a high-priority user story
4. Each player selects a card representing the effort involved
5. If the players have different story points: discuss assumptions, re-
evaluate. If members differ, breakdown the story

Estimation Poker
• A typical deck has cards has Fibonacci sequence 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13

• The reason for using the Fibonacci sequence instead of simply

doubling each subsequent value is because estimating a task as
exactly double the effort as another task is misleadingly precise

• Very high numbers are not used in the deck, since it is difficult to
accurately estimate a large effort

• If the effort can not be estimated, the user story is broken down

145
Example of Poker
estimation

Source: https://www.scrum-institute.org/Release_Planning.php

Exercise
Hotel Room Reservation Mobile app

Business travellers on the move, find it hard to make hotel reservation

since they need to open their laptop and make reservations. It would
be really convenient if a user friendly mobile app is made available
by the hotel.

The UI of this mobile app should be extremely easy to use. It should

support functions to Check availability of room, know the price of
rooms, make a booking, etc. After their stay, the app should allow
the user to provide their feedback.

146
Exercise
User stories
• Room booking
• Feedback
• Messages from hotel
• Look at booking history
• Check loyalty points
• Cancel booking
• Request for information
• Register
• Login
• Logout

Exercise
Prioritize user stories

• Room booking
• Feedback
• View messages from hotel
• Look at booking history
• Check loyalty points
• Cancel booking
• Request for information
• Register
• Login
• Logout

147
Exercise
Prioritized user stories

• Register
• Login
• Logout
• Room booking
• Cancel booking
• Look at booking history
• View messages from hotel
• Feedback
• Check loyalty points
• Request for information

Exercise
Create a release plan (Group user stories into releases)

Release 1
– Register
– Login
– Logout
– Room booking
– Cancel booking
Release 2
– Look at booking history
– Messages from hotel
Release 3
– Feedback
– Check loyalty points
– Request for information
148
149
Experience sharing…
Did you use this method?

If not, what method did you use?

T-Shirt sizing: Small, Medium, Large, Extra large is another way of

categorizing the stories. Each size has an effort associated with it.

Affinity estimation
• Used when user stories are many, say 500+
• When you have a large number of user stories, many of them are
probably similar and would require a similar amount of effort
• You quickly categorize your user stories and then apply estimates to
these categories of stories

150
 Sprint planning
• Set a goal for the Sprint
• Select User stories to be developed in the Sprint
• Identify the tasks for each user story – design, develop, code
analysis, security hole check, test
• Estimate effort for each task
• Assign a person responsible for each task

Sprint planning

Sprint goal: Demonstrate the ability of a mobile banking customer to log in and
view account balances and pending and prior transactions.

151
152
153
Velocity

# of story
points
completed
per Sprint

Source: https://www.altexsoft.com/blog/business/25-scrum-process-best-practices-
that-set-your-agile-workflow-for-efficiency/

Challenges
• Lack of skilled product owners from business side
• It is difficult to quote fixed price and time due to changing
requirements, dependency on client in each sprint
• Architectural changes and rework due to new requirements

154
Case study: Pharma company
Inventory management

Results
5 sprints, 100 days (about 4 months). However, results used after the first month

155
Experience sharing…
What benefit did you get from Agile method?

What challenges did you face?

How did the customer / end user feel?

Scrum framework

https://www.altexsoft.com/whitepapers/agile-project-management-best-practices-and- 156
methodologies/
157
Roadmap to value

Product vision

158
Product vision: Example
For Progressive Bank customers
who want access to banking capability while on the go,
the MyProgressive
is a mobile application
that allows secure, on-demand banking, 24 hours a day.

Unlike online banking from your home or office computer,

our product allows users immediate access,
which supports our strategy to provide quick, convenient banking
services, anytime, anywhere.

Difference between Agile

and Scaled Agile

• Agile projects are small 3-9 members

• Scaled Agile projects have multiple Agile teams.
• Coordinating different Agile teams requires additional techniques

159
Visual progress tracking
(Kanban)

Visual progress tracking

(Kanban)

Image source: medium.com/@sashabondareva 160

161
Continuous integration (CI)
• CI is a practice where developers integrate code into a shared
repository frequently
• Each integration is verified by an automated build and automated
tests.
• Key benefit is detecting errors quickly and locate them more easily.

Experience sharing: What benefits have you experienced using CI /

CD?

Single code case

• Maintaining multiple versions of the software is challenging
• Build a core product with common features needed by target
customers
• Maintain a single code base used by all customers

• Sometimes branching strategy is used to cater to different

customers, one branch for one customer. But all branches have a
common main trunk.

162
Product configuration
capability
Products need customization.

Provide for
• Choice of modules (SAP)
• Configurable work flows (SaleForce)
• Configurable fields (SAP)
• Configurable rules (Navitair airline reservation)
• Configurable UI (look & feel) (Yahoo! Mail)
• Choice of language
• Configurable error messages

• Anything else?

API for integration

APIs to allow external systems to inter-operate with our product

Examples
• Facebook,
• SAP,
• Open API of banks,
• Google Maps,
• Git

Any other example?

163
Component based design
• Well decomposed system make a system easy to understand, build
and maintain

• Web services & Micro-services are examples of components

• Components promote re-use

• They help in easier scaling & fault detection

Prove value of product,

Scale later
Do not design for scale from day 1, because we do not know if the
product is useful enough

Example: Zendrive
• Zendrive provides insight into driving behaviour such as how does
the driver apply brake – sudden or smooth, how safe does the driver
turns the vehicle – does he slow down enough before turning, etc.
• It captures data from driver’s mobile phone, sends it to the server for
analysis.
• Once the product value was proven, they started optimizing the
product by aggregating and summarizing data on the phone and
sending only summarized data to server, to reduce data transfer
time and reduce processing load on central server.

Any other example? 164

Be open to re-architect
As business grows & expectations change, it may be necessary to re-
architect the product

Example

• Amazon: Monolithic software to Micro services based software (2-

pizza teams)

• Adobe Creative Suite: Desktop to Cloud

• Oracle apps: On-premise to Cloud

• Any other?

Platform as a product
• Where appropriate, build a platform
• Platform provides a base for building new services (eg Maruti Alto
platform)

Example:
• Apple, Android, Firefox browser,
• AWS, Azure (databases, messaging, serverless, monitoring, etc.)
• Eclipse,
• MakeMyTrip,
• Uber,
• AirBnB (During Covid they offered adventure experiences in virtual
mode)

165
166
Contents

• User behaviour analytics

• Business analytics
• Financial analytics
• Performance
• Operational costs
• Go-to-market costs
• Sentiment analysis

• A/B testing

• Case study: Improving business through metrics

Introduction

Product teams use analytics to:

– Understand users & then target the right user segments

– Understand customer behaviour and improve UX
– Measure product adoption & increase value
– Measure effectiveness of marketing campaigns

167
Types of analytics

• User behaviour analytics (click paths, engagement)

• Business analytics (active users, conversion rate, lifetime value,
retention)
• Financial analytics (Average selling price, billings)
• Performance (load time, uptime)
• Operational costs (storage, hosting)
• Go-to-market costs (acquisition costs, cost of sales, programs)
• Sentiment (NPS, customer satisfaction, surveys)

Source: ”Inspired” Chapter 54)

User behaviour analytics

• Which features are most popular & which are least

• What friction points or issues users are running into
• How engaged users are (How often & how long)
• The type of users – heavy users, occasional users, freeloaders
• What a user workflow looks like

168
Sample User journey
metrics

Source: “Product Analy cs for Dummies”

User behaviour analytics

How can we make use of these insights?

• Which features are most popular & which are least?

• What friction points or issues users are running into?
• How engaged users are (How often & how long)?
• Who are our heavy users, occasional users, freeloaders?
• What a user workflow looks like for a given task?

169
Business analytics

Dave McClure’s AARRR framework

Visits

Conversion

Dave McClure’s AARRR

framework
• Acquisition: How many prospects (new visitors) are our visiting to
our website – due to ads, due to Google search, others?

• Activation / Conversion: What percentage of prospects that

come to our website sign up as customers?

• Retention: What percentage of our customers remain active over

time?

• Revenue: How much money does each customer generate?

• Referral: How many customers refer our product to their friends?

170
Dave McClure’s AARRR
framework
How does this data help us?

• Acquisition: How many prospects (new visitors) are our visiting to

our website – due to ads, due to Google search, others?

• Activation / Conversion: What percentage of prospects that

come to our website sign up as customers?

• Retention: What percentage of our customers remain active over

time?

• Revenue: How much money does each customer generate?

• Referral: How many customers refer our product to their friends?

Order of optimization

Which metric should we try to improve first & why?

• Acquisition
• Conversion
• Retention
• Revenue
• Referral

Recommended Order of optimization

1. Retention
2. Conversion
3. Acquisition

Why?
• If we are unable to retain, it implies lack of value 171
Case study: Intuit
(Improving conversion)

• Launched a new web product,

• Wanted to track and improve the product and business
• Customers were coming but had a conversion problem: the
percentage of prospects signing up was lower than we had
expected it to be.

Source: Book: Lean Product Playbook

Case study: Intuit…

Did analysis & improvements:

• Sign-up process that long.

• Many prospects were dropping off at different points in the sign-up
process.
• Conducted usability testing with users - Discovered several UX
design issues.
• Quickly made UX design improvements.

Result: 40 percent improvement in our conversion rate

Source: Book: Lean Product Playbook

172
 Measuring retention rate

Source: Book: Lean Product Playbook

Measuring improvement in
retention rate
Cohorts

Reten on rate of different cohorts, as the product-market fit is improved

173
Source: Book: Lean Product Playbook
Revenue related metrics

• Average revenue per user: ARPU

• Example: Amazon, Ola, RazorPay, Slack, Zoom

• Customer Life Time Value = ARPU * Avg. Customer life time (in
months or years) * Gross margin

How does this help us in pricing the product?

Sentiment analysis: Net

Promoter Score (NPS)
• “How likely are you to recommend the product to your friend?”
• 9 or 10 are called promoters
• 7 or 8 are called passives
• 0 through 6 are called detractors

• NPS = % of promoters - % of detractors

• NPS should increase as you improve product-market fit.

• Include in your survey an open-ended question asking customers

why they gave the score they did

174
A/B testing

• Used when the fear of negative impact of the change is high

• A/B testing can be used to test

• A change in UI
• A change in recommendation algorithm
• New feature

• Any other?

A/B Testing: Example

• Let us say you have a landing page.

• You see from your analytics that your conversion rate is only 5
percent, much lower than you think it should or could be;

• So you design a new, improved version of the landing page.

• Now you allow a small % of users to see the new landing page
and see if the conversion rate improves or not

175
176
Case study: Friendster’s viral loop
Improving revenue by choosing right metrics to improve

Friendster Viral Loop

Friendster Viral Loop Metrics

177
Baseline metrics

• Percentage of users sending invites = 15 percent

• Average number of invites sent per sender = 2.3
• Registration conversion rate = 85 percent

Which metric should we try to improve?

The Upside Potential of a Metric

Has max upside potential

178
Action to improve

• Each user has on an average 100-200 friends. Going from 2.3 to

100 will be a significant improvement.
• So we introduced a feature to import address book from Gmail or
Yahoo mail and allow user to select the friends they want to send
invite to
• This changed the avg invites from 2.3 to 5

Outcome

179
180
Introduction

• A new set of activities begin after product release

• Some examples:
• Resolving customer issues
• Improving the product – UX, performance, bug fixes, security
fix
• Keep adding value with relevant features – whole product
• Adapt to changes in user needs, technology, competition
• Leverage the product – Open source, product line, cater to new
segments

Customer support

• Quick and effective customer service is paramount. How?

• Make the product so simple to use and so high in quality that support is
a non-issue
• Support team should be sufficiently staffed & knowledgeable
• Recruit people who have a high degree of empathy who feel the pain of
the customer
• Empower staff to take decisions, example to give refunds where genuine

• Examples of excellence in customer support

• IBM delivery a small part flying its engineer to customer site,
• Buffer Inc. provides superior customer support which helps market
itself
• Do you have any examples of great customer service?
181
182
 Service Quality

• Ensure quality of service using concepts of SERVQUAL

What are the characteristics of

a service quality (SERVQUAL)?

Which service quality characteristic is most important in your project? 183

Service Quality

• Reliability is the firm’s ability to perform the promised service accurately

and dependably

• Responsiveness is the firm’s willingness to help customer and provide

prompt service

• Assurance is knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to

inspire trust and confidence

• Empathy is caring and individualized attention paid to customers

• Tangibles refers to physical facilities, equipment and appearance of

personnel

Exercise: SERVQUAL
Which service quality are we referring to in the scenario described below:

•The hotel room has pleasing colours

• Tangibles

•When a problem is fixed, another appears

• Reliability

•When the network fails, it is fixed in 1 hour

• Responsiveness

•The engineer is able to clear all doubts of customer satisfactorily

• Assurance

•The engineer understands the urgency and goes the extra mile to help
• Empathy
184
185
186
Continuous product innovations

• We need to continuously add value to clients

• Examples:
– Netflix: Online order for DVD rental, recommendations feature
to make it easy to choose, video streaming, own productions
– AirBnB Covid pivot: Virtual experiences – Jungle safari, magic
shows, Rio street art
– BigBasket: Vending machine in apartment complex, Booking
delivery slot
– Women safety in Ola
– Amazon: eCom, Prime, AWS, Alexa, Amazon Go, …
– eBay: ‘Buy now, Pay later’, Buyer seller negotiations, Auto
search every day for a product you are looking for
– Paytm – Video KYC
– Other examples of continuous innovation?

Software Product Lines

• Examples
– Telelink inter-office email: supports UUCP, LAN, Netware,
RABMN (1990s)
– Rockwell Collins: Helicopter cockpit system caters to multiple
types of helicopters
– SAP: Caters to Manufacturing, Insurance, Telecom, Retail
– Any other?

• Product lines share a common set of features

• Achieves order-of-magnitude improvements in time to market,

cost, productivity & quality

187
Case study: Saturn Aviation
Diagnostics and Maintenance
https://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?assetid=21312

Case study: Saturn Aviation

Diagnostics and Maintenance

188
Case study: Saturn Aviation
Diagnostics and Maintenance

Case study: Saturn Aviation

Diagnostics and Maintenance

189
190
Contents

• Product team roles

• Principles of strong product teams
• PM role: Variations across companies
• What it takes to be a good PM
• PM Profile: Jane Manning of Google AdWords

Product Team roles

(Book: Inspired)

Key roles:

• Product Manager
• Designer
• Engineer
• Product Marketing

191
Product manager

• Overall in-charge of product

• Drive product from concept to development to continuous
evolution
• Work closely with UX & Engineering
• Possesses
– Technology sophistication: knowledge, trends, applications
– Deep customer knowledge - their issues, pains, desires, how
they think, how they work, and how they decide to buy.
– Market & Industry knowledge: competitors, technology trends,
understanding the role of social media for your market and
customers, trade magazines, conferences

Designer

• Understands user personas, customer journeys

• Design UX
• Carry out usability testing
• Design for accessibility

192
Engineer

• Architect the solution

• Develop Proof-of-concept
• Use Agile, DevOps
• Carry out A/B testing

Product marketing

• Understand customer segments & size

• Positioning, messaging, Go-to-market plan
• Measure impact of market campaigns

193
Principles of strong product teams
(Book: Inspired)

• Missionaries: Need teams committed to solving problems for their

customers
• They are empowered to figure out the best way to meet those objectives,
and they are accountable for the results
• Team size: Around 8–12 engineers - two -pizza rule
• True collaboration – no hierarchy
• Preferably co-located
• Scope well defined: For example, you might be working on a team at
eBay that's responsible for detecting and preventing frauds
• Team duration: It takes time to get to know one another, and learn how to
work well together. So, teams should stick together longer
• Team autonomy: they are able to try to solve the problems they are
assigned in the best way they see fit.

Case study – Stages in Team development

194
Source: Book: Project Management – A Managerial process, by Erik Larson

‘Rat Fax’ case study

• What was the problem to be solved?

• How did the meetings go in the beginning?
• How did the team own up responsibility?
• What was the impact of the improvement achieved on other teams?
• What are you experiences in team formation and team maturing?

195
196
 Case study in building a good team

197
Source: Book: Project Management – A Managerial process, by Erik Larson
 Creating a good vision
Something
Discuss with that aligns
all with the
strategy of
the org.

Vision should
have a higher
Something purpose
that excites
the team
Ex. The CEO of a pharma company said – let
us develop a drug that will eradicate Malaria
Source: Book: Project Management – A Managerial process, by Erik Larson
from Africa. This inspired the whole org

Characteristics of good teams

(Book: Inspired)

1. Good teams have a compelling product vision that they pursue with a
missionary -like passion. Bad teams are mercenaries.
2. Good teams get their inspiration from observing customers' struggle
3. Good teams are skilled in the many techniques to rapidly try out product
ideas
4. Good teams love to have brainstorming discussions with smart thought
leaders from across the company.
5. Good teams have product, design, and engineering sit side by side, and
they embrace the give and take between the functionality, the user
experience, and the enabling technology.
6. Good teams engage directly with customers, to better understand their
customers, and to see the customer's response to their latest ideas.
7. Good teams know that many of their favourite ideas won't end up working
for customers.
8. Good teams understand the need for speed and how rapid iteration is the
key to innovation
198
Power of a common goal
Apollo 11
• In 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first
men to walk on the moon, a momentous achievement in
human history, which is yet to be surpassed.
• While these two men have gone down in history, they
wouldn’t have made it off the ground without the support of
a massive team.
• Over 300,000 men and women collaborated on the Apollo
launch, from surveyors to the engineers, to the astronauts
themselves.
• Every person that worked on the moon landing understood
the goal they were working towards.
• This is best exemplified by President Kennedy’s
conversation with a janitor when he visited Nasa in 1962.
• When the president asked him what he did, the man
proudly replied. “I’m helping to put a man on the moon.”

How do you think this must have happened – even the janitor is
inspired?
Ref: vouchforme.co

Example of great team work

in nature
Look at how the Geese fly:
• Human teams could learn a lot about teamwork by observing Geese.
• Every winter, flocks of Geese take to the skies and work together to achieve
their common goal of reaching a warmer climate.
• Common errors with human teams include lack of communication and
allowing some members to take all the pressure while others coast through,
but flocks of Geese never have these problems.
• As they fly, they honk loudly, motivating their tired teammates, and by flying
in a V-shape formation, the leaders reduce air drag for those behind them.
• When the lead Goose is struggling, another one from the back swaps to
give their companion a break.
• The result means that all members of the flock work and recover equally.

• What can we learn from the geese?

Ref: vouchforme.co 199

Some aspects of team: Few
Questions
• Do you participate in customer meetings, do you visit the customer?
• How can you deeply understand the customer needs in your product ?

• Do you consider different ideas from team members to solve a complex

issue?
• How can you bring in a culture of collective problem solving in your team?

How PM roles different in different

companies? A survey(lennysnewsletter.com)

• Survey participants
• Year:

200
201
Survey results…

Heart vs. Hands vs. Head

It's often said that companies are defined by how they index on Heart
(e.g. empathy, culture) vs. Hands (e.g. execution) vs. Head (e.g.
intelligence).

Takeaways:
• Companies who spike on Heart: Asana, Spotify, WhatsApp
• Companies who spike on Hands: Flipkart, Okta, PayPal, Quora,
Tesla, Wayfair, Yelp
• Companies who spike on Head: Coinbase, Uber, YouTube, Zynga

To which category does your company largely belong?

What it takes to be a good PM?

(hbr.org)

Aspiring PMs should consider three primary factors when

evaluating a role:

• Core competencies
• Emotional intelligence (EQ)
• Company fit

202
 Core competencies
(hbr.org)

• Conducting customer interviews and user testing

• Running design sprints
• Feature prioritization and road map planning
• The art of resource allocation (it is not a science!)
• Performing market assessments
• Translating business-to-technical requirements, and vice versa
• Pricing and revenue modeling
• Defining and tracking success metrics

• Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5 on each of these and identify areas for

improvement. Do not share in chat box.
• Identify one key action to improve in one key area where you are weak.
Do not share in the chat box.
• After the class, create an action plan and monitor progress every month.
Promise?

Emotional Intelligence

• Emotional intelligence or EI is the ability to understand and manage

your own emotions, and those of the people around you

• The theory behind this was proposed by Daniel Goleman

• EQ is considered to be greater than IQ. This is the reason many

intelligent people do not make great leaders if they lack in EQ

Daniel Goleman
203
 Emotional intelligence

Emotions,
strengths,
weaknesses,
drives, values and
goals

Scene in an emotionally
intelligent office
• An upset employee finds a compassionate ear. ...
• People listen to each other in meetings. ...
• People express themselves openly. ...
• Most change initiatives work. ...
• Flexibility. ...
• People have the freedom to be creative. ...

https://magazinestoday.co.nz/7-great-examples-emotional-intelligence-workplace/People meet
out of work time.
204
Example of High EQ person
– JRD Tata
• Made friends easily
• Ran the Tata group consisting of several top notch CEOs like Russi
Modi (Tata Steel), Moolgaokar (Tata Motors)…
• Gave them freedom, compromised his own opinions in order to
respect them
• Bold & Adventurous – Tata Airlines then became Air India

Leadership styles

• Democratic
• Authoritative
• Coercive
• Coaching

205
Leadership styles…

• Democratic: Trusts people to do the right things, Listens to

concerns. Works best when employees are knowledgeable and only
need coordination
• Authoritative: Articulates vision and approach, Sets standards &
monitors performance. Best when team is new and not very skilled
and PM is an expert
• Coercive: Gives lot of directives, Expects immediate compliance,
Close monitoring & control. Best during a crisis, when minor
deviations might result in serious problems, dealing with problem
employees, applied to straight forward tasks
• Coaching: Helps employees identify unique strengths and
weaknesses, encourages team members to establish long term
development goals. Best when the engagement is a long one 2-4
years

Company fit
(hbr.org)

• Technical skills needed: Some products are very technical – AI,

Analytics

• Company philosophy about PM (relationship with engineering) –

PM drives engineering, Engineering drives Product, Partnership

• Stage of company: Startup (broad exposure & expectations),

mature (more focused role)

• Relationship with Leadership: Level of Autonomy to PMs

206
207
Purpose

• The business plan is a tool to think through different aspects of our

business, identify issues and remedial measures.

• It is also used to secure finance from Venture capitalists.

Contents of a business
plan: Typical
• Executive summary
• Product & its value
• Market size
• Competition
• Marketing strategy
• Operational plan
• People strength
• Financial forecasts
• Key risks & mitigation plan
• Conclusion
Appendices

208
Product & its value

• Product-Market-fit
– Customer segment
– Problem / Under-served need
– Solution / Value proposition

• Goal (SMART)
Example:
– To be the most children-centric provider of online stories in the
next 5 years
– Achieve a C-Sat rating of 4.5 / 5 in 5 years

Market size

• Available market and addressable market (people to whom you

can reach out to and serve)

• Example:
– Instrument to help throat cancer patients to speak after their
throat surgery.
– 30,000 patients a year are diagnosed with cancer of the larynx
in India

Dr. Vishal Rao

( https://www.bbc.com/news/business-41969801
https://www.thebetterindia.com/41251/dr-vishal-rao-affordable-voice-prosthesis/ 209
What is the market size for

a) Online children stories

b) Online library of BE student books
c) Product recommendation & consulting business

Competition

• Who are the competitors

• Their revenue
• Their Growth
• Their Strategy – main focus of their strategy, pricing policy, sales
pitch

210
Who are the competitors who impact the addressable market?

a) Online children stories

b) Online library of BE student books
c) Product recommendation & consulting business

Marketing strategy

Different aspects of marketing strategy:

• Create awareness about the product (Ex. Press release, SEO)

• Create a set of high profile reference customers (Ex. Kissflow)
• Differentiate on quality, simplicity, price, service

211
What would be your marketing strategy for:

a) Online children stories

b) Online library of BE student books
c) Product recommendation & consulting business

Operational plan

• Product development plan

• Release milestones
• Service and support plan

212
What is your release plan for

a) Online children stories

b) Online library of BE student books
c) Product recommendation & consulting business

What is your customer support & service plan for

a) Online children stories

b) Online library of BE student books
c) Product recommendation & consulting business

213
People strength

• Experience of Management staff

– Management experience
– Domain knowledge

• Experience of Technical staff

• Experience of Marketing staff

What type of skills & resources do you need to develop this product?

a) Online children stories

b) Online library of BE student books
c) Product recommendation & consulting business

214
Financial forecast

• Sales forecast
• Break-even analysis
• Profit & loss projections
• Cash flow projections
• Balance sheet forecast

Sales forecast

Year # of customers Revenue ($)

2021 1,000 10 Million

2022 3,000 30 Million

2023 10,000 100 Million

215
Exercise in Break even

What costs will we be incurring each year in developing and

marketing this product?

a) Online children stories

b) Online library of BE student books
c) Product recommendation & consulting business

216
Profit & Loss statement
Sales revenue
less direct costs (labour, tools)
Gross profit
Gross margin (%)
less depreciation
less other overheads
Operating profit Gives an idea about the
Operating margin (%) revenue, expenses and
plus other income profit or loss for a period.
EBIT (Earning before income & Tax)
less interest
PBT (Profit before tax)
less tax
PAT (Profit after tax, aka Net profit)
Net margin (%)

Cash flow statement

Cash flowing in Cash flowing out

• Receipt of cash from sales (may • Rent & infrastructure expenses

be delayed due to payment terms) • Salaries
• Loans • Repayment of loan
• Equity proceeds (sale of equity) • Purchase of equipment

Tells whether there is enough cash coming in to meet the expenses

217
 Talks about assets, liabilities and equity on a specific date

Risks and mitigation plan

What risks do you see in this product business?

a) Online children stories

b) Online library of BE student books
c) Product recommendation & consulting business

218
 Risks and mitigation plan

How do you plan to address these risks?

a) Online children stories

b) Online library of BE student books
c) Product recommendation & consulting business

Risks & mitigation plan

Example

# Risk Impact Probability Score Mitigation plan

1 Competition may High Low 18 a) Keep a close watch on the market

come up with a b) Differentiate by addressing needs
similar product (9) (2) of a subset of the market

2 We may need more Medium Medium 25 a) Study the market deeper

number of iterations b) Identify 5-6 customers to work
to prove MVP (5) (5) closely during MVP testing phase
c) Create rough working models to
save on time

219
220
 Ref: altexsoft.com

Revenue streams

Type Description / Example

Licenses One-time upfront license fee + fee for upgrades and support
Subscriptions Salesforce, Financial Times, Spotify
Usage based AWS, AWS Lamda, MailChimp, ShutterStock.
Freemium Free & Premium versions: Grammarly, Tinder, Zapier
Transaction fee AirBnB, Uber, eBay, Payment Gateway
Advertising Google Search, Angry Birds, Facebook, Twitter. Google
In-app purchase VSCO, Meet Me
App store Commission on app sold: SAP EcoHuub, Microsoft solution finder
IP licensing Google leasing Chrome browser & Android OS for purpose built
device

221
222
 Contents

• Funding sources
• Funding stages
• Angel investors
• Venture Capital firms
• Crowd funding
• Incubators and Accelerators

Funding sources

223
quicksprout.com
Funding stages

Source: KPMG report

Angel investors

• Fund the company at a very early stage

• Although money is their motivation, they are more likely to be
genuinely interested in your business as well as the growth and
development of particular industries.
• They are typically entrepreneurs or former entrepreneurs
themselves.
• If you find the right angel investor, you may benefit from their
expert advice and management skills.
• Some Angel Investors
– Rajan Anandan.
– Anupam Mittal. ...
– Anand Ladsariya. ...
– Sanjay Mehta. ...
– Ratan Tata. ...
– Vijay Shekhar Sharma. ...
– Kunal Bahl 224
Venture Capital firms
• Stage 1
– Wealthy people give their money to VC firms

• Stage 2:
– VC firms invest this money in startups after due diligence. VC firms take more
risk compared to banks
– VC forms get a share (15%-30%) in the company for their investment
– VC firms sit on the board of Directors where they participate in making
important decisions

• Stage 3:
– When the startup company gets acquired by another company or it goes public
(IPO) they get their money back
– They usually aim for 10x returns of their investment over 5-7 years
– They tend to invest in a few verticals which they understand well
• E-Commerce, Deeptech, FinTech, EdTech, AgriTech, Travel Tech,
Logistics, HealthTech

Example of returns on
investment for VCs

225
 Example: VC Firms
Venture Capital Firm Domain / Vertical Start ups Funded

Accel Partners Infrastructure, Mobile & Myntra, BookMyShow,

Software, Internet and BabyOYE, Freshdesk, Flipkart
Consumer Services etc.

SEQUOIA CAPITAL Healthcare, Consumer Internet, JustDial, Zomato, Practo,

Financial Sector and Groupon etc.
Technology

NEXUS VENTURE PARTNERS Data Security, Mobile, Craftsvilla, Snapdeal,

Infrastructure, Bio Data Shopclues, etc.
Analytics, Agribusiness,
Consumer and Business
Services
KALAARI CAPITAL Internet, ECommerce, Curated Snapdeal, ScoopWhoop,
Web Myntra, Urban Ladder,
Instamojo etc.
BLUME VENTURES Mobile Applications, Internet & Cashify, HealthifyMe,
Software Sectors, TaxiForSure, Belong etc.
Telecommunication
Equipments, Research and
Development

Crowd funding
Examples
• Kickstarter
• AngelList
• CircleUp
• CrowdFunder
• Fundable

Source: quicksprout.com
226
Incubators & Accelerators

Incubator services
– Office space
– Research labs
– Mentorship
– Assist in raising capital

Accelerators
– Build prototypes
– Help in fund raising
– Brand building
– Customer growth

Example incubators and

accelerators
Bangalore
• Microsoft Accelerator
• Khosla Labs
• NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore
• IIIT Bangalore Innovation
• Nasscom 10,000 Startup

Mumbai
• Society for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, IIT Mumbai
• United India
• Venture nursery International

Y Combinator and Techstars

Delhi
• Indian Angel Network Incubator, New Delhi
• Startup Tunnel
• GSF
• TiE
227
228
 Contents

• Concepts in marketing
• 4Ps of marketing
• Pricing strategies
• Positioning & messaging (Al Reis)
• Product marketing
• Content marketing
• Go to market strategy

Definition

What is marketing?

• American Marketing association “….. creating, communicating,

delivering offerings that have value for customers, clients, …”

• Peter Drucker “… Aim of marketing is to make sales superfluous.

…. Understand the customer so well that the product sells
itself….”

229
Concepts in Marketing
(Marketing Management book by Philip Kotler)

• Customer needs
– Stated (inexpensive car),
– Unstated (Good service),
– Delights (Onboard GPS)

• Target market & Segmentation: Some examples

– By Industry to which customer belongs
– By Customer size and sales potential
– By Geography

How does Salesforce address

different customers segments?

230
Concepts in Marketing
(Marketing Management book by Philip Kotler)

Positioning:
• Creates a position in the prospects mind based on the value of the product to the
market segment and how different it is from the competition

• Examples
– Volvo - Safest car
– Porsche - Pleasurable and exciting driving experience
– Toyota – High quality

– Accenture: Innovative solutions (“Innovation delivered”)

– TCS: Value for money

– Apple: Innovative, Creative

– SalesForce: User friendly – Easy to setup, easy to use, customizable
– AirBnB: Local experience
– BYJU’s: High quality coaching

Ways to position

• Be the first:
– People remember Neil Armstrong was the first to land on
moon. Not many remember his colleague who landed next
– People remember BigBasket for grocery and vegetables
because it entered the market first (First mover advantage)

• Find a niche:
– Apna is a job finder for blue collar workers
– Tally is for Small and Medium Enterprises

• Differentiate from competition

– Sketch is very easy to use compared to Photoshop
– Progressive Auto Insurance is quick claim settlement
231
Exercise

How can you help position these products?

• Postman
• Kissflow

Messaging

• Positioning & Messaging are closely linked

• Messaging is how you communicate value proposition using
simple & clear words
• Messaging of Postman:

232
233
Messaging example: iPad

Concepts in Marketing

• Branding
– Branding helps to identify a product and distinguish it from other
products and services.
– Branding consists of Logo, name, mission, values
– Apple creates an image of creative, innovation, easy to use
• Marketing channels
– Communication channels: newspaper, magazine, mail, internet, blogs
– Distribution channels: Direct (Internet) and indirect (distributors,
retailers, associates)
• Paid, owned and earned media
– Paid: Newspaper, paid search (Google AdWords)
– Owned: Web site, blog, Facebook page, Twitter account, LinkedIn
– Earned: When press, consumers talk about the brand (word of mouth,
viral marketing), Trust Radius, Capterra, Product Hunt
234
Product Hunt: Best new
products in tech website

Trust Radius: Software reviews & comparisons

website

235
Concepts in Marketing

• Impression & engagement

– Impression: How many viewed the advertisement
– Engagement: How many “Like”, how many tweeted about it,
how many commented on blog, how many shared your content
such as video, with their friends & colleagues

• Value & satisfaction

– Depends on quality, service and price

Competitor analysis

236
 Concepts in Marketing

Consumer adoption process (Funnel)

– Awareness
– Interest
– Evaluation
– Trial
– Adoption

Concepts in Marketing

Marketing communication mix

– Advertisement (Newspaper, Magazine, Internet)

– Sales promotion (short term incentive)
– Events & experiences (webinars)
– Public relations & publicity (CSR activity)
– Online and social media marketing (web sites, blogs, Facebook &
Twitter channels, Influencers, search ads, engage customers)
– Mobile marketing
– Direct & database marketing (email, Mailchimp)
– Personal selling (face to face presentations)

237
 4Ps of marketing

Pricing example: Kissflow

238
Pricing considerations

Some considerations
• Affordability
• Expectations
• Competition
• Value generated
• Market size

Example Bounce:

We can consider how much user is currently spending to reach Metro

station. Can we price it below this?

Exercise

What factors will you consider to price these products? Justify

• Slack:
– Value due to easier collaboration and productivity increase
• Spotify:
– Affordability & Expectations
• Postman:
– Price of Testing tools, other development tools
• KissFlow:
– Increase in productivity

239
B2C: How they got their first
1,000 users (lennysnewsletter.com)
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B2C: How they got their

first 1000 users – B2C
1. Offline: Visit College campus, Malls, Exhibitions, Transit hubs,
Startup office
2. Online: Publish on HackerNews (DropBox), App store (TikTok),
Product Hunt (Loom),
3. Invite your friends: Slack did it
4. Create FOMO: (Fear of missing out): use tactics like by Invite
only, Waiting list,
5. Leverage influencers: Invite a person who is respected by the
customer community to join / subscribe
6. Get press: Write an article in magazines
7. Build community: Invite supporters to join

240
 B2B: How they found their
first ten customers?
(lennysnewsletter.com)
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Content marketing

• Content marketing is strategic marketing and business process

focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and
consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience,
and, ultimately, drive profitable customer action. (HubSpot)

• Important for Search Engine Optimisation

• Building and engaging a lasting relationship with your audience
• Increase brand credibility and loyalty

241
Examples of content
marketing
Workday
• Focuses on financial management SAAS and enterprise HR, and
is a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant.
• In relation to their content marketing, their video marketing stands
out
• After watching a video, 64% of users are more likely to buy a
product online.

Zendesk
• Is a customer service platform, providing great support with self-
service and proactive engagement.
• Their content focused on educating their audience about the best
ways to bring business and customers closer together

Content: Zendesk

242
Zendesk: Content

243
Product marketing

• Product marketing should have a deep understanding of the

customer and the market.

• Before a product launch, product marketers typically own

positioning, messaging, gathering customer feedback, and the
overall go-to-market strategy for a product.

• After a product launch, product marketers help with sales

enablement and focus on driving demand, adoption, and the
overall success of the product.

Ref: drift.com

Go-to-market strategy

• Go-to-market strategy is how a company plans to reach its

customers

• It consists of:
– Defining a target market
– Pricing strategy
– Choosing the distribution & marketing channel
– Decide on support
– Decide on promotion
– Decide on market campaign

244
Buyer Persona

Competitor analysis

245
Messaging and Positioning

Go to market process

-Updates to the public website; stages announcement emails and in-

platform messages; and stages internal company notifications
-MARKETING operationalizes design assets
-MARKETING creates customer-facing emails and in-product
messaging
-MARKETING stages prospect-facing communication and SALES
enablement document
-MARKETING considers one-off prospect email opportunities
-MARKETING considers PR opportunities — announcement or press
release
-MARKETING considers organic & paid amplification opportunities

246
247
 Contents

• Marketing of high tech products (Geoffrey Moore)

Product Adoption
Lifecycle
• Product adoption goes through 5 stages
• The type of customers who buy the product at each stage differs

248
 Technology adoption
lifecycle
• Products using new technology such as AI, NLP, Blockchain,
Robotics are adopted gradually

Innovators

• Pursue new technology and seek them out even before they are
marketed.
• They are a source of great feedback.
• Example Post-It notes: The inventor just put it on desk of
secretaries. Many ignored but some tried. They became Post-It
enthusiasts and gave good feedback

249
 Early adopters

• They are visionaries. They Appreciate benefits of new technology

and relate to potential benefits to their concerns.
– Example
– John F Kennedy launching space program,
– Henry Ford implementing assembly line.
– They look for fundamental breakthrough for a strategic leap
forward.
– Example: Visicalc spread sheet that came before Lotus 1-2-3
• Early adopters liked because it allowed them to do
something they have never been able to do before, namely
“What-if” analysis.
• They liked because it fell in line with some common
business operations like budgeting, sales forecasting, etc.
– Example of e-Book used by 737 pilots

Early majority, Late

majority & Laggards
• Early majority: They care about quality, reliability, infrastructure for
support. They Wait and see how other people are using the product
before buying.
• Late majority: Wait till it has become a standard
• Laggards: Don’t want anything to do with technology. The only time
they buy it is when technology is deeply buried inside the product
for example a chip embedded in the braking system of a car

250
 Marketing High tech
Products
• Each category looks at the previous group for reference. Hence we
must satisfy the current group fully before we go to the next
• Marketing high tech products to each of these customer categories
requires a different approach because their decision making is
different. So we have to shift our marketing gear to cross the gap
each time.

The chasm (the big gap)

The biggest gap is between Early adopters and Early majority

251
252
How is product management
different for the enterprise?
• Products are usually specialized focused on an industry
• Example: SAP, Shopify, AutoDesk, Navitaire (airline reservation)
• User vs buyer:
• Buyers are interested in solving a business problem and user is
interested in specific functionality and ease of use.
• Example of a business problem: “We are facing intense downward
pricing pressure from a smaller competitor who is trying to steal
market share, and we’re are looking for new ways to engage with our
own customers to stem attrition.”
• Testing: A/B testing is not usually used due to the impact on enterprise
customers
• Development model: More waterfall than Agile. Ex. PayMe
• Release cycles are longer.
• Paypal has 2 month release cycles

Innovators dilemma
(Book by Clayton Christensen)

• Large organization are worried about impact on current business. Kodak

did not accept the digital camera innovation,

• Disruptive innovation is ignored by enterprises:

• Enterprise focus is on steady revenue month on month.
• But startup innovators have no such expectations.
• Initially the disruptive innovation is small and unpolished, the
customers using it are small in number.
• But it grows gradually and by the time it is noticed by the enterprise,
the innovator is far ahead to catchup

• Example:
• IBM was late to enter Cloud services
• SalesForce offered an innovative CRM on the cloud and the large
companies kept ignoring the opportunity
253
#
4Ps of marketing 238
5 steps of Design Thinking 134

A
A/B testing 175
Aardvark MVP 89
About Story map 76
Action to improve 179
Affinity estimation 150
Agenda 139
Agenda 161
Agile framework 141
Agile manifesto (Agile values) 140
Agile Method 139
Agile team 142
Agile team: Roles and responsibilities 142
AirBnB Lean Canvas 73
AirBnB MVP 88
Also try to signup pilot customers, during this phase 56
Amazon Lean Canvas 72
Angel investors 224
AngelList MVP 87
API for integration 163
Assess opportunity 50
Assess opportunity: Exercise 56
Assess opportunity: Exercise 58
Assess value of the product 53

B
B2B: How they found their first ten customers? 241
B2C: How they got their first 1,000 users 240
B2C: How they got their first 1000 users B2C 240
Balance 132
Baseline metrics 178
Basic steps 120
Be open to re-architect 165
Break Even Analysis 216
Buffer 88
Buffer MVP 87
Build 94
Build Measure learn and Pivot 92
Build-Measure-Learn cycle 39
Build-Measure-Learn cycle 94
Burndown chart 153
Business analytics 170
Business Model Canvas by Alexander Ostervald 69
Business Models 220
Buyer Persona 245

C
Case study 36
Case study in building a good team 197
Case study of product improvement: Word 6.0 186
Case study: ANA Tomo 136
Case study: DBS 49
Case study: ID Fresh Foods 49
Case study: Intuit 172
Case study: Pharma company Inventory management 155
Case study: Qalara 43
Case study: Slack 114
Case study: Visio graphics- charting software 166
Cash flow statement 217
Challenges 154
Characteristics of good teams 198
Classification of features changes over time 80
Classification of features: Example: Laptop 78
Company fit 206
Competition 210
Competitor analysis 236
Component based design 164
Concept of statistical significance 176
Concepts in Marketing 230
Conceptual design 125
Content marketing 241
Content: Zendesk 242
Contents of a business plan: Typical 208
Continuous discovery and delivery 34
Continuous integration (CI) 162
Continuous product innovations 187
Core competencies 203
Create a prototype 112
Create Minimum Viable Product 82
Create Story board 112
Creating a good vision 198
Critical success factors 36
Crowd funding 226
Customer journey mapping (different touch points) 128
Customer service 65
Customer support 181

D
Dave McClures AARRR framework 170
Define and design products collaboratively 23
Define value proposition 51
Define value: Examples 52
Define value: Exercise 52
Definition 229
Design Thinking 132
Designer 192
Difference between Agile and Scaled Agile 159
Different aspects of a product 31
Different aspects of creating UX 124
Different stages of a team 196
Different types of MVP 85
Dimensions of Usability 118
Dropbox MVP 86

E
Early adopters 250
Early majority, Late majority & Laggards 250
Elegance & Simplicity 131
Emotional Intelligence 203
End-to-end Case study 104
Engineer 193
Enterprise stage 20
Enterprise stage: Examples of consistent innovation 21
Estimation 149
Estimation poker 145
Estimation techniques 144
Evaluating design: Nielsens heuristics 130
Evolution of product organizations 17
Example incubators and accelerators 227
Example of design thinking at Kaiser hospital 134
Example of great team work in nature 199
Example of High EQ person JRD Tata 205
Example of HMW questions 115
Example of Poker estimation 146
Example of returns on investment for VCs 225
Example: Navigation 122
Example: Overall structure 121
Example: Scenario: Searching & selecting products to buy 122
Example: Screen design 123
Example: Sketch of overall structure 121
Example: VC Firms 226
Examples of content marketing 242
Examples of Products 13
Exercise in Break even 216
Exercise: Conceptual design 125
Exercise: Customer journey mapping 128
Exercise: Give examples 119
Exercise: Info architecture 127
Exercise: Risk identification and mitigation 67
Exercise: SERVQUAL 184

F
Facebook MVP 85
Feedback cycles 153
Finance 66
Financial forecast 215
Flatiron 108
Friendster Viral Loop Metrics 177
Funding a startup 222
Funding sources 223
Funding stages 224

G
Go to market process 246
Go-to-market strategy 244
Growkit case 96
Growkit case (Lean Startup) 96
Growth of start-ups in India 4
Growth stage 19
Growth stage example 20

H
How does Salesforce address different customers segments? 230
How is product management different for the enterprise? 253
How PM roles different in different companies? A survey 200
How Silicon Valley became successful? 3
How to bridge this gap? 252

I
Idea in brief 106
Ideal sequence for design 124
Ideation techniques (Cooper & Edgett) 48
Identify opportunities 48
Identify opportunity 39
Identify standout ideas by voting 111
Identifying underserved needs 40
Importance of A/B testing 97
Incubators & Accelerators 227
Industry segments 9
Information architecture 126
Information architecture: Example of bad design 126
Information architecture: Example of poor organization 131
Innovators 249
Innovators dilemma 253
Insight to be gathered during opportunity assessment 55
Interaction design 127
Interview customer: Example 53

J
Journey of some product companies: Exercise 29

L
Leadership styles 205
Lean canvas 70
Lean canvas a simplified model 70
Legal 66
Lessons in Product lines 190

M
Map for Robot server in hotel 108
Map the problem 107
Map: Identify the key challenges to be addressed 109
Map: Online coffee sales 109
Market size 209
Marketing 64
Marketing concepts for Product managers 228
Marketing High tech Products 251
Marketing High tech Products: Crossing the Chasm 247
Marketing strategy 211
Measure 95
Measuring improvement in retention rate 173
Measuring retention rate 173
Messaging 232
Messaging and Positioning 246
Messaging example: iPad 234
Messaging: AirBnB 233
Messaging: Example 233
Metrics should be actionable, accessible, auditable 98
Module 1 Introduction 1
Module 10 Bussiness Plan 207
Module 11 Marketing management 228
Module 12 Product management in the enterprise 252
Module 2 Overview 16
Module 3 Core concepts 29
Module 4 Product process 37
Module 5 Rapid Solutioning - Testing technique 105
Module 7 Measurements and Analytics 166
Module 8 Ongoing Product Management 180
Module 9 Team & People Aspects 190
Mom Test: Part 1 54
Mom test: Part 2 54
Multi-faceted role of a Product manager 28
MVP need not always be a product 84

O
Observe 40
Oculus VR MVP 89
Operational plan 212
Opportunities are in plenty at the bottom of the Pyramid 42
Order of optimization 171
Outcome 179
Overview of product process 38

P
People strength 214
Pivot case study: Netflix 104
Platform as a product 165
PopSocket MVP 90
Possible questions to ask the students 57
Possible solution 92
Power of a common goal 199
Pricing considerations 239
Pricing example: Kissflow 238
Pricing: Kissflow 247
Principles of Innovation Peter Drucker 47
Principles of product management 30
Principles of UX Design 116
Problem space vs Solution space 32
Problem space vs Solution space: Case study 33
Product & its value 209
Product Adoption Lifecycle 248
Product business and Project business 11
Product categories 8
Product configuration capability 163
Product eco-system 35
Product family 10
Product features, Priority, Estimation, Release plan 144
Product Hunt: Best new products in tech website 235
Product improvements & enhancements 185
Product lifecycle 26
Product line 11
Product Management role 12
Product management: Relationship with
rest of the company 25
Product manager 192
Product Markect fit 18
Product marketing 193
Product marketing 244
Product platform 9
Product Roadmap 143
Product Team roles 191
Product vision 158
Product vision: Example 159
Product-Market fit 31
Profit & Loss statement 217
Prove value of product, Scale later 164
Purpose 208

Q
Qualitative testing 61
Quantitative testing 62

R
Rat Fax case study 195
Release planning 185
Requirements, User stories, Release plan 143
Requirements, User stories, Release plan 157
Results 155
Revenue related metrics 174
Revenue streams 221
Risks & mitigation plan 219
Risks and mitigation plan 218
Roadmap to value 158
Role play: Interview 57

S
Sales 65
Sales forecast 215
Sample User journey metrics 169
Scene in an emotionally intelligent office 204
Scrum framework 156
Sentiment analysis: Net Promoter Score (NPS) 174
Service Quality 183
Service Quality 184
Single code case 162
Situations triggering Product change 186
Sketch the solution 111
Social entrepreneurship 42
Software Product Lines 187
Software Product Management Create business plan Lean Canvas 68
Software Product Management Risk assessment 58
Software Product Management Specify product features Story Map 74
Software product revolution started in Silicon valley 2
Software products scenario 2
Software Project Management Engineering best practices 161
Solution 77
Solve problems, not just implement features 24
Some aspects of team: Few Questions 200
Some explanations 71
Sources of Innovation: Peter Drucker 43
Sprint 1 plan for Hotel room reservation mobile app 152
Sprint execution 152
Sprint phases: Planning,Execution, Review & Retrospective 141
Sprint planning 151
Startup stage 18
Startup stage examples 19
Steps in detail 107
Story map: Email system 81
Story map: Job portal 75
Summary 130
Summary of MVP types 90
Support channels 182

T
Tackle risks early 22
Tackle risks early - Example 23
Tech start-ups Advanced technology (India) 7
Tech start-ups job creation (India) 7
Tech start-ups growth in India 6
Technology adoption lifecycle 26
Technology adoption lifecycle 249
Test business viability 63
Test feasibility 63
Test the prototype to get customer feedback 113
Test Usability: How? 62
Test value 60
Test: In detail 113
The chasm (the big gap) 251
The Lean Startup 50
The Upside Potential of a Metric 178
Tips for customer interview 55
Today there are 950+ unicorns across the world 3
Trust Radius: Software reviews 235
Types of analytics 168
Types of pivots 103

U
Uber MVP 86
Unicorns by industry 4
Upcoming unicorns start- ups in India 5
User behaviour analytics 168
User vs Buyer 34
V
Velocity 154
Venture Capital firms 225
Visual design (Graphic design) 129
Visual design: Hierarchy 129
Visual progress tracking (Kanban) 160
Votizen case 99
Votizen: Achievements 103
Votizen: Lesson 102
Votizen: MVP 100
Votizen: Pivot (Customer segment) 101
Votizen: Pivot (Platform) 101
Votizen: Pivot (Zoom In) 100
Votizen: Quick iterations 102

W
Ways to position 231
What are the characteristics of a service quality (SERVQUAL)? 183
What do best product teams do? 22
What investors look for in the business plan 220
What is MVP? 83
What is Product Management? 12
What is spurring product industry? 8
What it takes to be a good PM? 202
When to use which MVP? 91
Why products fail? 21
Why teaming is important? 196

Z
Zendesk: Content 243