Bias-to-action! Move fast & break things! Execute & Ship!
These are just some of the phrases that most folks working in tech are accustomed to. While there are merits to each of these guidance phrases and their applications are certainly contextual, often times product teams default to them as their modus operandi. It also doesn’t help that as product managers, much of the value of our work is based on our team’s ability to swiftly execute en route to launch. As such, rather than take the time to diagnose a problem, we often focus our efforts on the solution aspects.
More often than not, it behooves us to spend more time on truly understanding the problem before diving into a solution. We need to think of ourselves more as problem managers, unblocking and letting our product teams focus on problem solving.
If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.
Albert Einstein
Next time you encounter a problem, I suggest the following approach:
- State the problem clearly and concisely
- Understand the problem and why it occurs
- Determine whether or not it needs to be solved
- Prioritize when it should get solved
State the problem clearly and concisely
Write a clear problem statement that is factual and devoid of emotions or bias e.g. Number of active users are down 45% from last month, 3 engineers and 1 designer quit last week, Customers are canceling their accounts and going to our competitor.
State the problem as you see it but keep it brief.
Understand why it’s a problem
Analyze the magnitude of the problem. Here, you identify where your customer’s experience is hampered as well as the impact of the problem to your company.
Activities such as reviewing data, talking to customers, conferring with your colleagues are all valid. Do whatever is necessary to fully understand the scope of the problem as well as its impact on your customers and company. I also highly recommend applying the 5 Whys technique at this stage.
When you understand the root cause as well as its impact to your business, the problem solving aspects become clearer.
Determine whether or not the problem needs to be solved
Once you understand the root cause and the magnitude of the impact, determine whether the problem needs to be ignored or fixed. Obviously, I’m not referring to the all-hands-on-deck situations where not having a solution in a timely manner is catastrophic. Barring those encounters, not every problem needs to be solved. One way to assess this is to try to answer the question “What happens if we don’t do it“?
If it should be ignored, note that for record-keeping sake and move on. If it needs to be solved, work with your team to get an early read on how much effort a potential solution will take with the information available today.
Prioritize when the problem should get solved
Once you’ve established that the problem needs to be solved, prioritize accordingly. As I mentioned in this post, prioritization begins with the company strategy and ensures that the product team is focused on the most important task at any given moment.
If you spend more time truly understanding, distilling, and effectively communicating the problem, the solution becomes clearer. Clarity and focus lead to velocity, which result in high performing teams.
Lastly, one of the things that makes product management difficult is that there is a time for everything and there is no one size fits all. The aforementioned might work for some problems but not others. It may work for your current company but not the next.
Product management is contextual, which makes it both fun and challenging!
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