Course+Lectures_ALL.pdf is an all round content for trainers

Introduction 1
2
Setting up Product Vision, Strategy,
and Strategic roadmap
Solution prototyping
3
Selecting a good problem to solve
Building up solution prototype with
Glideapps
4
User research
Getting feedback and iterating with
your solution
5
Market research and Competitor
analysis
Product development
6
Creating alignment among
product stakeholders
Product launch
7
Solution ideation
Generative AI and
Product Manager’s productivity
03 ........................................................................
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................................................................... 266
................................................................... 275
Getting your first (or next) role
as a Product Manager
................................................................... 310
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

Join the community of other
learners who enrolled in the
course!
Before we start the course...
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Who is a Product
Manager?
Why is the Product Manager (PM) role among the most exciting in tech
teams and startups?
Factors that influence the PM's scope of work.
Things common for every successful Product Manager.
Covered in this lecture:

Let's re-cap:
PMs are in charge of the key ingredient of every successful business - its
product.
They are directly involved in making core strategic growth-driving decisions and
often continue their career by founding their startups or joining executive teams.
Many factors could influence the PM's scope of work, including:
Business life cycle stage (e.g., a startup vs. an established company).
Who will be using the product - millions of consumers or professional users.
Industry or geography.
Here are things common for every successful Product Manager:
The PM is the one who gets things done when it comes to everything and anything
related to the product.
1.
To do their job, PMs work closely with product designers and engineers who form
the so-called "core product management team."
2.
Apart from the core product team, PMs collaborate with many other people within
and outside an organization.
3.

Let's re-cap:
Here are things common for every successful Product Manager:
4. Product Managers are the drivers of change.
If we want to sum up the role in just one picture, here is one of the most popular
graphical illustrations of the role:
Source: https://www.mindtheproduct.com/what-exactly-is-a-product-manager/

Three myths about getting
into Product Management
Do you need a technical background to become a PM?
Do you need to complete an MBA to get into product management?
Do you need a product certification to join product teams?

Let's re-cap:
Even though some companies prefer to hire PMs with a computer science background
("technical" PMs), others (and this number is growing) look for candidates with "non-
traditional" backgrounds - from journalism, art, fashion, law, and many more.
You are expected to have a strong interest in technology and know how
to collaborate with engineers and build trusted relationships with them to
qualify for a good PM.
Getting an MBA is neither a prerequisite nor a guarantee to finding a PM job.
If you are now thinking about doing an MBA with the ultimate goal of getting into a
Product role, please consider other strategies first.
There is no formal requirement for aspiring or junior PMs to have any certification to
enter or transition to a career in Product.
Unless a certification program has a substantial practical part for applying theories,
frameworks, and tools, you won't be able to build a convincing story during job interviews and
will struggle to do your job.

Key approaches to
designing and developing
products:
Design thinking
What is Design Thinking?
Steps of the Design Thinking process.
How the Design Thinking fits into the end-to-end product development process.

Let's re-cap:
There's no single definition for Design Thinking. Consider it an approach,
strategy, or methodology for creative problem-solving and innovation.
Here are the five steps of the design thinking process:
Step 1: Empathy phase
We empathize with users and their problems and pain points and want to get a deep
understanding of the problem that matters the most.
Step 2: Define phase
The define phase is when you unpack and synthesize your empathy findings into compelling user
needs and insights.
Step 3: Ideate phase
Here we start ideating or, in other words generating multiple alternatives to solve a problem that
we nailed down in the previous step.

Let's re-cap:
Here are the six steps of the design thinking process:
Step 4: Prototyping phase
This is when your ideas meet the real world for you to learn and improve.
Prototypes can be of different forms and shapes - they can be simple sketches you make on paper
with special software, or they can closely resemble the real product.
Step 5: Testing phase
The goal of the testing phase is to refine your solutions, make them better, and continue learning
more about your users.

Design thinking process
Source: https://medium.com/@bhmiller0712/what-is-design-thinking-and-what-are-the-5-stages-associated-with-it-d628152cf220

Opportunity
Discovery
&
Validation
Solution
Discovery
&
Validation
Defining
Product
Vision
Defining
Product
Strategy
&
Roadmap
Product
Develop
ment
Product
Launch
&
Improve
ment
How the Design Thinking fits into the end-to-end product
development process

Key approaches to
designing and developing
products:
Lean Startup & Agile
What is the Lean Startup method?
The concept of Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
What is Agile methodology?
How Design Thinking, Lean Startup, and Agile fit together.

Let's re-cap:
A lean startup is a method used to establish a new company or introduce a
new product within an existing company.
The lean startup advocates developing products that consumers have already
demonstrated they need and want.
Product development using the lean startup method starts with ideas about a problem or
solution.
Each idea represents a potential different product direction.
To understand which direction to go, we use "validated learning," an integral part of the
lean startup.
Validated learning allows us to take small steps in each product direction and test our
assumptions about the problem or solution by creating the Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
Think of an MVP as a prototype that allows us to get the desired learning about a problem
we want to address, our users, and our solution.

Let's re-cap:
After we collect and measure the users' feedback from such an MVP
experiment, we refine our ideas and our MVP and test again.
Using the lean startup method in the product development helps us deliver products that
meet users' needs faster and with reduced cost.
Agile is a process for managing a project that involves incremental and frequent delivery of
small chunks of a project through cross-functional self-organizing teams.
When implementing Agile methods, you have to divide the long delivery cycle into shorter
periods called Iterations or Sprints.
Agile team members have to deliver a working product to a customer, get customer
feedback, and make changes for every Iteration.
Agile is also an umbrella term for planning, management, and technical methods and
processes for iterative project management (e.g., Scrum, Kanban, Extreme programming,
etc.).

How Design Thinking, Lean Startup, and Agile fit together

Chapter 2: Setting up Product Vision,
Strategy, and Strategic roadmap

Product Vision and Product
Strategy
Who drives a product vision & strategy at an early stage of a company.
What is a product/market fit, and why it’s important to find it.
What is a product vision and strategy with examples.
When product function starts contributing to product vision and strategy.

Let's re-cap:
Product function starts contributing to product vision and strategy from the
Growth phase.
Before that, it is the founders' responsibility to define and drive the vision
and strategy.
Product vision is the final destination we plan to reach with a product three
to ten years ahead.
Product strategy is a set of activities we plan to take to achieve the product
vision.
We covered what research is needed to develop an effective strategy:
Understanding of focus markets (e.g. industry verticals or geographies).
Knowledge of customer needs and problems we are trying to solve and
advantages we can bring.
Details of a product we are building and what differentiates it from
competitors.
Trade-offs (what is outside the product strategy).

Strategic Product
Roadmap
What is a product roadmap? Key components of a roadmap.
Example of the public roadmap from ProdPad, a product management
software that supports roadmap development.
What a Product Manager needs to pay attention to when creating a strategic
roadmap.

Let's re-cap:
A strategic product roadmap is an important element of the product
management process.
As a PM, your job is to ensure:
that your roadmap is structured around key problems or opportunities,
that stakeholders are running with it, and
that it is always relevant.
It shows product strategy over time as a series of projects we need to take to
achieve a product vision.
The main components of a roadmap include the following:
Timeframe (e.g., Now, Next, Future).
Project descriptions as problems or opportunities.
High-level theme or group of projects.
Business goal (for every project).

Chapter 3: Selecting a good problem
to solve

Where the Product Manager
gets product ideas
Source of product ideas #1: Stakeholders (including customers or users,
internal and external teams).
Source of product ideas #2: Product analytics.
Source of product ideas #3: Market research and analysis.
Source of product ideas #4: Open innovations.

Let's re-cap:
Product managers play a major role in finding the best possible direction
for a company's products.
They can rely on various sources of product ideas:
Stakeholders
1. Customers - as a PM, you will work a lot with your customers since you need to know their
needs, wants, obstacles, and frustrations - all that can move you closer to creating awesome
products your customers cannot live without.
2. Other stakeholders - stakeholders could be members of any team that can influence
product development within the company - e.g., Sr. Management, Sales, Marketing,
Research & Development, Engineering, Operations, Customer Support, Finance, and even HR
teams.
Product analytics
It includes data on users' interaction with your product, for example, such events as clicks,
signups, logins, submission of forms, downloads, entry points, usage frequency - and the
list can go on.

Everything that you do as a PM must be in line with your product vision and strategy,
and product goals.
Open innovations
Market research and analysis
You can analyze many things to source ideas, including analysis of your product
competitors, technology and industry trends, and the emergence of entirely new business
models.
Open innovation is a model that promotes collaboration with other people and
organizations outside the company to bring new fresh ideas inside. It is an innovative trend
that many companies are adopting nowadays worldwide.

How to select an idea for
your product
Three areas to consider when thinking about an idea for your product.
Industries to avoid when selecting an idea.
How you can build a product from scratch without coding.
Should your product be successful so you can include it in your CV/portfolio and
speak at job interviews?
Can you create a non-tech product?

Let's re-cap:
To select an idea for the course project, think about the following three areas:
First, is your passion or hobby.
Second is your Daily life.
Third is everything new you want to learn (" Future").
Product
idea
Passion/
Hobby
Daily life
problems
Smth new
you want
to learn

Let's re-cap:
Many good product ideas usually belong to the space where you need to connect
demand and supply to solve a problem.
You don't need to learn how to code to develop a product, and we won't be learning
coding skills in the course.
Your project doesn't need to be successful, e.g., get X number of customers or have sales
revenue. It's a "testbed" for you to practice and learn.
It's also possible to build a non-tech product to grow your product skills (e.g., podcast, video
course, etc.).
Avoid selecting an idea in the Deep Tech space when to validate a problem and
solution, you need to research and develop a sophisticated technology or algorithm.
Instead, we will rely on no-code tools - a popular alternative to traditional software
development for people without a technical background to build their applications.

How to brainstorm product
ideas (or problems to solve)
How to prepare for a brainstorming session.
“How Might We” technique to brainstorm ideas.

Let's re-cap:
Start brainstorming individually by asking yourself a question in
the "How Might We..." format, for example:
Participants in brainstorming sessions can be product team members, product
stakeholders, and customers.
For the session, you’ll need a whiteboard and sticky notes if you brainstorm in a room.
If you are doing online brainstorming sessions, you can use software like Miro or Mural.
"How might we improve X"?..."
"How might we re-imagine Y?"... "
"How might we find a new way to accomplish Z?"
Write down questions that are not too broad but not too narrow, for example:
""How might we solve inequality?" - the question is too broad
""How might we increase the profitability of car-sharing service?" - the question is too narrow
Avoid overthinking and self-filtering ideas; write down everything that comes to your mind.

Let's re-cap:
Combine all ideas and try to form new ideas out of these combinations.
Vote for the best idea using prioritization criteria.
And lastly, fall in love with the problem and not the solution.

Introduction to User
Research
Difference between customers and users.
Definition of the User research and how it fits into the product development.
Overview of the steps of the User research process.

Course+Lectures_ALL.pdf is an all round content for trainers

User research Step 1:
Defining goals, objectives,
and hypothesis
Formulating assumptions about a problem.
How to transform assumptions into problem hypothesis.
How to define goals and objectives for a research project.

To write down a problem hypothesis, we first create a list of our
assumptions about a problem. Then we transform every assumption into the
hypothesis using one of the following templates:
I believe [type of people] experience [type of problem] when doing [type of
task]
or:
I believe [type of people] experience [type of problem] because of [limit or
constraint]
Let's re-cap:
The first step of the user research process is defining research goals,
objectives, and hypotheses.
Problem hypotheses are assumptions written in a testable form.
We formulate the research goal using action verbs such as: Learn, Understand, Define.
We aim to have one or two research goals per project.
We define up to four research objectives within every research goal.

Goals, objectives, and hypothesis for the
follow-along project JustDo
Example:

Research Goal
Research
Objective
Research
Objective
Research
Objective
Interview
Question
Interview
Question
Interview
Question
Interview
Question
Interview
Question
Interview
Question

To understand how people
plan and execute their side
hustles
Identify ways
people start
planning their
side hustles and
tools they use.
Understand what
makes it easy for
people to plan
side projects and
what makes it
difficult.
Identify ways
people execute
their side hustles
and the tools they
use.
Understand what
elements make it
easy for people to
execute side
projects and what
elements make it
difficult

Selecting a research method
- overview
Ten of the most popular research methods you must be aware of as a PM.

Let's re-cap the research methods we've covered:
In-depth and Contextual interviews.
Participatory Design.
User journey mapping.
Usability study.
Diary Studies.
Card Sorting.
Event Tracking.
A/B Testing.
Customer surveys.

Selecting a research method
- how to choose one for your
research
Difference between qualitative and quantitative research methods.
How to select a research method based on the stage of product development.

Let's re-cap:
When deciding on the most appropriate research method, we must consider
multiple factors.
The first is the type of question we want to answer.
For example, do we want to know WHY and HOW or HOW MANY and
HOW MUCH types of questions?
Second, we need to consider where we stand in the product development
process to get a clue on which research methods will be more beneficial for
us.

Selecting a target audience
How to do user segmentation to find your target group.
Should you aim to find a broad or narrow user segment?
How to prioritize target user segments.

Let's re-cap:
If you don't have an existing user base, you have to define what are the
segments you want to target first.
To find a user segment, start with the questions:
What is their problem or goal? What's their motivation?
Narrow down the segment further by applying demographic criteria.
Repeat these two steps until you eliminate broad segments.
Try to narrow down your target audience to maximize your progress with
validating hypotheses.
Ask yourself questions about people's behavior in the target groups:
What, if anything, are these people doing to try and solve the problem?
Where can we find people of the same demographics who demonstrate
this behavior?
Eliminate unreachable segments. Then, prioritize the remaining segments
based on their potential profitability.

Target user segments for the follow-along
project JustDo
Example:

Working professionals who want to transition to Product Management.
Working professionals who want to transition to UX design.
Working professionals who want to transition to Software Engineering.
MBA's who want to transition to Product Management.
Final list of segments prioritized based on two criteria:
reach out easiness and profitability:

Building up a Customer
(User) Persona
User persona definition.
Main segments that make up a user persona.
If a persona is the same as a user group.
When to create a user persona, and how many do you need.
Tools available for developing a persona.

Let's re-cap:
A User Persona is a tool to encourage product and other teams to build empathy
around target users and focus on their needs, problems, and motivation.
A user persona is a fictional person made up based on information about real
people who might use your product.
It's not a user group or a segment of users.
Every persona description includes:
We can create a persona based on our assumptions about the target user and
then refine the description after conducting user research.
Personal details.
1.
Demographic details.
2.
Goals and motivations.
3.
Frustrations, challenges, and pain points.
4.
Behaviors of users when dealing with your product.
5.
We can use different tools to create a persona, e.g., Miro or UXpressia.
Every product will likely have several personas to cover parts of product functionality.

Recruiting research
participants
Steps to recruiting research participants.
When to speak with users and non-users of your product.
Most common channels for recruiting prospective users.

Let's re-cap:
The first step in recruiting the participants for your research project is to
determine:
You have two options:
whom you want to invite and
1.
where you can find these people
2.
You want to speak with your current users if you are looking for the next big
product improvement or when you want to get feedback on your product
update.
invite your product's existing users or
1.
non-users.
2.
Engagement of your existing customers is a mindset.
You will be talking with non-users if:
you're developing a new product
1.
you want to get feedback from people non - experienced with your product
2.
when you want to test potential new user groups
3.
if you need to understand your competitors' users.
4.

Let's re-cap:
You can use offline and online channels to approach your current and potential users.
You can approach your colleagues, friends, or family members and ask for
the intros if they are connected to your target segments.
1.
Social media platforms: Twitter, Insta, Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack groups,
etc.
2.
Events - for example, you can connect with prospective customers at an
industry conference or during a meetup.
3.
Your company's website.
4.
You can drop by a place where your customers are.
5.
You can recruit users through specific user research platforms:
6.
userinterview.com
respondent.io
hellopingpong.com
maze.co
usertesting.com

List of communities for the JustDo project
Example:

Product Management group (~39K members)
Women in Product (~29K members)
Side Prjct Slack (~1.5K members)
Mind the Product Slack (~57K members)
The Product Coalition Slack group (~7K members)
Product Management group Telegram (~3.6K members)
ProductSG group Telegram (~600 members)
PDMA Product Development and Management
Association (~62K members)

Creating an interview
screener
Why you need an interview screener.
How to come up with questions for your screener.
Tools available to create a good interview screener.

Let's re-cap:
An interview screener is a survey used to filter out candidates who don't fit into
the research goals.
To come up with the screening questions, think about common
characteristics of your target audience:
needs
goals
tasks
motivations
demographics
Then, structure your questions like a funnel - start with broad
questions and narrow them down until you can say if the
participant qualifies or not.
Qualified candidate
Have you ever ordered pieces
of jewelry online?
When was your last
purchase?
What factors influence
your purchasing
decision?
...

Let's re-cap:
Any online survey tool will work for creating the screener, for example:
Google Forms
Survey Monkey
Qualtrics
Typeform

How to invite interviewees
What channels to use for sending out invitations.
Whom to invite from your product team.
How many interviews do you need.
Should you offer any incentives for people to talk to you?

Let's re-cap:
Email is the best way to communicate with shortlisted research participants and
invite them to the interviews.
Invite some of your colleagues to participate in the interview with you:
User researchers
UX designers
Software engineers
There is no standard recommendation on how many interviews you have to
make.
Start with five to ten interviews and see what the outcomes are.
Consider offering incentives for your research participants if your company's
policy allows this.
You can choose from providing monetary incentives and non-monetary perks.

Creating a discussion guide
Why you need a discussion guide.
Discussion guide structure.
Tips on creating a discussion guide.

Let's re-cap:
A discussion guide or interview script is a set of questions and topics you would
like to discuss with an interview participant.
Scripts are crucial for conducting effective user interviews since otherwise, they
often turn into conversations that wander and rarely extract the learning.
An introduction
Warm-up questions
Questions about problems or solutions you want to discover or
validate
A debrief
Typically, a discussion guide consists of the following sections:

Tips & tricks on creating the discussion guide:
Don't forget that your discussion guide is just that: a guide to help drive the
conversation.
Expect to change your script after going through your first interviews.
If a participant says something interesting that is not included in the
discussion guide, listen and explore what they are saying.
Feel free to deviate from the initial script if you need to.
All the insights you learn during the first interviews will help you revise and
amend the initial version of the script.
Avoid including questions about the future. It's hardly possible for all of us to
predict it.
Avoid asking questions about the past behavior that happened more than two
or three months from now. Focus on the present.

Collecting insights
Ten things that will help you to conduct an insightful user interview.

Let's re-cap:
Connect with your interviewees so that they feel relaxed and open to the
conversation.
Begin the interview with more straightforward questions and then get into
the specifics.
Ask questions neutrally.
Shut up and listen.
Don't ask binary or leading questions.
Be present in the conversation.
Look for inconsistencies.
Be mindful of time.
Do an interview in pair with your colleagues or record the session.
Do a debrief just after the interview.

Analyzing research findings.
Why you need to make notes during your interviews.
What to look for when analyzing your interview notes.
What a validated hypothesis is.
What to do if, after more than ten interviews, you are still not getting answers
to your research questions?
What is a validated hypothesis?

Let's re-cap:
Don't forget to take notes during the interviews and do a debrief with your
interview partner.
You can rely on different software, including Google Docs, Confluence, or
Notion to keep your notes in one place.
Your user segment is too broad.
1.
Problem you are discovering is not a real problem for users, and you
have to re-frame it.
2.
When analyzing interview notes, you look for insights that help you to either
validate or invalidate your problem hypothesis.
Validating a hypothesis means you're confident enough to continue investing time and
effort in solving a particular problem.
If, after more than ten interviews with your target audience, you still don't have
clues about your research question, this is most likely a sign that:

What is affinity diagramming?
Steps of the affinity diagramming process.
Tools available for creating an affinity diagram.
Affinity Diagramming

Let's re-cap:
Affinity diagramming helps you organize data and related facts visually by
grouping them into clusters. As a result, you can find meaningful patterns and
make sense of the data.
The affinity diagramming consists of the following steps:
First, you and your team members write all the findings on Post-It notes.
1.
Next, post the sticky notes on a whiteboard or a wall.
2.
Start a timer for about 30 minutes, and begin organizing notes by themes or topics
depending on what each note suggests about the different parts of the problem you are
trying to explore.
3.
Continue to organize and reorganize findings (or sticky notes) into groups until the time is
over or until everyone agrees with the grouping.
4.
Finally, create a statement of what you learned about each group - this can be the key
insight you learned from that group of findings.
5.
You can use the following tools to create an affinity diagram:
Miro
Mural
InVision Freehand tool

Why you need an empathy map.
The main use cases for empathy mapping.
The process of creating an empathy map.
Tools available for creating an empathy map.
Empathy mapping

Let's re-cap:
An empathy map is a technique you can use at the beginning of the product
development process to get user insights by analyzing what they Say, Think,
Do, and Feel.
The main use cases for empathy mapping include:
To identify user needs directly from the traits we captured in four quadrants or based on
the contradictions we noticed between the traits.
1.
To come up with new insight or knowledge that will help us formulate a problem statement
we need to design a solution.
2.
To develop user personas and identify current gaps in user knowledge.
3.
The process of creating an empathy map consists of four steps:
Every team member fills out sticky notes with information related to the four quadrants.
1.
You group similar notes and create a name for the new group.
2.
You start discussing the findings with your teammates and come up with user needs and
potential insights - you can write all of them down on one of the sides of the map.
3.
You discuss what knowledge gaps you have and how you can cover them by doing
additional user interviews or dairy study, or a product test, etc.
4.

Let's re-cap:
You can use the following tools to create an empathy map:
Miro
Mural
InVision Freehand tool
Please remember to create one empathy map for one user persona.

What is a customer journey map, and when you need one.
Four main types of customer journey maps, with examples.
Customer Journey Mapping
(part 1)

Let's re-cap:
A customer journey map is a diagram that showcases your customer's
experience with your product or company.
There are many occasions when you may want to create and refer to a customer
journey map during the product development process:
We also covered the four main types of customer maps:
To create empathy with your customers.
1.
To uncover product opportunities, and prioritize problems that happen
most often.
2.
To break down silos in your organization and align stakeholders around
one shared vision.
3.
To assign ownership of key touchpoints to different departments of the
organization.
4.
To build a better understanding of specific customer personas.
5.
Current state or AS-IS map.
Future state or TO-BE map.
Day in the Life map.
Service Blueprint.

Key elements of every Customer Journey map.
The process of creating a map.
Tools you need to start developing a map for your product.
Customer Journey Mapping
(part 2)

Let's re-cap:
Customer journey maps can be of different shapes and forms. However, most
of them will include these key components:
Next, you interview your product stakeholders, refine the map, and approach
your customers.
Customer persona.
1.
Type of a journey map (AS-IS, TO-BE, a day in life or service blueprint).
2.
Customer goals, expectations, and emotions.
3.
Communication channels.
4.
Section for problems and opportunities.
5.
You can start creating a map based on your existing knowledge and
assumptions about users and problems.
To prioritize what problems to act on, you may use a simple dot-voting
technique or more complex prioritization methods.
Refer to a separate checklist file for the tools available for creating a
Customer journey map.

Fill-in-the-blank structure to help your team to generate
pain-points statements:
I need ____________ in order to ____________.
I need ____________ so that ____________.
For example: "I need a simple way to compare options so that I don't get
overwhelmed."

What is a problem statement?
Templates to write a problem statement.
Problem statement examples.
Formulating a Problem
Statement

Let's re-cap:
Think of the problem statement as your guiding statement that you put
together based on all the insights uncovered during the empathize phase (*),
and that focuses on specific users, what they need and why.
Problem statement templates:
(*) One of the phases of the Design thinking process. To learn more, read the article: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/design-thinking
[type of people] experience [type of problem] because of [limit / constraint]
OR
[type of people] needs a way to [user's need] because /but/surprisingly
[interview insight]
Please remember that 'needs' should be verbs.

Alex is a 30 years old working professional who lives in a city.
He needs a way to do a quick 30 to 60 minutes commute to and from his office 2
to 4 times a week at his own convenience.
He really enjoys driving himself; however, he is not ready to invest money in
purchasing his own car since it involves high upfront expenses and maintenance
costs.
Problem statement: examples
Example 1: Problem statement for a car-sharing service

B2B sales professionals from the tech industry need a way to make
successful social sales.
However, they realize it's challenging to find the right warm contact,
figure out who the company decision-maker is, and understand what
social context they can rely on to personalize their first contact.
Example 2: Problem statement for LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Helen is a 29-year-old MBA student who loves documentaries.
She needs a way to relax after her studies and access new and engaging
content she is excited about and that she can share with her friends.
Example 3: Problem statement for an on-demand video-streaming service

Documenting findings
The purpose of a research report.
Things to include in your report.
With whom you should share a report.

Let's re-cap:
Preparing a report is the closing step before you finish a user research
project.
As a rule of thumb, prepare the report in a concise form, avoiding going into
many details.
There are no strict guidelines regarding the structure of the report and the
process of sharing it with stakeholders.
Include the following key information:
Then, share the report with product team members, closest stakeholders,
and for big effort projects - with a wider audience.
Context or why you've decided to start the research.
1.
The hypothesis that were tested.
2.
Scenarios tested - for the cases when you did product tests like usability tests and
had a specific set of scenarios your users needed to go through.
3.
Results, e.g., how many tests (or interviews, or surveys) you've done and your target
user segments participating in the research.
4.
Next steps.
5.

Follow along: Analyzing
findings from JustDo
problem discovery
Outcomes for the JustDo problem discovery project.
Final recommendations on what to pay attention to when doing a research
project.

Let's re-cap:
Planning is key to fruitful insights. Before talking to users, define your goals,
objectives, research hypothesis, and target audience.
Come to the interview prepared and have a discussion guide with you. But
remember, this is just a guide, so be ready to go with a flow.
Select wisely people with whom to speak. Use interview screeners to narrow
down the audience.
Don't be discouraged by no-shows. It's expected behavior, and it doesn't
mean that the problem you discover is non-important.
Adjust the number of questions you can ask to fit into the interview slot.

Chapter 5: Market research and
Competitor analysis

Competitor analysis
Goals of competitor analysis.
Three types of competitors: direct competitors, secondary (or indirect)
competitors, and replacement competitors.
Where you can find information on your product competitors.

Let's re-cap:
Competitors analysis is a regular activity performed by product managers to
stay up-to-date with what's happening with their product and industry.
The competitors' analysis goals will vary depending on the product life cycle stage:
Early stage: your goal will be to understand if there is a competition - if someone has tried to
solve a problem you are trying to solve.
Growth: you want to keep a close eye on your competitors to know what kind of growth
tactics they use and how they upsell their products.
Maturity: your goal is is to make sure that your product remains relevant and continues to
grow.
There are three types of competitors you need to be aware of:
Direct competitors - businesses that do a similar job in the same market and for the same
user base.
Indirect competitors - they do the same job, but in a different way, usually for a different type
of user.
Replacement competitors - those are the products that do a different job (or address a
different problem than your product) but end up competing for the same users.

Let's re-cap:
To find out the information about your competitors, start with online research and refer to such
resources as Gartner Magic Quadrant and CrunchBase.
Review marketing materials, tech blogs, and customer reviews.
Test a product yourself and speak with your customers to find out the competing
products they use.

Three types of competitor
analysis
Three types of competitor analysis:
Value curve analysis.
a.
Competitive landscape analysis.
b.
Feature analysis.
c.

First is value curve analysis, a strategic tool to visually see how your company's
strategy works in relation to close competitors.
Competitive landscape analysis is an excellent way to position the key players in
the market and see how they relate.
And third is Feature analysis. It provides a thorough comparison of the features
of your product and your closest competitors.
As a result, you can define and keep track of the unique features your product
offers and the gaps your product has.
The second is competitive landscape analysis, which helps visualize
your competitors in a single view.
We've covered the three types of competitors analysis.
Let's re-cap:

Example: Value curve competitor analysis for the real estate market
in Singapore
Types of competitor analysis
Value curve analysis

Product improvement recommendations for 99.co
based on the Value curve analysis

Gathering
market insights
What is secondary market research?
Free and paid resources available for collecting market insights.

Let's re-cap:
As a PM, you need to keep a close eye on what's happening in your target market.
You will find plenty of initial information about your subject by looking at publicly available
resources, including:
Usually, you begin with so-called "secondary research" when you gather information from
previously conducted studies and other publicly available sources.
Industry news
TechCrunch
Tech in Asia
World Economic Forum
Industry trends and forecasts
Singularity University
Frost & Sullivan

Let's re-cap:
Refer to the paid resources to get more detailed information on a specific topic.
You will find plenty of initial information about your subject by looking at publicly available
resources, including:
Product competitors' websites
Statistics
Statista
Online communities (FB groups, Open communities in Slack, Open Telegram channels, Forums)
Google trends
Gartner
Magic Quadrant.
Hype Cycle
IDC reports Reports from consulting firms
Accenture, KPMG,
McKinsey, etc.

Sizing Up a market
Three parameters to size up a market.
Top-down, bottom-up, and value theory approaches to calculate the market size.

Let's re-cap:
You'll need to calculate market size to understand how big the product
opportunity is and if there will be enough demand for your product.
TAM describes total expected annual revenues within an entire market.
You can calculate TAM using top-down, bottom-up, and value theory approaches.
The SAM is the portion of the TAM that a company seeks to target with its
specific product and within a particular geography.
To size up the market, you need to calculate three parameters:
SOM is the market size that a company is realistically targeting to capture in a short period.
Total addressable market or TAM
Serviceable available market or SAM
Serviceable obtainable market or SOM
It's recommended to use a bottom-up approach to estimate SOM to get the most
realistic calculations.
TAM
SOM

Coffee consumption statistics show that around 30-40% of the world's population consumes coffee every
day (let's take an average of 35%).
World's population is 7.9 billion people.
Let's assume that, on average, a person consumes 2 cups of coffee per day, and every cup has 200 ml of
coffee.
Next, I researched and found that each 200 ml cup of coffee has 12grams of coffee.
So it's 24grams of coffee for two cups.
The price of 1 kilogram of coffee is about 5 USD.
And finally, we need to define what our margin will be for every cup. Let's assume that it's 20%.
Alright, now here is our formula:
7.9 billion people * 35% * 0.024 kg * $5 price per kg * 120% margin * 365
days = $141 billion TAM
Example: calculating TAM using a "top-down" approach

Let's say that you are a PM for enterprise - resource planning
software in one of the companies in the Asia Pacific region.
Your product's market share is 5% of the entire APAC market.
By the end of 2021, your company captured a sales revenue of
about 600 million US dollars.
Using these two numbers, we can calculate the TAM for the
enterprise resource software, which will be around 12 billion
US dollars.
Example: calculating TAM using a "bottom-up approach" approach

Example: calculating TAM using value theory
To calculate the TAM, we need to multiply the price customers are willing to pay for a new
product by the total expected number of customers.
To do the calculation using the value theory approach, you'll have to do a lot of research and talk with
users to see what they would be willing to pay.
Also, you need to estimate how many potential customers you'll have.

Example: calculating SOM using a "bottom-up approach" approach
Say that you work in a SaaS startup that develops accounting software for small and medium-
sized businesses.
You will be relying on content marketing to promote your product to prospective customers.
You have the company's youtube channel where your colleagues from the marketing team
post videos on managing bookkeeping and accounting operations.
You estimate that you'll have around 1000 views per day, and 5% of viewers will be
converting to prospective customers.
Next, you plan that 20% of the prospective customers will buy a subscription to your
product.
It gives us ten customers per day.
Finally, multiply the number of customers per day on 365 days to get the total number of
customers you can expect in a year.

Chapter 6: Creating alignment among
product stakeholders

Why stakeholders'
alignment is
important?
Who is your product stakeholders inside a company?
Why stakeholders' alignment is important?

Let's re-cap:
Product internal stakeholders play a vital part in the product development
process.
You collaborate with the stakeholders to agree on the following:
Your stakeholders can be members of any team that influence product
development - from senior management to HR.
Business objectives you are solving.
Outcomes you look for.
Problems you want to fix and for whom.
The best possible solution.
Possible risks you want to avoid.

Product goals planning &
setting process. OKRs
framework.
Why do companies plan and set product goals?
OKRs technique for planning and setting goals.
Examples of OKRs.

Let's re-cap:
Apart from setting up product vision, strategy and roadmap, you must also
bear in mind your product goals.
It's common for the tech industry and beyond to use the OKRs (Objectives
and Key Results) technique for planning and setting goals.
Product goals are outcomes of the Product Roadmap that measure daily or
quarterly progress against the Product Strategy.
The idea behind the OKRs is that you answer two questions: first, where do
you want to go, and second, how will you know that you are getting there.
As a product manager, you must know your OKRs. So include a conversation
about OKRs in your to-do list for the first weeks after joining a new company
(team).

Product team's OKRs:
Objective:
Increase the number of daily active users
by 20%
KR1: Add a referral mechanism for existing
users to share products with friends.
KR2: Implement an auto-login feature.
KR3: Add a chatbot to support visitors
during onboarding.
Marketing team's OKRs:
Objective:
Increase the number of daily active users
by 20%
KR1: Acquire 100 daily leads from a local
advertisement on social media.
KR2: Acquire 20 daily leads from organic
search.

Alignment techniques -
Impact Mapping
Intro to the Impact Mapping framework.
Other use-cases when you can benefit from
this framework, apart from stakeholders
alignment.

Let's re-cap:
Impact mapping is a technique to strategize and plan product development
work, from setting goals to prioritizing specific solutions.
The main purpose of the framework is to build alignment among product
stakeholders.
But, besides this, the impact mapping may come in handy:
As a writing framework for creating a Product Requirement Documents.
As a framework you can use to nail down one of the most stressful whiteboard
interviews.

Impact Mapping -
steps 1 - 3
Impact mapping step 1 - define Why.
How to set up SMART goals.
Impact mapping step 2 - define Who.
Impact mapping step 3 - define How.

Let's re-cap:
To build an Impact Map, you go through the four-step process: define the
Why, Who, How, and What.
When setting up the goals, check if they are SMART -
To define Why you answer the question: What's the goal we are trying to
achieve?
To define Who, you specify actors. Actors could be everyone who can help you to
achieve the goal or stop you.
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
To define How, you think about HOW Actors should act or change their behavior
to impact the goal you set in the first step.
Relevant
Time-Bound
For actors-users, list down the needs of your users that you have to solve
with your solution.
Don't think about any particular solution just yet.

S M A R T
G O A L S
What do I want
to accomplish?
Why is this goal
important?
Which resources
or limits are
involved?
How will I
know when it
is
accomplished?
How can I
accomplish
this goal?
How realistic
is the goal,
considering all
constraints I
have?
Does this seem
worthwhile?
Is this the
right time?
Am I the right
person to reach
this goal?
When?
What can I do
three months
from now?
What can I do in
a month?

S M A R T
G O A L S
Goal 1: Increase the number of monthly active users by 5% in 3 months.
Goal 2: Increase the conversion rate of free to paid customers by 5% in 6 months.
Goal 3: Reduce out-of-stock cases to less than 5% in 6 months.

Other alignment techniques
- Business Model Canvas
Introduction of a Business Model canvas.
Nine components of the canvas, with
examples.
Overview of the most common pricing
strategies.
When and how the canvas can be helpful.

Let's re-cap:
A business Model Canvas helps explore, visualize, and communicate the
business model of an organization.
You work with the Canvas by filling in its right-hand side first:
What value you are creating.
For whom.
Some of the most popular pricing strategies are as follows:
Cost-plus pricing.
1.
Value-based pricing.
2.
Next, you fill in the left-hand side of the Canvas. You answer the questions:
3. Competitive pricing.
4. Dynamic pricing.
How you deliver that value.
How you capture value as a company.
What do you need to have to create the value?
What are your business's key activities?
What are the major costs involved.
You can rely on the Business Model Canvas to:
Brainstorm new business models.
1.
Think about product innovations.
2.
Quickly understand a business model of a company.
3.

What is a Business model
What is a business model?
Why you need to understand your company's business model.
Five business model types commonly used by tech companies today.

Let's re-cap:
A business model (BM) is a framework for how a company creates its value
proposition and makes revenues.
This knowledge will help you decide what changes to introduce to your
product and your company's BM to ensure product growth and innovation.
Understanding the BM of your company, competitors, and emerging BMs in your
industry is must-have knowledge for a Product Manager.
There are at least five business model types commonly used by tech companies today:
Freemium.
It implies that a company offers a basic product for free, but you have to upgrade to the paid plan to
get additional features and services.
Subscription
With this model, customers pay a monthly or annual recurring revenue fee to get access to a
product or service.

Let's re-cap:
There are at least five business model types commonly used by tech companies today:
Companies might apply several business models to reach customers and
grow.
Peer-to-Peer.
A company that operates by the peer-to-peer model acts as a middleman between two
individual parties connecting the demand and supply sides.
Hidden revenue.
This model implies that users don't have to pay for the services or products offered, but the
company earns revenues from a third party.
Open-source model.
It implies that the company's software product source code is not kept proprietary but is freely
accessible to anyone.

Other alignment techniques
Lean Canvas method.
Opportunity Canvas.
The working backward process from Amazon.

Let's re-cap:
Lean Canvas is an adaptation of a Business Model Canvas.
An Opportunity Canvas is helpful when you want to add the next important feature to
the existing product.
The selection of a specific technique will depend on the level of your discovery effort
- e.g., whether you plan to create an entirely new business, a new product, or a
feature for an existing product.
Every product organization might have a specific procedure for assessing an
opportunity.
The main idea behind the Lean Canvas was to make it entrepreneur-focused.
It guides entrepreneurs as they navigate their way from ideation to building a successful
startup.
In addition, opportunity Canvases are very handy for comparing and prioritizing multiple
competing product features or directions.
Working Backwards method invented by Amazon is helpful to validate a new feature,
product, or even a company!

Solution ideation techniques
Recap on the steps of the brainstorming process.
Tips and tricks on organizing and handling productive brainstorming sessions.

Let's re-cap:
Brainstorming is a structured and organized process that starts by:
To ensure that your brainstorming session is worthwhile:
Creating a list of brainstorming questions.
1.
Generating and visualizing solution ideas.
2.
Combining similar ideas.
3.
Prioritizing the most promising ideas you can take to the
prototyping stage.
4.
Form a cross-functional team of up to 8 people.
1.
Set aside a dedicated time slot.
2.
Ask your participants to show up with product examples that are relevant to
your brainstorming question and that can boost your team's creativity.
3.
You can use a technique called "crazy 8" to visualize ideas.
The idea behind the technique is that every participant has 8 minutes to draw
eight solution ideas on a piece of paper.
When the timer is up, the group shares and discusses the ideas.

Intro to step 4 of the impact mapping
process.
Overview of five possible solutions for
JustDo and their pros and cons.
Follow along: Impact
Mapping - step 4

Let's re-cap:
In step 4 of Impact mapping, we define what we will build or possible
solutions (also called "deliverables").
Possible solutions for the JustDo follow-along project include the following:
Slack community
FB community
Community at Meetup.com
Telegram bot
New app
We fill in this level of the map after we run a brainstorming workshop with
our team and stakeholders.

Solution 1: Slack community
Simplicity:
1.
it doesn't require
any upfront
development,
it's straightforward
to set up a new
Slack channel.
It doesn't allow any
robust mechanism for
matching participants by
specific criteria.
1.

Solution 2: Facebook community
The most
straightforward idea
of all:
1. No matching mechanism
for participants.
1.
it's easy to join a
community and
set up a new FB
group.
2. FB group doesn't allow
to organize the
information by themes or
topics.

Community at Meetup
Solution 3

Solution 3: Community at Meetup
No significant upfront
customization is
required.
1.
The platform is
popular among my
target user group.
2.
There should be a
process to organize a
meetup event (online or
offline).
1.
It's not clear if it's
possible to organize a
location-independent
group.
2.

Solution 4: Telegram bot
Step 1:
New user
onboarding
Step 2:
Matching
participants &
project owners
Step 3:
Weekly status
update

Solution 4: Telegram bot
The solution can
provide an automated
matching mechanism
for team members.
1. Implementing this idea
requires much more time
than three of our
previous ideas.
1.

Solution 5: Create a new app
It offers the most
user-tailored and
convenient journey.
1. It requires investing time
and resources in
development.
1.

Prioritization techniques -
overview
Why and when do you need to make prioritization calls.
What frameworks you can use.
What are some typical yet bad prioritization practices still in place in some
companies?

Let's re-cap:
As a PM, you cannot and shouldn’t work on all the ideas from your ideas
backlog.
Your job is to choose the most promising ideas to focus on:
those that are desirable for users,
1.
feasible to build and
2.
business viable.
3.
You make prioritization decisions at nearly every stage of the product
development process:
from deciding what projects to include into the strategic product roadmap to selecting
features that will be part of the next product release.
In the course, we will cover five prioritization frameworks that are widely
used by tech companies and that you can start with:
RICE score
1.
KANO model
2.
Critical path method
3.
Moscow method
4.
Buy a feature method
5.

Let's re-cap:
There are some bad practices you have to avoid, including:
prioritizing based on the Highest Paid Person Opinion,
1.
prioritizing based on the Next Customer deal,
2.
prioritizing based on your competitors’ moves.
3.

Prioritization techniques -
RICE framework
Intro to RICE prioritization.
Overview of four factors included in the framework: reach, impact, confidence,
effort.
Bonus: Two additional criteria you can include in the framework.

Let's re-cap:
The RICE prioritization framework includes four factors to assess every
product opportunity or project.
Reach shows how many customers a project affects within a given time.
The Impact estimates an impact of a project on an individual user.
The third factor is Confidence in your estimates.
Effort that estimates how much time a project will take from your team.
You are free to replace some factors as you seem fit or include additional
ones such as:
Social responsibility. Having this factor in your prioritization list, you and your
team ask if your product is socially responsible.
1.
Sustainability. There is a positive trend that more customers are using—and are
willing to pay a premium for—products and services that are produced in a
sustainable way.
2.

Reach x Impact x Confidence
Effort
RICE
score

Other prioritization
techniques
Critical path prioritization.
KANO model.
Moscow method.
"Buy a feature" technique.

Let's re-cap:
A critical path framework helps you prioritize those must-have functions you
absolutely cannot miss to convince your customers to hire your product.
KANO model helps to classify customer preferences and expectations into five
categories:
The MoSCoW method helps to understand what matters the most for your
customers and stakeholders by grouping product features into:
Expected or must-be requirements.
1.
Normal needs or Satisfiers.
2.
Exciting needs or Delighters.
3.
Indifferent needs.
4.
Reverse needs.
5.
Must-Haves.
1.
Should-Haves.
2.
Could-Haves.
3.
Won't-Haves.
4.
"Buy-a-feature" game helps to nudge the stakeholders to talk about their
needs and motivations for the features they selected during the game.
Regardless of the framework you use, always run your stakeholders through it.

Follow along: Prioritizing
solution for JustDo
Prioritizing five possible solutions for JustDo with the RICE framework.

Community in
Slack
Closed group
in Facebook
Community at
Meetup
Telegram bot
No code
application
No upfront
development.
Sraightforward to set
up a new Slack
channel.
It's easy to join a
community and set
up a new FB group.
No significant
upfront
customization is
required.
It can provide an
automated matching
mechanism for team
members.
Offers the most
user-tailored and
convenient
journey.
No mechanism for
matching
participants by
specific criteria.
No matching
mechanism for
participants. No
themes or topics.
There should be a
process to organize
a meetup event
(online or offline).
Implementing it
requires much more
time than three of
the previous ideas.
Requires investing
time & resources
in development.
Reach 1 1 1 1 1
Impact 1 0.25 0.5 2 2
Confidence 100 100 80 50 100
Effort 0.25 0.1 0.25 0.5 0.5

RICE Score
(total impact per time
worked)
Community in
Slack
400
Closed group in
Facebook
250
Community at
Meetup
160
Telegram bot 200
No code
application
400
We see two clear leaders here - Slack community
and no code builder.
However, I have an additional learning objective for
this course - I want to show you how to use no-code
builders to create functional prototypes and test
your product ideas quickly.
So I'll prioritize the solution of building a No code
application.

Chapter 8: Solution prototyping

Introduction to Solution
prototyping
Why do we need to create solution prototypes?
Steps of the solution prototyping process.

Let's re-cap:
The higher the costs of building something, the more solution tests you have
to run to de-risk the future product development and launch.
Solution prototyping process include the following steps:
We define assumptions about the solution and what can break it.
1.
We find the riskiest assumptions out of our assumptions list - these are the
assumptions we want to validate in the first place.
2.
We plan, create, and run prototype experiments to validate or invalidate our
riskiest assumptions.
3.
We measure the experiment's results and decide how to proceed next.
4.
Usually, we do multiple iterations of steps one to four until we are confident
in our solution and ready to go ahead with the development or until the
moment when we realize that it doesn't work and we have to make a pivot.

Finding assumptions about
your solution
Overview of solution risks relative to the lifecycle stage of a company.
An alternative way of thinking about the riskiest assumptions through your
business model canvas.

Let's re-cap:
We kick off the prototyping phase by finding the riskiest
assumptions about our solution.
The risks will depend on what lifecycle stage your product and
company belong to.
The major assumption you make at the "drunken walk" stage include:
Users have a problem.
You know how to solve it.
You have the resources to develop the solution.
Desirability
risk
Feasibility
risk
Business
viability
When you try to get to the product-market fit, you usually make market-
related assumptions:
You know how to reach the customers, sell them, and retain them.
You have a big enough market for the new product.
You can get customers to pay for the product.
The common assumptions that we make at the growth stage include:
We can find enough customers to grow and scale the product.
We can sustain the growth.
We can deliver the solution in a profitable way.
The alternative way of thinking about the riskiest assumptions is through the Business
Model canvas that contains the major assumptions related to your idea.

Follow along: finding
assumptions for JustDo
Overview of the major assumptions for the JustDo solution.

# Assumptions for JustDo no code application
1 I assume people are aware and believe they can launch their educational side project to develop new skills.
2 I assume that people experience challenges finding ideas for their projects.
3 People want to collaborate with others on a side project.
4 I believe that people want to share their project ideas with others.
5 People will pay a premium to get access to educational tutorials that guide them on how to build and launch their side projects.
6 People think that they don't need to know how to code to start their side project.
7 I assume there is a growing demand for roles in product management teams, product design teams, and software engineering.
8 I assume that I'm able to build and grow the community of people interested in getting into the tech field.
9 I assume that the most loyal users will help to spread the word about the product and share it with their friends and colleagues.

Assumptions mapping
technique: Finding the
riskiest assumptions
What is a "leap-of-faith" assumption?
How to identify assumptions that need further testing.

Let's re-cap:
You don't need to test all the assumptions about your solution.
Your goal is to find the "leap-of-faith" or riskiest assumptions.
You find your riskiest assumptions by comparing every assumption against
each other on two dimensions:
Evidence.
Importance.
Your riskiest assumptions will be those with the highest priority and lowest
proof.
These assumptions carry the most risks and need to be tested or validated.

Have evidence No evidence
Unimportant
Important
Source: Testing Business Ideas, David J. Bland
The riskiest
assumptions

Prototyping techniques
(part 1)
Feature stub or fake door prototype.
404 test.
Storyboard.
Paper prototype.
Explainer video.

Let's re-cap:
Feature stub or "Fake door."
We learned about storyboards that visualize user experience with a product
as a series of illustrations.
404 test, the riskier, but easy-to-create variation of the "fake door" test.
We talked about the paper prototyping technique that can be a good tool
for initial internal discussion with your team.
It is used to test a new feature for an existing product by creating just the
beginning of a user experience, usually a button.
It is when instead of showing users the information that a feature is not
available yet, you show them a 404 error screen.
We covered the explainer video, which describes your product idea in a
simple and engaging short video.

Popular Designs
Thank you for your interest!
A gallery of popular designs is a
feature we are currently working on.
We will let you know when it's ready.
Okay

Source: https://voltagecontrol.com/blog/how-to-create-a-collaborative-rapid-prototype/

(part 2)
Landing page prototype experiment.

Let's re-cap:
The landing page test works for early-stage validation of the market demand
and scale of the problem.
To assess the results of the experiment, you calculate the conversion rate for your
landing page by dividing the total number of actions by the total number of visitors
and multiplying by 100%.
What your product is.
1.
For whom.
2.
What problems it solves.
3.
Call-To-Action button.
4.
It's a standalone page that includes information on:
You aim to score way above the industry average, which fluctuates from 2
to 5%.
Since the landing page experiment gives relatively weak validation of your idea,
use other techniques in the later stages of your solution discovery and validation.

(part 3)
Clickable Prototype.
Extreme Programming Spike.
Wizard of Oz.

Let's re-cap:
Clickable prototypes are digital interactive simulations that resemble the
real product, but there is no background logic involved to execute the tasks.
Since they look and feel like real products, they are expensive to create
and make changes.
Consider going through more straightforward validation methods
beforehand.
Extreme programming spikes are experiments that validate the technical
feasibility of your solution.
Unlike other prototyping techniques, it requires you to have software
engineers in a team to create this test.
By doing a Wizard of Oz experiment, you create a perception of a real
functional product while humans perform all tasks in the background.
The prototype helps you to validate solutions without investing resources in
creating automation.

(part 4)
The mashup or No code prototype experiment.

Let's re-cap:
The mashup or no-code prototype is a functional product you put together
without writing code by combining different 3rd party products.
You can use the no-code tools to launch the first version of your product.
These products typically use intuitive interfaces, drag-and-drop design, and
other functionality that allow you to create a working prototype in several
weeks.
Next, you improve the product until you cannot scale further and have to
switch to traditional software development work.

Planning prototype
experiments: Solution
hypotheses
Why do we need to run a prototype experiment?
What is a Minimum Viable Experiment?
Three components of every experiment.
How to define solution hypotheses.

Let's re-cap:
We design experiments in the MVE style.
Every experiment consists of three components:
the simplest design for testing a hypothesis,
the easiest implementation of that design,
the least amount of data that needs to be collected to validate the
hypothesis.
MVE, which stands for Minimum Viable Experiment, means that our goal is to
build an experiment that requires:
A hypothesis is our riskiest assumption in a testable form. We may use these
templates to transform our assumptions into hypotheses:
The hypothesis you want to test.
1.
Description of the test we will run to verify the hypothesis.
2.
Criteria when we consider the experiment successful.
3.
Running prototype experiments helps to validate or invalidate the riskiest
assumptions and, as a result, reduces the risks associated with solution
development and launch.

We believe that [doing this] for [these people] will achieve [this outcome]
because [this reason]
We believe that [these people] will [do this] because [reason]
For new
products

Planning prototype
experiments: Defining what
tests to run and success
metrics
Deciding what tests we will run to validate/invalidate hypotheses.
Defining success metrics for every experiment.

Let's re-cap:
Every prototype experiment consists of the following three main
components:
The hypotheses you want to test.
Description of the test you will run to verify the hypotheses:
Feature stub or fake door prototype.
1.
404 test.
2.
Storyboard.
3.
Paper prototype.
4.
Explainer video.
5.
Landing page prototype experiment.
6.
Clickable Prototype.
7.
Extreme Programming Spike.
8.
Wizard of Oz.
9.
The mashup or No code prototype experiment.
10.
Criteria when you consider the experiment successful.

Let's re-cap:
To help you select the metrics, ask the following question:
What is the desired effect of this experiment? (this can be an increase in free to
paid conversion or growth of user engagement, like page views or clicks).
You are not necessarily starting with creating solution prototypes. In case
you are yet at the stage of validating a problem and discovering what
solution may solve it, consider running such discovery experiments as user
interviews, surveys, or event tracking.

Solution hypothesis:
We believe learners will be satisfied with purchasing a 2000$
cohort-based course because they value studying in the
community of like-minded people.
To verify that, we will launch one cohort-
based course.
We will measure the following metrics:
How many
students signed
up for the
course
How satisfied
they are after
the course
We may learn that
some users like
cohort-based
courses more than
others
We can find that
students value
some parts of the
program more
than others

Follow along: Creating
experiments for JustDo
Planning prototype experiments for JustDo.

Solution assumption Hypothesis
I assume that people experience challenges
finding ideas for their projects.
We believe that [working professionals] will
[join side projects of others] because they
[experience challenges finding ideas to kick-off
their project].
People want to collaborate with others on a
side project.
[invite others to join their side projects] because
[they want to learn in the community of like-
minded individuals.]
People want to share their project ideas with
others.
[share their project ideas with the community of
like-minded people] because [they want to find
participants for their projects].

Hypothesis
[join side projects of others] because they
[experience challenges finding ideas to
kick-off their project].
[invite others to join their side projects]
because [they want to learn in the
community of like-minded individuals.]
[share their project ideas with the
community of like-minded people] because
[they want to find participants for their
projects].
To verify that:
We will develop a no-code
prototype and create an experience
for people to either find people for
their project or find projects they
want to join as participants.
We will know we are successful
when:
At least ten out of 20 users
expressed interest in collaborating
on a project with others -
invited others to join their project
contacted project owners to join
their projects

Chapter 9: Building up solution prototype
with Glideapps

Do you need to know no-
code software development
tools as a Product Manager?
What is no-code?
Why we will use Glideapps for this course.
Why do we skip other, less expensive prototyping techniques?
How having a no-code app can benefit your job application.
How knowing no-code helps you at your job.

Let's re-cap:
No-code tools let you create working software without necessarily knowing
how to write code in a traditional software engineering sense.
We use Glideapps in the course as of the most beginner-friendly tool
available in the market anyone can start with.
By using tools like Glideapps, we can create a solution where users can
interact with and experience the value of the product and provide feedback.
But of course, we will develop the prototype in the MVE style - we will prioritize only
must-have features or those that are critical for our solution to work and provide
value.
Having a no-code application in your portfolio will strengthen your first or
next application for a PM role - it demonstrates your awareness of the latest
trends and that you are not afraid to try new tools and technology.
If you join a startup as their first PM with no-code knowledge, you can contribute to
the work from day one and learn new tools faster.

Let's re-cap:
You will still be better off knowing no-code if you don't plan to join a startup
soon.
Established businesses can benefit from no-code by creating internal apps like employee
directories, KPIs reports, or other internal tools.

Follow-along: Introduction
to what we are building in
Glide
Main functions of the first version of the JustDo app.

Step 1:
Sign-up
functionality
(offered by Glide)
Step 2:
The new user
onboarding process
Step 3:
JustDo Discovery
tab
Background
Skills
Project
owner or
participant
Open
projects
People
looking
for projects

We want to create a prototype in the MVE
(Minimum Viable Experiment) style

How users can collaborate in the app:
Collaboration via
LinkedIn messaging
Background
Skills
Project
owner or
participant
LinkedIn profile
Collaboration via
the Comments
section
Project details

Let's re-cap:
Custom onboarding flow for a new user.
1.
browsing for projects and people.
registering a new project.
connecting with other app users.
2. Functionality for users to engage with the application, including:
We've decided to implement the following functionality for the JustDo app:

Four-step process of
creating a prototype with
Glide
Overview of the four-step process of creating a prototype with Glide.

Let's re-cap:
First, we will create data structures or tables using Google sheets so that we
have a place to store and update the data we need for our app to work.
Second, we need to organize data visually using different layouts and navigation offered by
Glide.
Third, we will add actions so that we can display the information from our Google sheets
and perform different operations with our data.
Fourth, we have to test our prototype internally before sharing it with users to ensure that
everything works as planned.

Prototyping with Glide:
Step 1.1.
How data is stored in a no-code app.
How to define your data structure.
Rules on creating data structures in Google sheets.
Creating data structures for JustDo.
Creating data source with
Google Sheets

Let's re-cap:
When you create an app without code, that data will usually be stored in a
spreadsheet.
Google Sheets is typically the easiest and most accessible spreadsheet software connected
easily with no code builders.
Before opening a new Google Sheets file, ask yourself what information you need for your
application to function. In other words, what your project is about.
Rules on creating data structures in Google sheets:
Within each table, the first row should be column names. These column names should
describe the properties of your items.
And every following row should have values in each of these columns.
When you add values to columns, it's okay to leave some cells empty. But if you leave big
gaps between rows & columns, Glide may not pick up your data correctly.

Step 1.2.
How to connect Google sheets file with your application.
How to navigate in Glide: an overview of the main screens.
Connecting Google sheets file
with your Glide app

Let's re-cap:
Steps to connect your Google sheets file with an app in Glide include the
following:
The main screens in Glide include the following:
The left-hand side of the screen: Tabs, Menu, and Components (to customize layouts and
functions for every screen).
The right-hand side of the screen: Customization options for every screen.
Center of the screen: Data Editor, Main layout tab, and Settings.
Create an account with Glide.
1.
Create a new project.
2.
Choose your data source - Google sheets.
3.
Select a google sheets file that you want to connect to the application.
4.

Example of the main navigation screen for JustDo

Step 1.3.
Why you need Data Editor.
Manipulating your data via Data Editor.
What is a row ID column?
What is a relation column?
Managing your data with
Data Editor

Let's re-cap:
Data Editor helps you further manipulate the data from your spreadsheet
with powerful functions that structure and connect your data.
With a relation column, you can link records from one table or sheet to another in the case
when the two tables share common data.
The row ID is a unique ID that helps Glide keep track of every row regardless
of your changes.
As a rule of thumb, please remember to add a row ID for the data that you
expect will be modified often.
"Lookup" is a special Glide function that looks through the Relation column and finds all the
data from the second table (or sheet).

Email First Name Last Name ...
user1@gmail.
com
Kate Chou
user2@gmail.
com
Jonathan Smith
user5@gmail.
com
Adam Patterson
Category
Project
Name
... Owner email
Hobbies&Fun Party app
user1@gmail.
com
Education Codium
user1@gmail.
com
Education RoboFinance
user5@gmail.
com
Table: Users
Table: Projects
Example of the Relation column
If we set up a Relation column in the Users table,
we can find all the information about projects for
every user - for example, project names,
descriptions, or categories - literally everything
that we have in the Projects table.

Step 2.1.
Overview of the three main levels of every app: Tabs, Top-level screens, and
Detail screens.
Setting up Tabs for JustDo.
Customizing application layout
- Tabs

Let's re-cap:
For the majority of applications out there, there are three main levels you
need to think about:
Tabs.
1.
Top-level screens.
2.
Detail screens.
3.
The purpose of the top-level screens is to structure the information by first
showing the high-level view of the data and then drilling down to the
detailed view.
Tabs represent the main navigation of an application. They allow you to
transition between your top-level screens.
If a user is keen to find out more details about an item, they can drill down to
the detail screen. And from this screen, they can perform certain actions -
like sending an email, starting a chat, or filling in an application form.

Step 2.2.
Customizing top-level and detailed screens for the People tab of the JustDo
app.
Customizing application layout
- Top-level & detailed screens

Let's re-cap:
When customizing a screen for a new Tab, switch to the Details view.
As a rule of thumb, please always switch off the "allow users to edit" check-
boxes when you customize layouts for your tabs, high-level, and detail
screens.
Get rid of all the components to start customizing every Tab screen from
scratch.
If you want to give a possibility for a user to change data - for example, to
change their own profiles or any other objects they created in the app - you
can do this by including certain actions into the users' experience. We will
cover the topic later on in our tutorials.

Prototyping with Glide
Difference between Chat and Comments.
How Glide stores Chat data.
How to delete messages in Chat.
Follow along: Customizing
application layout - global
chat

Let's re-cap:
We can enable Chat in any app we build with Glide.
Unlike the project-specific comments that we included for every project, all
users of your app see the same messages in the chat tab.
Anyone can post messages and comments in Chat tab.
To delete chat messages, click and hold on any message. This will allow you
to then select multiple messages and delete them. This can only be done by
you - the builder of the application.
The chat messages are stored in the same table as comments in your google
sheets. However, for the chat, Glide assigns another topic by default - global
Chat. This means that all messages on this topic will be visible to all users.

When you need Row Owners.
How to activate Row Owners for your app.
Restricting data access for
users with the Row Owners
feature

Let's re-cap:
Your app can have data that only some users should access, e.g. some
private information about users, such as their birth dates, passport data, or
salary information.
Row Owners functionality lets you restrict who can download data based on
the email address they sign in with.
If a sheet has Row Owners enabled, then the current user can only download
rows that they own.

Step 3.
What actions exist in Glide.
Actions we will implement for the JustDo app.
Including Actions in your app

Let's re-cap:
There are many different actions in Glide.
The most commonly used actions are Data actions that help us to change
data. These include things like adding a new row to a table or setting up
column values.
The second group of actions is navigation which shows or moves users to
different screens. For example, with navigation actions, we can do the
following:
show an edit screen for a table
show notifications
go to a specific Tab
The list of the key actions for the JustDo app (1st version) includes:
Custom onboarding flow for a new user.
Browsing for projects and people.
Registering a new project.
Connecting with other app users.

Two options for how you can modify data in Glide.
Demonstration of how to implement one of the options.
Follow along: How to change
existing data (for projects)

Let's re-cap:
So to modify something in Glide, you have two options:
Option 2: you can add a change button with an action "show edit screen."
Option 1: you can enable form editing and set the condition when users can
edit.
For example, only project owners can edit their projects, so we have to include
this condition: The owner's email is a signed-in user email.

Four questions to assess if users are interested in your solution.
How to customize the survey form in Glide.
Follow along: Collecting users'
feedback on your solution

Let's re-cap:
You can set up a questionnaire depending on what kind of solution
hypothesis you'd like to test.
Since, in most cases, the number one riskiest assumption that your solution
will have is that people don't want it, let's set up the questions that help to
assess if users are interested in the solution.
Q1: How would you feel if you could no longer use Solution X?
Very disappointed
Somewhat disappointed
Not disappointed
Q2: What type of people do you think would most benefit from Solution X?
Q3: What is the main benefit you receive from Solution X?
Q4: How can we improve Solution X for you?

Chapter 10: Getting feedback and iterating
with your solution

Usability testing: Definition,
goals, and types
Why test usability.
Goals of the usability testing.
Four types of usability testing.

Let's re-cap:
You begin gathering user feedback on the solution by running usability tests
to understand that users know how to navigate your solution interfaces and
what to do.
The main goals of the usability testing are to:
Find problems with your product design.
1.
Find opportunities to improve your design, and
2.
Continue learning about the behaviors and needs of your target users.
3.
The tests can be qualitative when you observe how users interact with your
product and what challenges they face.
The second type of test is quantitative when you collect metrics related to
user experience.
Finally, we can do usability testing remotely or in person.
You do remote moderated tests when you are present during the test and
unmoderated tests when users perform all tasks on their own, and you
receive a recording of the sessions.

Usability testing: How to
prepare and run the test
How to prepare for the testing.
How to conduct the test to get the maximum insights from your target users.

Let's re-cap:
Before starting a usability test, define the tasks you want users to do.
During the test:
Remind users that you are testing a product, not them.
Before stating a task, ask about their first impression of an interface or a screen
they see.
Give the task name and avoid giving instructions on how to do it.
Pay attention to whether a user can finish the task and what challenges they face
during its execution.
Finally, ask the following questions for every screen your users interact with:
What do you see?
What do you think?
What do you feel?
What do you want to do?
What you can do?

Usability testing: How many
users do you need, and
where to find them
How many participants do you need for each test and
How to recruit your target users.

Let's re-cap:
When deciding how many participants to recruit, your goal is to improve
your design through multiple iterations of testing.
You will be able to collect about 85% of all the insights with just five users
you invite for every iteration (assuming that they belong to the same user
group).
If you have several distinct groups of users, consider inviting 3 to 4 users
from each group.
For your first user tests, you can recruit users outside your target group
unless you are developing products for a very specific user group, like
commodity traders.
The process of recruiting test participants may take a lot of your time, so
consider delegating it, for example by using dedicated platforms such as:
UserInterviews.com
Respondent.io

Testing solution
desirability
Why you need to run desirability tests.
Examples of questions you can ask during the test.
How desirability testing fits into the solution validation process.

Let's re-cap:
When testing solution desirability, you want to understand the following:
To test the solution value, you can ask:
You run the desirability test after you nailed down product usability
concerns and when it is of a high-fidelity.
If your solution solves a problem for your target users.
If they see value in the solution, meaning they are ready to pay for it and
switch from the competing products.
if users are ready to pay for your product or
invest their time in sharing about it on their social media or
agree to work with you further to enhance the product.

Getting solution feedback
from internal teams
How to validate solution feasibility.
How to make sure that your solution is business viable.

Let's re-cap:
To ensure that your solution is feasible, you work closely with the
engineering team to answer the following questions:
Engineers usually take a lead in validating these matters, but you have to
give them some time to investigate and research.
To validate if your solution is business viable, you work closely with the
following teams:
Do we know how to build the solution?
Do we have the required skills internally to build this?
Do we have enough time to build the solution?
Can we ensure sufficient performance?
Can we scale the solution?
Do we have the infrastructure necessary to test and deploy the solution?
Marketing team.
1.
Sales team.
2.
These are just some examples of teams that will influence the product development
process. There can be and will be more teams involved in the process.
3. Finance team.
4. Legal and Compliance team.

Follow-along: Results of the
first iteration of testing for
JustDo
Walk-through the JustDo application testing process and its results.
Assumptions that have been validated.

Test issue # Issue details
Issue 1
Nearly every user proceeded with exploring existing projects
and didn’t try to create a new project from scratch.
Issue 2
Nearly everyone struggled to find out how to express their
interest in joining a project.
Issue 3
Some users were struggling to tell what the app was about just
based on the registration page.

Chapter 11: Product development

Dual Track Development:
Overview
What is a “dual-track development.”

Let's re-cap:
The dual-track development suggests we begin working on a product by
discovering what to build.
At this stage, we focus on collecting fast learning about problems and
solutions, and we are not yet building an actual product we can offer to
customers.
All the ideas that pass this stage will be moved to the second track -
development - where the solution implementation starts.
Finally, discovery and development work is organized in cycles that usually
fluctuate for the discovery tasks but stay the same for the development.

Source: https://www.jpattonassociates.com/dual-track-development/

Scrum process: Introduction
and Roles
What is Scrum?
Main roles involved in the Scrum process.

Let's re-cap:
Scrum is an agile methodology that advocates iterative software
development in cycles or sprints.
It also promotes an idea of self-organizing teams that, when knowing what
needs to be done, can decide how to get the work done.
Scrum introduces three super roles - scrum master, product owner, and
delivery team - mapped to the traditional roles like PM or product designer.
Scrum master ensures that the team works smoothly, following the goals of
each sprint.
The Product Owner is responsible for the opportunity and product backlogs
and their prioritization.
The delivery team takes care of developing a high-quality product.
Finally, we also have a discovery team in charge of the product discovery
work. This team usually consists of a product owner, designer, and engineers
but may include other members - like business analysts or user researchers.

Scrum process: Sprint and
its steps
Steps of the sprint planning and execution process.

Let's re-cap:
Each Sprint goes through a series of steps.
The second step is the sprint planning meeting, where the team agrees on the
goals of the upcoming Sprint and how they measure the results.
Everything starts with preparation when the product owner meets with the product
team to discuss the current sprint status and what to include in the next one.
The third step is Sprint execution, where the actual work begins.
To keep track of the sprint progress and clarify open questions, the team
members catch up daily for about 15 minutes at so-called "daily stand-ups."
Each Sprint ends with a review and retrospective meeting. The team shares the
work done during the Sprint and how to improve the process for the next Sprints.
Apart from reviewing the work internally, a product manager may share the work
with other stakeholders, including users and the company's internal stakeholders.

Agile project management:
Initiatives, Epics, User
Stories
What is a User Story?
What is Epic?
What is Initiative?

Let's re-cap:
We use user stories, epics, and initiatives to organize and structure the work
during the product development phase.
The user story describes some functionality considered from an end user's
perspective.
Every story includes a small amount of work, and delivery teams usually do
several stories during one sprint.
Stories are combined into Epics, bigger chunks of work delivered over
several sprints.
Finally, epics are included in the initiatives that are usually completed over a
long period, from several quarters to a year until the moment it was created.

User Story 1
User
Story 1
User
Story 2
User
Story 3
User
Story 1
User
Story 2
Epic 1 Epic 2 Epic 3
Initiative 1

Team: inland operations
Increase flights per
quarter from 50 to 70
To increase our passenger turnover by 5%
Introduce a loyalty
program for frequent
travelers
Decrease time required
for boarding by 10%
Team: sales, billing &
invoicing Team: scheduling & logistics
Story 1: Passengers need to be able to enter their frequent flyer ID on
the flight selection page so that they can claim miles for the flight.
Story 2: Passengers need to see their flight upgrade options after
entering their frequent flier ID on the flight selection page to redeem
miles for the next flight.
Story 3: Passengers need to be able to request a frequent flyer ID at the
flight selection page if they are not signed up for the loyalty program
yet so that they can start earning miles for their flights.

Getting started with user
stories (parts 1 and 2)
Three attributes of a User Story.
User Story description.
How to estimate efforts required to execute a Story.
What is a team's velocity?
What are Story's acceptance criteria and their variations?

Let's re-cap:
Every user story consists of the following attributes: story description,
estimation of effort required to implement a story, and acceptance criteria.
The story description is simple sentences with the following structure:
You don't have to follow this exact structure and are welcome to design and
stick to it.
Effort estimation for a story is usually done in the form of so-called "story points"
that show how much effort is required to implement a story fully.
You can use different methods to perform the estimation, for example - "planning poker,"
when every team member estimates a story individually on a scale that was agreed on
with the team upfront and then discuss it with team members in case of disagreements.
As a [type of user], I want to [perform some action], so that [benefit].
Story estimation helps to define the team's velocity - the amount of work the team
can perform every sprint without overpromising.

Let's re-cap:
Finally, acceptance criteria are conditions software must meet to be
accepted by a user, customer, or other stakeholders.
You can use different writing formats to specify the criteria, including
scenario-oriented, rule-oriented, or checklists, or even create your formats!

User stories mapping
technique
Who is involved in creating the user story map?
How to make the story map.
What's the difference between the user story and the customer journey map?

Let's re-cap:
The story mapping technique helps agile teams to overcome common issues
when working with traditional flat product backlogs.
Creating a story map is an exercise that a product manager facilitates and that includes
other participants from agile discovery and development teams and product
stakeholders.
To create the map, you define the high-level activities users will perform
while using a product and list them in chronological order.
Next, you add the tasks the user needs to perform for every activity on the
backbone of the map.
After you define the tasks, you prioritize them and move the most important
tasks on top of the map.
Finally, you split the story map horizontally to define what goes into the
scope of each product release.
The user story and customer journey map complement each other.
First, you define problems or product opportunities using the customer journey map
and then specify what solution will be built using the story map.

Launching a product:
Overview
What it means to launch a product.
Product Launch goals.
Soft launch vs. Full-scale launch.

Let's re-cap:
A product launch is an introduction of a new product or product change to the
market for target customers and partners to learn about it and start using it.
Preparing and implementing a successful launch involves many teams -
product, sales, marketing, customer support, legal, etc.
Launch goals depend on what stage your company and product are in and
may include finding a product-market fit, capturing the first customers,
capturing a new user base, generating more revenues, and others.
When planning the launch, you need to decide on the type of your launch:
A soft launch is when you first launch for a small audience, get their
feedback, and then roll out the product to a wider audience.
Full-scale launch is when you make your product available to all your target
users.

Launch process: Pre-launch
tasks (parts 1 and 2)
Three phases of the launch process.
What is a launch checklist?
Key activities to include in the launch checklist.

Let's re-cap:
Every launch process goes through three phases: preparation, launch
execution, and after-launch activities.
In the preparation phase, the PM takes care of the launch checklist - a
strategic planning document that contains key activities for a successful
launch.
The launch checklist contains the following key elements:
Product readiness includes fixing critical bugs, getting product documentation ready,
and integrating analytics tools with your product.
1.
The second element is deciding on the metrics that will be used to measure the
launch's success.
2.
The third element of the launch checklist is the readiness of the Go-To-Market
strategy. Here you need to think about: your product messaging, channels used to
acquire and distribute the product, pricing strategy, and building up a product launch
list.
3.
The fourth and final element of the launch checklist is enabling key product
stakeholders or partner teams (such as sales, customer support, legal, and leadership)
for the launch.
4.

Launch process: Execution
and Post-launch activities
Things to do on a launch day.
Next steps after the launch.

Let's re-cap:
On the launch day, we release a product to market by pressing a release
button, removing a flag, or enabling a piece of code in a production
environment.
Next, we send an internal and external announcement about the launch,
celebrate it with the team, and start closely monitoring its progress.
We use the feedback received post-launch to iterate with the product and
decide on the next improvement.
Finally, don't forget to keep your stakeholders in the loop about the status of the
launch and critical issues if they happen.

How to measure and
optimize a product-market
fit pre-launch
Five-step framework from Superhuman to measure and optimize a product-
market fit.

Let's re-cap:
The five-step framework from Superhuman to find and optimize a product-
market fit is based on asking users about their emotional attachment to the
product.
You ask your users how they would feel if they could no longer use your
product.
Your goal is to get at least 40% and above users who answered "very
dissapointed" to the question as this is a strong indication of you having a
product-market fit.
To increase your product-market fit score, you focus half of your efforts on
working on what users already love in your product and another half - on the items
that users currently miss and cannot yet convert to your strong supporters.

Chapter 13: Generative AI and
Product Manager’s productivity

AI landscape of
today
What is AI?
What are machine learning foundational learning methodologies?
Overview of AI application areas.
What is Generative AI?

Let's re-cap:
AI is the ability of machines to learn, understand, reason, and interact in ways
similar to us—humans.
A key component of AI, machine learning, involves teaching computers to
recognize patterns and make decisions based on data.
Machines learn in different ways, mainly categorized into three types
(or foundational learning methodologies): supervised, unsupervised, and
reinforcement learning.
Most application areas rely on a combination of these learning methodologies
to leverage the strengths of each.
Generative AI is an umbrella term that includes various techniques focused on
creating new content that never existed before, inspired by real-world examples.

AI Domain / Application areas
Image classification
Expert
systems
Recommender
systems
Computer
vision
Planning &
scheduling
NLP
Robotics
Autonomous
vehicles
Generative
AI
Self-driving
cars
Drones
Automated
public
transit
E-commerce
Sreaming
services
Content
platforms
Resource
management
Logistics
Automated
scheduling
systems
Medical
diagnosis
Financial
services
Legal
advising
Industrial
automation
Medical
robots
Exploration
robots
Image & video
recognition
Medical image
analysis
Surveillance
systems
Language
translation
Speech
recognition
Sentiment
analysis
Chatbots
Voice
assistants
Art Generation
Music
Composition
Text
Generation
Video Game
Development
Film and
Animation
Educational
Content creation
Product
Design
& Prototyping
Foundational Learning Methodologies
Supervised
Learning
Reinforcement
Learning
Unsupervised
Learning

Introducing
Generative AI
Five Levels of the generative AI ecosystem.
Foundational model types.
Capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs), using GPT-4 as an example.

Foundational models can craft articles, generate business reports, design graphics,
and more, all by learning from vast amounts of information.
Let's re-cap:
The second layer, foundational models, consists of large-scale AI models trained on
vast and diverse datasets taken from many different sources, like text, images, and
others.
The first layer is AI Applications and Agents, which includes user-facing tools like
ChatGPT and Midjourney.
The generative AI ecosystem consists of five layers.
Generative AI refers to algorithms that can create new content, ideas, or predictions
based on the data they’ve been trained on.

Last but not least, the future development of generative AI may face bottlenecks
due to increased demand for advanced hardware and reliable power sources.
The fourth and fifth layers include specialized chips, such as GPUs and
supercomputers, which handle intensive computations, and electricity, which
powers all aspects of the AI ecosystem.
The third layer is AI Cloud Software and Infrastructure, which is critical for training
and deploying AI models and is supported by platforms like AWS and Azure.
Models like GPT-4 already exhibit advanced skills such as reasoning and solving
Theory of Mind tasks.
Let's re-cap:
Foundational models can be of different types, including Large Language Models,
image generation models, video generation models, and multimodal models.

Who stands to benefit the
most from generative AI?
What type of work does Generative AI have the biggest impact on.
Four business areas that stand to gain the most from Generative AI.
Which industries will benefit the most from Generative AI.

Let's re-cap:
According to McKinsey research, about 75 percent of the value that generative
AI use cases could deliver falls across four areas:
Generative AI is likely to have the biggest impact on knowledge work—tasks and
activities that primarily involve cognitive functions.
Integrating generative AI into existing software can significantly boost
productivity without the need to develop entirely new Generative AI
products.
Customer operations,
Marketing and sales,
Software engineering and
R&D.
Almost every industry, from banking to healthcare, can benefit from
generative AI through increased efficiency and cost reductions.

Source: McKinsey report “The
economic potential of generative AI”

How Generative AI Can
Impact Product Manager’s
Productivity
How using generic and specialized Generative AI Tools can influence PM
Productivity.
Can Generative AI replace fundamental Product Management skills?

Let's re-cap:
Using generative AI for routine, content-heavy tasks, such as synthesizing user
research and drafting documents, resulted in an accelerated product time to
market by about 5 percent across a six-month product development lifecycle
As knowledge workers, product managers have an opportunity to leverage
generative AI in their work.
The study found that product managers using generative AI tools completed tasks
faster and reported an improved work experience, suggesting that AI can enhance
both productivity and job satisfaction.
The benefits brought by generative AI varied depending on the experience levels of
the product managers, with more seasoned professionals leveraging AI more
effectively than their junior counterparts.
While generative AI cannot replace the fundamental skills required for product
management, it has the potential to help PMs develop those skills.

Follow-Along: Let's build your
AI assistant!
PM tasks where Generative AI is most effective.
Deciding on what AI assistant to build.

Generating Content
Generative AI group of tasks Use-case
Problem statement
User interview questions
Discussion guides
Survey questions
Product Requirement Documents
Brainstorming ideas
Analysis and Research
Analyzing customer interviews
Analyzing support ticket information
Conducting market and competitive
research
Getting Feedback
Feedback on your resume
Recommendations before job interview
Product portfolio feedback

Top-7 recommendations for building
your custom GPT

Start by describing the
purpose and use case for
your GPT
When building your custom GPT:

Identify the target audience
for your GPT

Describe the tone you want
the GPT to have

Provide behavioral
instructions

Break down multi-step tasks
into smaller, more
manageable steps

Iterate, refine and adjust
your instructions

Don’t place to many
restrictions on the GPT

How to share your custom
GPT
3 options for sharing your custom GPT.

So, are you all set to share
your custom GPT with the
world?

Go to your
profile
settings
To publish your GPT in the store, you’ll first need
to verify your Builder Profile:

To publish your GPT in the store, you’ll first need
to verify your Builder Profile:
You can verify your
profile by either adding
billing details or verifying
ownership of a public
domain name.

You’ll add billing details when you upgrade to
a paid plan.
GPT creation is currently available only to paid subscribers, so
you’ll need to upgrade to share your GPT with others.
How to verify with billing details

How to verify with a public domain name
Click the toggle under
"Select a domain".

Enter the domain you
want to associate with
your Builder Profile.
Keep in mind, you can
only have one verified
domain for all GPTs you
create.

Copy the provided TXT
record and paste it into
your DNS provider or
website hosting service
settings.

For example, if your
DNS provider is
Cloudflare:
Go to DNS from the
Home page, and
click on "Add
Record".

Fill in the details in
the form. And that’s
it!
TXT record provided by OpenAI

Once verified, you’ll be able to publish your
GPT for “Everyone”

Chapter 14: Getting your first (or next) role
as a Product Manager

Product interview process:
Overview
HR screening interview.
Home-based assignment.
Interview with the hiring manager (team).
White-board interview.
Behavioural questions.
Cultural-fit interview.
Closing interview with leadership.

Let's re-cap:
The product interview process can vary from company to company, but
there are interviews that most companies usually do.
First, an HR screening interview to verify your profile relevance against the job
description.
Second is the take-home challenge, a more "advanced" version of the screening designed
to dig deeper into your product development expertise before investing time in further
steps.
Next, product interviews come in. Here, you will be asked about your experience in building
products.
Also, there will be product design type of questions when your task is to
design a new product or propose improvements to an existing one.
In every interview, expect to have some behavioral questions that aim to validate if you
did what you claimed in your CV.
The next type of interview is a cultural fit interview to meet with and get to
know other teams in a company.
Your closing interviews will most likely be with the leadership team - head of product, CTO, and
CPO - where you can expect questions on the company's strategy and how you can contribute.

Product interview process
deep dive: Take-home
assignment
What is a take-home assignment?
Four real-life examples of the take-home assignments.
Recommendations on how to complete the assignments to maximize chances
of getting into the next stages of the interview.

Let's re-cap:
Think of a take-home assignment as a more "advanced" version of the
screening interview - the company wants to dig deeper into your experience
and skills before investing in more time-consuming in-person interviews.
To deal with a take-home assignment, pretend you already work as a PM for
a company you are interviewing with.
Examples of tasks will vary and may include questions on:
How you can improve customer experience and stand out from the competition.
1.
Tasks on prioritizing problems you'll focus on and how you structure your work.
2.
You may be asked to speak about future trends in the industry and technology your
target company belongs to and give feedback about the company's product.
3.
To complete the assignment:
demonstrate your knowledge of product frameworks,
use this challenge as an opportunity to check if you like to work with the company's
product, and
reuse your work.

deep dive: Questions about
your past experience
What hiring managers look for when asking these questions.
Real-life examples of questions.
How to answer the questions if you have never worked as a PM before?
Transferable skills.
How to talk about your side project?
Recommendations on how to prepare to speak about your past experience.
START framework.

Let's re-cap:
Expect to have various types of questions - from generic, like Tell me about
your achievements to more nuanced - like How do you prioritize product
backlog?
In all these cases, focus on talking about your most relevant experience.
In your answers, don't just state a framework, but explain why and how you
applied it.
If you have never worked as a PM before, speak about your transferable skills. You
can find them using the skills assessment enclosed in this lecture.
If you don't have any transferable skills you can think of, talk about your side
project focusing on why you've selected this problem to solve.
Prepare your answers in advance. You may also script them for your first rounds of
interviews.
Deliver your responses in a structured way using frameworks like STAR, which is
an acronym for the Situation, Action, and Result.

deep dive: Product design
questions
Format of the questions and real-life examples.
Five recommendations on how to prepare for and answer
the questions.

Let's re-cap:
For the product design questions, you will be asked to design a new or
improve an existing product.
You may be invited to a special "whiteboard interview" or "whiteboard challenge" to go
through this type of question.
To prepare for the questions, follow these recommendations:
First, practice many times, either alone or with a study buddy, before your
first actual interview.
1.
Learn how to deliver a structured response, for example, by using one of the
product development frameworks.
2.
Make decisions based on data from the question prompt or assumptions you
made.
3.
Be prepared to work having ambiguous or limited information.
4.
Speak out loud to explain your thought process.
5.

Product interview process:
10 tips & tricks on how to
prepare and get through
Ten tips & tricks on preparing and going through the interview process.

Let's re-cap:
Tip number one. Approach the interview process in iterations that include the
following steps: preparation, execution, analysis.
Tip number two. To get into the "interview mode" quickly, go through the
hardest interview process first.
Third, don't get stuck in the preparation phase. Set a deadline when you start
doing actual interviews.
Fourth, avoid interviewing with your "dream companies" at the first iteration.
Fifth, don't get disappointed by the low response on your application. It's a marathon, not
a sprint.
Tip number six. Apply for the jobs systematically and not just on an ad-hoc basis.
Seven. Reach out to the companies directly.
Eight. Make detailed notes after every interview.
Nine. Do follow-ups with companies and ask for their interview feedback if you don't get
offers.
And tip number ten. Include keywords and phrases from relevant job openings in your CV.

Crafting your perfect resume:
Covering the basics
Five recommendations on crafting your job-winning resume.

Let's re-cap:
Treat your resume as a product aimed at getting you to the screening call with
the HR manager.
Keep your resume concise, prioritizing relevant information for the specific
roles you're applying to.
Use a clean and simple, text-based resume format and avoid fancy and
stylish resume templates.
Proofread your resume for grammar, typos, as well as formatting and punctuation
consistency.
Avoid buzzwords and cliches in your resume.
Finally, include relevant skills and keywords to increase chances of getting past
ATS, but remember to use the keywords within the context of your story.

Resume structure
Specific sections worth including in your resume.

Let's re-cap:
Include the following sections in the resume:
Header with your name, contact information, link to your comprehensive
LinkedIn profile, and portfolio website.
Next goes either your education or work experience.
Highlight your most relevant and transferable experience in the Experience
section of your resume.
Include a section for relevant projects if you lack direct product
management experience.
Add a skills section to highlight your main areas of expertise and specific
software you are good at.
Include relevant training, certifications, and awards in a separate section.
Finally, consider including hobbies only if they are relevant to the role and
can provide an extra edge to your application.
Place education before work experience if you are a fresh
graduate or if you have recently obtained a postgraduate
degree like an MBA.

Achievement statements
How to write achievement statements.
X-Y-Z formula from Google with examples.

Let's re-cap:
When describing past work experience:
Focus on achievements, not just job responsibilities
Use the X-Y-Z formula: "Accomplished [X] as measured by [Y], by doing [Z]."
Include quantitative results and impact in bullet points.
Start sentences with strong action verbs (e.g., Achieved, Improved,
Developed, Increased, Prioritized, Led, and others.)
State one achievement per bullet point.

Crafting your perfect resume
with ChatGPT
Two use cases of using the ChatGPT when writing a Resume.

To sum-up:
ChatGPT works well as your assistant, helping you with generating
improvement ideas, like in the case of finding transferable skills.
However, you cannot expect perfect results and the outcomes ready to be sent to
hiring teams.
You should know the resume writing best practices that we’ve covered in the
previous lectures so that you can check the output of the language model and
make necessary adjustments.

Optimizing your LinkedIn
profile
Ten things that help your LinkedIn page shine and stand out.

Let's re-cap:
Before making any changes, don’t forget to disable sharing profile updates with
your network.
Use the #OpenToWork feature to attract more attention from recruiters.
Customize your LinkedIn URL to include your name or a variation of it.
Choose a professional photo and background picture for a great first
impression.
Craft a standout headline with an overview of your role and responsibilities and the value
you bring to the table.
Write a summary showcasing your key achievements and giving recruiters clues on what
opportunities you are open to.
Use the Featured section to include additional resources to demonstrate your work.
Update your experience section so that it’s aligned with your resume.
Add relevant skills to your profile and seek endorsements for those skills.
Request recommendations from colleagues and clients to increase profile credibility.

Creating a Product
Portfolio
Do you need a product portfolio as a PM?
How you can structure your product portfolio.
Do's and don'ts when creating a portfolio.
Tech tools you can use to build a portfolio.

Main components to include in your portfolio:
Summary of a problem ✔
Critical hypotheses tested ✔
Product or solution mockup or MVP presented to customers ✔
Metrics and results from product validation tests ✔
What you have learned ✔
Optionally, you can also include your next steps related to the project ✔

Tools to use to create your portfolio:

Let's re-cap:
The product portfolio is not a mandatory requirement for a PM role, but it can
boost your application.
The portfolio should have three main sections: a brief intro about yourself,
your background, and a project gallery.
The project gallery includes projects where you built from scratch or
improved existing products, as well as your side projects and case studies.
Each project description should tell a logical story, including the problem, your role
in the project, and the final results.
Avoid including any confidential information and don't duplicate the information from the
resume and LinkedIn profile.
Start with a simple version of the portfolio and gradually improve it.
Finally, keep the portfolio up-to-date and link it to your resume and
LinkedIn profile.

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