Product Review: North

August 30, 2019August 30, 2019 marcabrahamLeave a comment

Ever since I reviewed Warby Parker last year I’ve been intrigued by companies that aim to disrupt the experience of buying glasses. So when I heard about a company called North, my ears perked up and I decided to explore their product further:

My quick summary of North before using it – I expect a value proposition similar to Warby Parker, with North offering a simple way to discover and buy new glasses, perhaps a novel take on the “try before you buy” concept.

How does North explain itself in the first minute? – “Focals. Smart glasses that put fashion first” is the strap-line above the fold on the homepage of https://www.bynorth.com/. The combination of the word “smart” in this strap-line and the picture of a Google Glass like pair of glasses tells me that this site sells glasses that display information in a hands-free fashion.

When I scroll down the page, there is a further explanation of what “focals” are:

Getting started (1): Clicking on “Shop Focals” takes me to a product detail page, which includes a price point – starting at $599 – as well as styles and colours to choose from.

Getting started (2): “Premium holographic lenses” is the only bit of information on this page that I’m not sure about. It’s at this stage that I realise that I can’t buy the glasses online, but that I need to book a “custom sizing” appointment first.

Getting started (3): I decide to take a step back and learn more about Focals are. Clicking on “Focals” on the top navigation of the homepage takes me to a very useful “Explore Focals” page. I’ve never had a pair of Google glasses, but I don’ think they could be customised to the same extent that Focals can be tailored to the wearer’s needs.

Main learning point: I’m not yet convinced whether smart glasses will catch on. Perhaps the likes of North will make a difference, because their “focals” will look and feel like regular glasses. The customisation aspect of North’s product definitely resonates, and might just be the difference between North failing or being a runaway success.

Related links for further learning:

My product management toolkit (36): Google’s HEART framework

March 6, 2019 marcabrahamLeave a comment

Measure. Measure. Measure. Tracking the impact of a product is crucial if you wish to learn about your product and your customers. I’ve written before about the importance of spending time on defining the right metrics to measure, avoiding the risk of succumbing to data overload. That’s all well and good, but what do you do when the key things to measure aren’t so tangible!? For example, how do you measure customer feelings or opinions (a lot of which you’ll learn about during qualitative research)?

A few years ago, Kerry Rodden – whilst at Google – introduced the HEART framework which aims to solve the problem of measuring less tangible aspects of the products and experiences we create (see Fig. 1 below). The HEART framework consists of two parts:

The part that measures the quality of the user experience (the HEART framework)
The part that measures the goals of a project or product (the Goals-Signals-Metrics process)

Fig. 1 – The HEART framework combined with the Goals-Signals-Metrics process – Taken from: https://medium.com/@dhruvghulati/google-s-heart-framework-a-critical-evaluation-a6694421dae

Both parts are very helpful tools to have in one’s product management toolkit as they’ll help you to measure product performance through the lens of the person using your product:

HEART framework

Happiness – Measure of user attitudes, often collected via surveys or interviews. For example: satisfaction, perceived ease of use, and net promoter score.
Engagement – Measures the level of user involvement, typically via behavioural proxies such as frequency, intensity, or depth of interaction over some time period. Examples include the number of visits per user per week or the number of photos uploaded per user per day.
Adoption – New users of a product, feature or a service. For example: the number of accounts created in the last seven days, the number of people dropping off during the onboarding experience or the percentage of Gmail users who use labels.
Retention – The rate at which existing users are returning. For example: how many active users from a given time period are still present in some later time period? You may be more interested in failure to retain, commonly known as “churn.”
Task success – This includes traditional behavioural metrics with respect to user experience, such as efficiency (e.g. time to complete a task), effectiveness (e.g. percent of tasks completed), and error rate. This category is most applicable to areas of your product that are very task-focused, such as search or an upload flow.

Certainly, the HEART framework isn’t bullet proof (nor does it have to be in my humble opinion). For example, Dhruv Ghulati has written up some valid concerns about how the HEART metrics could easily contradict each other or shouldn’t be taken at face value. I do, however, believe that the HEART framework is a valuable tool for the following reasons and use cases:

Learning how customers feel about your product.
Correlating these learnings with actual customer behaviours.
Does the product help achieve key customer tasks or outcomes? Why (not)?
What should we focus on? Why? How to best measure?

The HEART framework thus works well in measuring the quality of the user experience, making intangible things such as “happiness” and “engagement” more tangible.

Goals-Signals-Metrics process

The HEART framework goes hand in hand with the Goals-Signals-Metrics process, which measures the specific goals of a product. I came across a great example of the Goals-Signals-Metrics process, by Usabilla. This qualitative user research company applied the HEART framework and the Goals-Signals-Metrics when they launched a 2-step verification future for their users.

Fig. 2 – Usabila’s application of the HEART framework – Taken from: https://usabilla.com/blog/how-to-prove-the-value-of-your-ux-work/

This example clearly shows how you can take ‘happiness’, a more intangible aspect of Usabilla’s authentication experience, and make it measurable:

Question: How to measure ‘happiness’ with respect to Usabilla’s authentication experience?
Goal: The overarching goal here is to ensure that Usabilla’s customers feel satisfied and secure whilst using Usabilla’s product.
Signals: Positive customer feedback on the feature – through a survey – is a strong signal that Usabilla’s happiness goal is being achieved.
Metrics: Measuring the percentage of Usabilla customers that feels satisfied and secure after using the new authentication experience.

The Usabilla example of the HEART framework clearly shows the underlying method of taking a fuzzy goal and breaking it down into something which can be measured more objectively.

Main learning point: The HEART framework is a useful tool when it comes to understanding and tracking the customer impact of your product. As with everything that you’re trying to measure, make sure you’re clear about what you’re looking to learn and how to best interpret the data. However, the fact that the HEART framework looks at aspects at ‘happiness’ and ‘engagement’ makes it a useful tool in my book!

Related links for further learning:

Book review: “The Messy Middle” by Scott Belsky

February 13, 2019 marcabraham1 Comment

I’m sure a lot of us have common misconceptions about successful entrepreneurs and their companies. It’s easy to look at people who’ve ‘made it’ and think that their journey has been all plain sailing. Scott Belsky is such an entrepreneur, having founded Behance, a platform for creative professionals to show off their work, which eventually got acquired by Adobe. In “The Messy Middle”, Belsky eradicates any illusions about the process of creating – whether it’s a business or a product – being painless. He writes about the different stages of a startup lifecycle: the start, the middle and the finish. Belsky makes the point that “it’s not about the start and finish, it’s about the journey in between.”

Fig. 1 – Scott Belsky, Navigating The Messy Middle – Taken from: https://medium.com/positiveslope/navigating-the-messy-middle-7ca6fff11966

At the start, there’s “pure joy” to begin with. That is before reality kicks in and things hit bottom. Belsky describes the finish as “final mile of journey and the recovery time between one project and the next”, the point where you can allow yourself to take a break and make a change. I, however, specifically bought the book because I was intrigued to read Belsky’s thoughts about the ‘messy middle’. Belsky writes about this period, as a collection of peaks – ‘optimising’ – and valleys – ‘enduring’. It’s this period which benefits from volatility. Volatility being positioned as a good thing might sound counterintuitive to some, but Belsky argues that “volatility is good for velocity”:

“The faster you move, the better your chances of learning and momentum to soar above the competition.”

Scott Belsky, The Messy Middle

To achieve this level of velocity, Belsky encourages conducting experiments, and lots of them. Running these experiments means that you’ll be both enduring the lows and optimising everything that works. In “The Messy Middle”, Belsky shares a ton of lessons learned and tips, particularly in relation to those stages of your company or product that are dominated by enduring and optimising. Allow me to give you a quick shopping list of those points by Belsky which resonated with me most:

Avoid validation in the form of false positives – To objectively observe the performance of your new creation or product, put yourself in others’ shoes. Belsky refers to points made by Ben Horowitz about telling the truth in this respect (see Fig. 1 below).
Celebrate progress and impact – Especially at the early stages, celebrate anything you can. Whilst you should avoid ‘fake wins’, celebrating quick wins and progress milestones is important.
Master the art of parallel processing – This involves being able to focus on a specific problem whilst also churning through the omnipresent anxiety and uncertainty involved in building things.
Friction unlocks the full potential of working together – Hardship brings your teams together and equips you to endure for the long haul.
Do Your Fucking Job (‘DYFJ’) – Leading a team through enduring times requires many “rip off the Band-Aid” moments. Nobody wants to inflict pain on their team, but quick and controlled pain is better than a drawn out infection. This also implies checking your ego at the door, instead concentrating on what needs to be done.
Self awareness as the only sustainable competitive advantage in business – Your sense of self is likely to shift when you’re at a peak or in a valley (see Fig. 2 below).
Break the long game down into chapters – Belsky recounts the approach by Ben Silbermann, CEO of Pinterest, who breaks up every period of his company into chapters, each with a beginning, goal, reflection period, and reward. Chapters help break down the long timescale it takes to build something extraordinary. I like to think of them as strategic milestones, each time getting one step closer to achieving the vision for the business.
Do the work regardless of whose work it is – Everyone has an opinion, but few are willing to do something about it – especially if it falls outside their formal job description. Belsky describes his marvel at just how quickly an idea takes hold when someone proactively does the underlying work no one else clearly owned. He goes on to talk about how hiring for people with excitement about the idea, ability to contribute right away and the potential to learn is key when assembling a team.
Never stop crafting the “first mile” of your product’s experience – Whether you’re building a product, creating art, or writing a book, you need to remember that your customers make sweeping judgments in their first experience interacting with your creation – especially in the first 30 seconds. Belsky call this the “first mile”, and he argues that it’s important to prime your audience to the point where they know three things: 1. Why they’re there (2) What they can accomplish and (3) What to do next.
Identify and prioritise efforts with disproportionate impact – Belsky shares a nice prioritisation method by Jeffrey Kalmikoff, which Jeffrey uses to help choose where to focus his energy: look at each item on the table and assign a 3 for very important tasks that would make a huge impact on strategy and revenue, a 2 for something with less significance, and a 1 for something inconsequential.
Stress-test your opinions with radical truthfulness – “Sound judgment, achieved through aggressive truth seeking, is your most differentiating and deterministic trait. It’s all about being honest.” This is one of the founding principles behind Bridgewater, the leading hedge funded founded by Ray Dalio. One of the most fundamental principles driving behaviour at Bridgewater is the notion of “Know what you don’t know, and what to do about it.”

Main learning point: In “The Messy Middle”, Belsky has written a book that I expect to be coming back to over the coming years; it’s a great reminder of the realities involved in creating things and contains a lot of valuable lessons learned as well as practical tips.

Fig. 1 – Ben Horowitz – Three methods for assigning meaning to hard truths, taken from https://a16z.com/2017/07/27/how-to-tell-the-truth/:

State the facts clearly and honestly.
If you caused it, explain how such a bad thing could occur.
Explain why taking the action is essential to the larger mission and how important that mission is.

Fig. 2 – Self awareness, by Scott Belksy – Taken from “The Messy Middle”, pp. 54-56:

Self awareness starts with the realisation that when you’re at a peak or in a valley, you’re not your greatest self.
Self awareness means understanding your own feelings enough to recognise what bothers you.
Self awareness means being permeable.
Self awareness comes from chronicling your patterns.
Self awareness means dispelling your sense of superiority and the myths that people believe about you.

Related links for further learning:

My product management toolkit (29): analysing competitors

May 28, 2018 marcabraham1 Comment

Don’t believe anyone who claims that they don’t look at what their competition is doing. Agreed, there’s a fine line between doing a healthy amount of competitor analysis and being completely obsessed by what the competition is doing but I believe it’s important to understand how your product differentiates from similar products.

Competition is good. Product isn’t a zero sum game and it’s important to understand the competitive landscape that you operate in and to figure out your product ‘niche’. I try to do a competitor analysis of some form or other on an ongoing basis, as your competitive landscape is bound to evolve.

Before delving into ways of analysing competitors, let’s first look at the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of competitor analysis:

Understand where your product fits – Reviewing competitors helps to understand where your product sits within the market, analysing and comparing on aspects such as features, price, perceived benefits, etc.
No need to look at ALL competitors – Realistically speaking, it’s impossible to keep up with all of your – direct and indirect – competitors, all the time. When you narrow things down, you’re likely to find that a small percentage of companies in the market either scoop up most revenue or are direct competition in your specific market segment.
Treat competitor analysis for what it is; valuable guidance – Instead of getting obsessed with your competitor(s), get obsessed with your customer! I can only refer to a quote from the wise Sun Tzu in “The Art of War”: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” I find it very helpful to understand the competitive landscape and the position of my product or service in it, without becoming completely distracted by the features a competitive product does or doesn’t offer. You don’t want your competitors to dictate which features (not) to include, and cause ‘featuritis’ as a result!
Find the perfect niche for your product – The likelihood is that your product will be targeting the same customers that other companies and their products are already serving. Your product needs to be exceptional and differentiated enough for customers to consider switching. Look at the market and ask yourself: “are we solving the same problem, but differently?” or “are we tackling a different customer problem altogether?”

Now, let’s look at some common tools you can use to analyse your competition:

SWOT analysis

Fig. 1 – SWOT analysis – Taken from: https://research-methodology.net/theory/strategy/swot-analysis/

The SWOT analysis is probably one of the more traditional ways of studying and comparing competitors. It might be an older method, but SWOT still holds true and is a tried and tested way of understanding your competitors:

Strengths – Specific characteristics and attributes which give a company competitive advantage. For example, one could argue that design, brand, a loyal customer base and innovation are key strengths of Apple.
Weaknesses – Specific characteristics and attributes which reduce the competitive strength of a business. For example, major debts and inadequate online presence hinder lots of today’s retailers to compete effectively with Amazon.
Opportunities – Advantageous situations or circumstances that can create new competitive power for businesses. Think, for example, of entering new geographic markets, new customer segments or new product opportunities.
Threat – Disadvantageous situations or circumstances which can hamper companies in their ability to compete. For instance, I expect ‘Brexit’ to hinder UK companies in attracting talented new recruits or operate globally.

Kano analysis

Fig. 2 – Kano analysis – Taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kano_model

I’ve written previously about conducting a Kano analysis as I find this method very helpful when looking at the competition from a customer point of view. Understanding what the “basic needs” and “delighters” are in your market, will help understand:

The position of your product – Understanding where a product sits vis a vis customer expectations.
Which battles (not) to pick – Where do you want to play and what will you playing for? Are you happy to just focus on so-called ‘hygiene’ factors or do you want to focus on more unchartered territory?
Potential product opportunities – Where are the opportunities for improved or totally new products, and why?

Lean Canvas

Fig. 3 – Ash Maurya’s “Lean Canvas” – Taken from: https://blog.leanstack.com/business-models-vs-business-plans-4a802e15c51d

Plenty of companies use Ash Maurya’s “Lean Canvas” to better understand your product and market, which is great. In addition, you can also use the Lean Canvas framework to compare and contrast competitors. For example, what’s the dominant channel of companies X and Y, and how does their path to customers compare to yours?

Direct customer feedback

My favourite way of analysing competitors is to hear directly from customers. For example, when I worked at a digital music service, I ran sessions simply observing people using the likes of Spotify, Rdio (which died a few years ago) and Soundcloud. This way, my colleagues and I could learn first hand about how people felt about our product in comparison to the competition.

With digital products and services, it’s harder to do a traditional “bind product test” but you can still observe and listen to people testing different products which are all trying to solve a similar problem. People will tell you why they think product A is better than product B, especially when you make it clear that you don’t have an allegiance with any of the tested products!

Fig. 4 – Blind product testing – Taken from: http://www.bloncampus.com/columns/fundamental/why-blind-testing-is-important-in-product-research/article7976927.ece

5 Forces of Competition

Fig. 5 – Michael Porter’s “Five Forces of Competition” – Taken from: https://www.pocketbook.co.uk/blog/2017/02/14/michael-porter-competitive-strategy/

I can imagine that you might have come across Porter’s “5 Forces” before. Like the SWOT analysis, the 5 Forces approach is a longstanding one which helps companies understand their sources of competitive rivalry and which factors they need to concentrate on in order to gain the upper hand.

Main learning point: Don’t shut your eyes and avert looking at the competition! Equally, don’t get freaked out by competitive products or services. Instead, analyse the competition to get a better feel for whether and how your product differentiates. You can then use these insights to focus more on delivering customer value and creating strong points of differentiation.

Related links:

My product management toolkit (28): testing price sensitivity

April 17, 2018June 8, 2018 marcabrahamLeave a comment

Normally when I talk to other product managers about product pricing, I get slightly frightened looks in return. “Does that mean I need to set the price!?” or “am I now responsible for the commercial side of things too!?” are just some of the questions I’ve had thrown at me in the past.

“No” is the answer. I strongly believe that as product managers we run the risk of being all things to all people — see my previous post about “Product Janitors” — and I therefore believe that product people shouldn’t set prices. However, I do believe it’s critical for product people to think about pricing right from the beginning:

Do people want the product?
Why do they want it?
How much are they willing pay for it?

Answers to these questions will not only affect what product is built and how it’s built, but also how it will be launched and positioned within the market. I’ve made the mistake before of not getting involved in pricing at all or too late. As a result, I felt that I was playing catchup to fully understand the product’s value proposition and customers’ appetite for it.

Fortunately, there are two tools I’ve come across which I’ve found very helpful in terms of my comprehending the value a product is looking to achieve — both from a business and customer perspective: the Van Westendorp Pricing Sensitivity Meter and the Conjoint Analysis respectively.

The Van Westendorp Pricing Sensitivity Meter has helped me to learn about the kinds of pricing-relating customers to ask (target) customers:

At what price would you consider the product to be so expensive that you would not consider buying it? (Too expensive)
At what price would you consider the product to be priced so low that you would feel the quality couldn’t be very good? (Too cheap)
At what price would you consider the product starting to get expensive, so that it is not out of the question, but you would have to give some thought to buying it? (Expensive/High Side)
At what price would you consider the product to be a bargain — a great buy for the money? (Cheap/Good Value)

The aforementioned Van Westendorp questions are a good example of a so-called “direct pricing technique”, where the pricing research is underpinned by the assumption that people have a basic understanding of what a product is worth. In essence, this line of questioning comes down to asking “how much would you pay for this (product or service)?” Whilst this isn’t necessarily the best question to ask in a customer interview, it’s a nice and direct way to learn about how customers feel about pricing.

Example customer responses to the Van Westdorp questions — Taken from: http://www.5circles.com/van-westendorp-pricing-the-price-sensitivity-meter/

The insights from applying these direct questions will help in better understanding price points. The Van Westendorp method identifies four different price definitions:

Point of marginal cheapness (‘PMC’) — At the point of marginal cheapness, more sales volume would be lost than gained due to customers perceiving the product as a bargain and doubting its quality.

Point of marginal expensiveness (‘PME’) — This is a price point above which the product is deemed too expensive for the perceived value customers get from it.

Optimum price point (‘OPP’) — The price point at which the number of potential customers who view the product as either too expensive or too cheap is at a minimum. At this point, the number of persons who would possibly consider purchasing the product is at a maximum.

Indifference price point (‘IPP’) —Point at which the same percentage of customers feel that the product is getting too expensive as those who feel it is at a bargain price. This is the point at which most customers are indifferent to the price of a product.

Range of acceptable pricing (‘RAI’) — This range sits between the aforementioned points of marginal cheapness and marginal expensiveness. In other words, consumers are considered likely to pay a price within this range.

*Van Westendorp price sensitivity meter (example) — Taken from: https://www.qualtrics.com/uk/market-research/pricing-research/*

In addition to the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter, I’ve also used Conjoint Analysis to understand more about pricing. Unlike the Van Westendorp approach, the conjoint analysis is an indirect pricing technique which means that price is combined with other attributes such as size or brand. Consumers’ price sensitivity is then derived from the results of the analysis.

*Sample conjoint analysis question — Taken from: https://www.questionpro.com/survey-templates/conjoint-analysis-retirement-housing/*

When designing a conjoint analysis study, the first step is take a product and break it down into its individual parts. For example, we could take a car and create combinations of its different parts to learn about combinations that customers prefer. For example:

Which of these cars would you prefer?

Option: 1

Brand: Volvo

Seats: 5

Price: £65,000

Option: 2

Brand: SsangYyong

Seats: 5

Price: £20,000

Option: 3

Brand: Toyota

Seats: 7

Price: £45,000

This is an overly simplified and totally fictitious example, but hopefully gives you a better idea of how a conjoint analysis takes into account multiple factors and will give you insight into how much consumers are willing to pay for a certain combination of features.

Main learning point: I personally don’t expect product managers to set prices for their products or design price research. However, I do think we as product managers benefits from a better understanding of the pricing model for our products and a better understanding of what constitutes ‘value for money’ for our customers. The Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter and the Conjoint Analysis are just two ways of testing price sensitivity, but are in my view to good places to get started if you wish to get a better handle on pricing.

Related links for further learning:

App review: Warby Parker

March 25, 2018 marcabrahamLeave a comment

I recently listened to a podcast which was all about Warby Parker and its makings. After listening to the podcast, I was keen to have a closer look at Warby Parker’s website:

My quick summary of Warby Parker before using it – Warby Parker is disrupting the way in which consumers discover and buy glasses. I expect a product which removes the need for physical opticians.

How does Warby Parker explain itself in the first minute? – Accessing https://www.warbyparker.com/ on desktop, I see a nice horizontal layout, dominated by two hero images. There are two main calls to action. Firstly, “Try frames at home – for free”, which then offers me to either “get started” or “browse frames”. Secondly, “Shop online” which lets me shop for eyeglasses and sunglasses.

Getting started, what’s the process like? – After clicking on “Get started”, I can choose between styles for men and women.

Having selected “Men’s styles”, I’m pleased that there’s an option for me to skip the “What’s your fit?” screen as I’m unsure about the width of my face 🙂

Selecting a shape of frames feels somewhat easier, but it’s good that I can select all three shapes if I wish. Instead, I go for “rectangular”.

The same applies for the next screen, where I can pick colours and I select “Neutral” and “Black” simply because I find it easier to visualise what the frames will look like in these colours.

I decide the skip the step involving different materials to choose from. The icons on this screen do help but I personally would have benefited from seeing some real samples of materials such as acetate and titanium, just to get a better idea.

It’s good that I’m then being asked about my last eye exam. Wondering if and when I’ll be asked for the results from my last eye test in order to determine the strength of the glasses I need.

The next holding screen is useful since up to this point I hadn’t been sure about how Warby Parker’s service works. The explanations are clear and simple, encouraging me to click on the “Cool! Show me my results.” call to action at the bottom of the screen. I now understand that I can upload my prescription at checkout, but I wonder if I need to go to an eye doctor or an optician first in order to get a recent (and more reliable) prescription …

I’m then presented with 15 frames to choose from. From these 15 frames, Warby Parker lets me pick 5 frames to try on at home. I like how I can view the frames in the different colours that I selected as part of step 4 (see above). If I don’t like the frames suggested to me, I can always click “Browse all Home Try-on frames” or “Retake the quiz”.

I like the look of the “Chamberlain” so I select this pair of frames and click on “Try at home for free”.

As soon as I’ve clicked on the “Try at home for free” button a small tile appears which confirms that I’ve added 1 out of 5 frames which I can try at home. I can either decide to find another frame or view my cart.

When I click on “Find another frame” I expected to be taken back to my previous quiz results. Instead, I can now see a larger number of frames, but there’s the option to go back to my original quiz results and matches with my results have been highlighted.

I really like how the signup / login stage has been positioned right at the very end of my journey – i.e. at the checkout stage -and that I can just continue as a new customer.

My Warby Parker experience sadly ends when I realise that Warby Parker doesn’t ship frames to the United Kingdom. No matter how I hard I try, I can only enter a US address and zip code 😦

Did Warby Parker deliver on my expectations? – Yes and no. I felt Warby Parker’s site was great with respect to discovery and customisation, but I do think there’s opportunity to include some explanatory bits about Warby Parker’s process.

Related links for further learning:

My product management toolkit (27): checklists

March 20, 2018March 27, 2018 marcabraham2 Comments

If you’d know me personally, you’d know that I love a good list. Making lists helps me to outline my thoughts, see connections and help prioritise. Three years ago, I wrote about “The Checklist Manifesto” by Atuwal Gawande, which is a great book about the importance of checklists and the ingredients of good checklist (see Fig. 1 below).

Fig. 1 – Key learnings from “The Checklist Manifesto” – Taken from: https://marcabraham.com/2015/07/01/book-review-the-checklist-manifesto/, 1 July 2015:

Why checklists? – As individuals, the volume and complexity of the know-how that we carry around in our heads or (personal) systems is increasingly becoming unmanageable. Gawande points out that it’s becoming very hard for individuals to deliver the benefits of their know-how correctly. We therefore need a strategy for overcoming (human) failure. One the one hand this strategy needs to build on people’s experience and take advantage of their knowledge. On the other hand, however, this strategy needs to take into account human inadequacies. Checklists act as a very useful as part of this strategy.
What makes a good checklist? – Gawande stresses that the checklist can’t be lengthy. A rule of thumb that some people use is to have between 5 to 9 items on a checklist in order to keep things manageable. The book contain some good real-life examples of how people go about starting their checklists. For example, looking at lessons learned from previous projects or the errors known to occur at any point.
How to use a checklist – I believe that the key thing to bear in mind when using checklists is that they aren’t supposed to tell you what to do. As the book explains, a checklist isn’t a magic formula. Instead, having a checklist helps you at every step of the way, making sure you’ve got all the crucial info or data required at each step. Also, a checklist is a critical communication tool, as it outlines who you need to talk to (and why, what about) at each step of the way. Gawande also highlights the value of the ‘discipline’ that comes with having a checklist, the routine that’s involved in having a checklist. I’d add to this that a checklist can be a great way of identifying and mitigating risk upfront.

I’ve since read Leander Kahney’s biography of Jonny Ive, Apple’s design honcho. The book contains a quote about Apple’s New Product Process (‘ANPP’):

“In the world according to Steve Jobs, the ANPP would rapidly evolve into a well-defined process for bringing new products to market by laying out in extreme detail every stage of product development.

Embodied in a program that runs on the company’s internal network, the ANPP resembled a giant checklist. It detailed exactly what everyone was to do at every stage for every product, with instructions for every department ranging from hardware to software, and on to operations, finance, marketing, even the support teams that troubleshoot and repair the product after it goes to market.”

I perked up when I read how the ANPP resembles “a giant checklist”, detailing what needs to happen at each stage of the product development process. Apple’s process entails all stages, from concept to market launch. The ANPP is understandably very secretive, but I believe that we don’t need to know the ins and outs of Apple’s product development process to look at the use of checklists when developing and managing products:

Checklists aren’t the same as Gantt Charts! – It’s easy to confuse a short checklist with a Gantt Chart. Over the years, I’ve observed how people can derive a lot of certainty from creating and viewing detailed Gantt Charts or roadmaps (see my previous thoughts on this topic here). In my view, a super detailed checklist defeats the object. Instead, I encourage you to have short checklists that highlight both basic and critical steps to go through when developing / launching / managing products.

Checklists are evolving – Checklists are evolving in a sense that they’re likely to be different per product / team / project / etc. I find, for example, that each time I work with a new team of people or on new product, the checklist reflects the specific steps that need be checked, tailored to the team’s way of working or the specific product at hand.

Checklists are a collective effort – I’m currently onboarding a new UX designer into my team, and he’s keen for us to look at the ‘design checklist’ together, as he’s got some suggestions on how to make it work better. This might mean that the existing design checklist (see Fig. 2 below), underpinned by my preferred dual track approach, might be binned or adapted accordingly. Both are fine, as I expects checklists to be formed by those people who are responsible for checking the different list items. I’ve seen people treat their individually developed checklists as a decree … which others had to following blindly. My simple reaction to that kind of approach: no, no, no, no.

Fig. 2 – Sample ”design checklist”:

Democratise the sign-off process (1) – Often, quality assurance people come up and drive the best checklists. However, the risk I’ve observed, is that these QAs or the product managers become the single sign-off point for the checklist in question. I go into companies and look at their SCRUM and Kanban boards which have cards stating “Pet sign-off” or “Jackie sign-off”. I recently spoke to product managers at a company where the CEO wanted to sign off each feature.

Democratise the sign-off process (2) -Whilst nothing seems wrong with this approach at the face of it, there are two reasons why I feel uncomfortable with this ‘single sign-off’ approach. Firstly, to me, a hallmark of a truly self-organising and empowered team is that everyone feels empowered to ‘sign off’ on the end result (and its individual components). Secondly, I’m also worried about what happens if the designated sign-off person isn’t available. What happens if Pete and Christina are off ill or in never ending meetings? What if the CEO isn’t available for sign-off? Does the feature or product not get released to market? In short, I’m worried about creating another bottleneck or ‘single point of failure’ or forfeiting speed to market.

Don’t forget the basic steps – How often have you’ve been in a situation where you’ve just launched a new product or feature and realised that you forgot to test the styling of the images, content and calls to action? Sense checking things like these sounds like a basic step, but it’s one that’s easily forgotten in the excitement (and haste) to launch. Having basic steps like ‘check content’ included in your ‘pre-launch checklist’ will make sure that things don’t get overlooked (see Fig. 3 below).

Fig. 3 – Sample ”hygiene checklist”:

Include critical steps, lessons learned – I’ve found checklist to be a good way to incorporate key lessons learned on a continuous basis. The risks with post-mortem sessions or retrospectives is that lessons learned don’t get action and tend to be forgotten. Including a learning into a checklist is a simple but effective of way of ensuring that a learning sticks. For example, “training the customer support team” (on a new product, user flow or feature) was a critical step that I used to forget consistently. By including this item in a ‘go-to-market checklist’ helped me and my team in making sure this step wouldn’t be forgotten about anymore.

Put your checklist on a wall – Finally, I’d recommend making your checklist as visible and shareable as possible. You can stick your checklist on an office wall or, if the team aren’t all working in the same space, in collaboration software products like Confluence and Trello (see Fig. 4 – 5 below).

Fig. 4 – Put your checklist on a wall – Taken from: https://www.superestudio.co.uk/wall-checklist

Fig. 5 – Add your checklist in Trello – Taken from: https://www.addictivetips.com/internet-tips/trello-an-online-pinboard-for-task-organization-collaboration/

Main learning point: As long as you don’t confuse them with highly detailed project plans or roadmaps, checklists can be a valuable tool in making sure you and your team don’t overlook key steps when developing products!

Related links for further learning:

As I learn …

This site is about everything digital, giving an update on new things as I learn

Category: Product Marketing

Product Review: North

My product management toolkit (36): Google’s HEART framework

HEART framework

Goals-Signals-Metrics process

Book review: “The Messy Middle” by Scott Belsky

“The faster you move, the better your chances of learning and momentum to soar above the competition.”

My product management toolkit (29): analysing competitors

My product management toolkit (28): testing price sensitivity

App review: Warby Parker

My product management toolkit (27): checklists