The Bad Idea Terminator

The Bad Idea Terminator
Melissa Perri
@lissijean
melissaperri.comQCon London 2015

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http://www.infoq.com/presentations
/product-management-bad-ideas

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Purpose of QCon
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Strategy
- practitioner-driven conference designed for YOU: influencers of
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Highlights
- attended by more than 12,000 delegates since 2007
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@lissijean#qconlondon
Melissa Perri
ProdUX Labs
melissaperri.com
@lissijean

Software companies are suffering the same fate…

Idea Product/Market fit
Iterating
We start off testing and iterating…

Idea Product/Market fit
Iterating Build
Build
Build
but we get stuck building and not validating.

The
Build Trap

pressure from higher up
arbitrary deadlines
“building is working” mentality

Building is the easy part.
Figuring out what to build is hard.
@lissijean

@lissijean#qconlondon @lissijean#qconlondon

Feature
ideas
are not
your
baby.

manage product life cycle
product specifications
work with development team
gather business requirements
create user stories
create wireframes
prioritization
manage KPIs across products
manage stakeholders
create product roadmaps

Narrow the focus

How do you
become the
Bad Idea Terminator?

What we normally do…

It starts with a request.
PM
VP
Marketing
Sales

PM
VP
Marketing
Sales

“Our customers want a
mobile app.”

Here,

build
this.
Meh.
VP
PM
or sometimes it’s more like this.

Gather requirements
Write Specs
Design
Develop

DO NOT WANT

Where did we go wrong?

Didn’t recognize bias.
MISTAKE NUMBER ONE

3 Types of Bias
Causality Curse of
Knowledge
Anchoring

The copycat experience.
“We
built
a
mobile
app

before
and
it
was

successful.”

The copycat experience.
“Everyone
has
a

mobile
app,
we

need
one
too.”

Notice differences between
customers and business.
THE IDEA TERMINATOR WOULD…

You’re the expert.
“The
customers

want
all
the
data

possible.”

Change perspective.

Put yourself in your user’s shoes.

“All
my
clients

are
asking

for
this.”
What was said vs reality.

Always ask for data.

Feature Request Form
1. What feature you would like to build.
2. What KPI will this change? By how much?
3. Is there any other value for this change?
4. What is the business priority?
5. Is this dependent on any other changes?

Solution with no problem.
MISTAKE NUMBER TWO

Focus on the problem.

Is this a problem we can and
want to solve?

Building without testing.
MISTAKE NUMBER THREE

Committing too early to one solution.

Consider many solutions.

Investing too much and not letting go.

Test the most viable ones.

Customer
Feedback
Investment

Small, data driven experiments to
make sure people are interested.

1. Do they have this problem?
2. Are they interested in solution idea?
3. Are they interested in solution?
3 Key Experiments to Run

1. Do they have this problem?
Talk to your customers.

“I don’t feel comfortable
meeting people that way.”
“I don’t feel comfortable
meeting people that way.”

“I wish someone would
give me steps.”

2. Are they interested in solution idea?

3. Are they interested in solution?

No success metrics.
MISTAKE NUMBER FOUR

We build and
launch with no
measures of
success.

Set goals early.

What KPI are we affecting?

How much value do we need to
capture to make this worth it?

learning = success

Idea Launch
Risk of continuing with a
bad idea goes up

1. Recognize Bias
2. Focus on the problem
3. Test ideas quickly
4. Define success

PM
VP
Marketing
Sales
Mobile app is a solution, what’s the problem?

PM
VP
Marketing
Sales
What KPIs are we affecting?

PM
VP
Marketing
Sales
How do we make sure this is a problem?

PM
VP
Marketing
Sales
Do we want to solve this problem?

PM
VP
Marketing
Sales
How can we test this quickly?

PM
VP
Marketing
Sales
How do we measure success?

The faster you kill the bad ideas, the more
time you can devote to the good ones.

Melissa Perri
melissa@produxlabs.com
produxlabs.com
melissaperri.com
@lissijean
Melissa Perri
melissa@produxlabs.com
produxlabs.com
melissaperri.com
@lissijean

Watch the video with slide synchronization on
InfoQ.com!
http://www.infoq.com/presentations/product-
management-bad-ideas

The Bad Idea Terminator

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