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 NYU Stern
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EMT Program MKTG-GB.2191 - Technology Product Management
Spring 2015, Wednesday 6pm to 9pm, 1st half of semester
Professor: Andrew Breen Course Background
This course is designed to provide you with a framework for understanding product management for technology products within a range of organizations large and small. The course covers tangible tools, techniques, best practices and real world simulation of what a product manager faces in trying to deliver against product, company and user objectives. Course Objectives
In taking this class you will learn: ● What a product manager is and is not in an organization ● How to operate as one within various types of legacy and modern organizations where tech is either the business or fundamental to the business ● Tools and techniques used by successful product managers to synthesize all input and create a prioritized plan backed by objective evidence ● Qualitative and quantitative techniques to validate ideas early and often with users ● How to rationalize product ideas against business goals ● Strategies for convincing key stakeholders of your product approach ● How to build a product case & business model ● To define Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and techniques for measuring over time ● How to drive a team on an iterative path toward a solution Course Requirements
Grading
Grades will be determined on the following basis: ● Class participation 25% ● In­class exercises
25% ● Homework
25% ● Final presentation
25% Instructor Policies
Attendance/Lateness
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Students are expected to attend each class and actively participate in discussion of key issues. Absences/Tardiness will lower your class participation grade. Missing class or being late will adversely affect your grade. Class will start promptly at 6:00pm and late students disrupt the learning environment for those who arrive on time. ● Late assignments will be downgraded. © Copyright 2014 Andrew Breen
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EMT Program Notebook Computer Policy
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Increasingly at Stern, notebook computers used during class are a distraction. Please do not open your notebook computer, unless you are using it to take notes on the lecture or as directed for an in­class exercise. Cheating/Plagiarism
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The Stern School of Business Honor Code governs conduct in the course. “I will not lie, cheat, or steal to gain an academic advantage, or tolerate those who do.” Class Participation
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It is essential that everyone contributes to class discussion. You are expected to have read all the assignments for the day's class. ● Class participation will be graded on the quality of the interaction and will be measured against these criteria: ○ Are you prepared ○ Extent of knowledge ○ Ability to get to the heart of the matter ○ New insights ○ Building on statements of others Exam & Final Presentation
There is no exam. The last class (two sessions) will be for students to present their product case using class materials. Students will present as a group based on a selected product that is or theoretically could be a line of business for a real company. The presentation must cover: ● What is the proposed feature? What is its job? ● How does this align with and fulfill company strategy? ● Who is the customer and what is their need? ● What are their primary use­cases? ● What are key constraints/risks? ● How do we go to market? What is the value proposition? ● How do we monetize? What are cost considerations? ● What is the supporting evidence? ● What are the KPI? ● What is the proposed plan? Students will present to a panel of experts and answer questions to defend their analysis. Other students would be encouraged to participate in Q&A. Presentations will be judged on the quality and completeness of the analysis, how convincing the presentation is and the conciseness of the argument in helping an executive feel confident in the path going forward. © Copyright 2014 Andrew Breen
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EMT Program Reading
Product management is a rapidly evolving discipline in the technology industry as it has emerged from its “jack of all trades” origins into being mini­CEOs of a product. The majority of modern thinking on this are online materials being published today. You will be assigned material to consume in preparation for classes including: ● What, exactly, is a Product Manager? by Martin Eriksson ● A Product Manager’s Job by Josh Elman ● What Customers Want from Your Products by Clayton M. Christensen, Scott Cook, and Taddy Hall ● 7 Techniques For Prioritizing Customer Requirements by Jeff Sauro ● Four Innovation Insights Customers Provide by Hutch Carpenter ● A Five­Step Process For Conducting User Research by David Sherwin ● Replacing The User Story With The Job Story by Alan Klement ● Design Thinking Crash Course Video by Stanford D.School ● The Product Lifecycle by Mind Tools ● Principles behind the Agile Manifesto ● How to hire a product manager By Ken Norton ● Excerpts from How Google Works by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg ● Excerpts from The Lean Startup by Eric Ries In-Class Exercises
Each 90 minute session will be (approximately) ● 45­60 minute lecture and discussion ● Followed by a group (dynamically assembled at that time in class) or individual exercise which is either presented in that class or handed in Assignments
Each class will have a homework assignment to be handed in at next class. Lecture Structure
The class will be run like a product ● Each session will have a Kanban board showing to do items for the session and identify bottlenecks ● Users (students) will be qualitatively (asked for feedback) and quantitatively (mastery of material) measured for validation ● Grading will be on a product matrix ● Students will have to synthesize peer feedback to incorporate into their exercises © Copyright 2014 Andrew Breen
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EMT Program MKTG-GB.2191 - Technology Product Management
Each 3 hour class would be split into roughly two 90 minute sessions Session 1A, 2/11 Principals: What & Who is a Product Owner/Manager
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What is a Product Owner vs. Manager? What are product’s key responsibilities? How do we use hypothesis testing to defer risk? What are the “Product Commandments”? How do we balance user needs vs. business goals vs. execution constraints? How do we assess product impact vs. complexity? How do we balance inheriting a product vs. driving our own vision? How does product fit within the organization (discussion of various modern tech and non­tech org approaches and how product fits in) ● What is the product lifecycle vs. product development? ● EXERCISE ○ Assess various organizational structures and why product innovation and acceptance by customers is particular good or bad due to structure and process ○ Assess various product cases analyzing how in/out of balance the products were against user needs vs. business goals vs. constraints Session 1B, 2/11 Product Lifecycle
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Interpreting product signals ○ What are macro signals (market, competitors, business goals & vision)? ○ What are micro signals (user testing, engagement/behavior/performance, feedback)? Discover: problem­solution fit, prioritize ○ Is this problem worth solving? ○ Do we have stakeholder support to build? ○ Do we understand constraints/risks? ○ Can we scope a minimum viable product (MVP)? Create & Validate: product­market fit, build ○ Can we validate customer interest in solution (push, pivot or kill)? ○ Do we understand the dependencies? ○ How are we scoping release (proof of concept, alpha, beta, GA)? ○ Do we have stakeholder support for release? Measure: scale, evaluate ○ Are we meeting KPI expectations? ○ Do we need to keep iterating or monitor and measure? How stages affect approach: New, Growth, Maturity, Decline EXERCISE: For a given set of products, identify the KPI HOMEWORK: Case analysis for a given product © Copyright 2014 Andrew Breen
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EMT Program Session 2A, 2/18 User Validation: Qualitative
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Building and using personas: demographic, psychographic Jobs to be done framework Conducting depth interviews ○ Pain points, unmet needs and motivations ○ Desired user outcomes ○ Assessing frequency and duration in product usage ○ How important is this to you? How satisfied are you with the current solution? Leveraging focus groups Longitudinal studies Creating qualitative surveys Conducting usability testing EXERCISE: For a given set of wireframes, test your peers and provide top­line summary results Session 2B, 2/18 User Validation: Quantitative
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Creating quantitative surveys Measuring in­market products (or proxies) ○ Acquisition & conversion ○ Funnel analysis When to use A/B testing ○ How it works ○ How and when to apply it Leveraging in­product feature teasing Tools and techniques for product data analysis EXERCISE ○ Take provided data set and raise insights and avoid spurious conclusions using discussed techniques ○ Build a survey for a given product case HOMEWORK: Design, conduct and record user interviews for a given product case summarizing results Session 3A, 2/25 Aligning with Business Goals
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Building a business case ○ Opportunity sizing ○ Quantifying the customer journey: acquisition, activation, retention, referral, revenue Assessing revenue models ○ Try before you buy: free vs. freemium vs. trial ○ Revenue: Transactional, per­use, subscription, content, etc. ○ Open­source, service driven Considering costs for technology products and services © Copyright 2014 Andrew Breen
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EMT Program ○ Capital/Investment/R&D ○ Operational ○ Transactional ○ Unit ○ Scaling EXERCISE: Build a model for a given product case Session 3B, 2/25 Execution Constraints & Risk Identification
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Understanding design: UX vs. UI vs. graphic Understanding tech: APIs, stacks, traditional vs. modern architectures Operational risk and scaling Legal/Regulatory constraints International considerations and complexity EXERCISE: For a given product, assess the various risk factors HOMEWORK: Build a business model with supporting research Session 4A, 3/4
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The Product Case
What is the proposed feature? How does this align with and fulfill company strategy? Who is the customer and what is their need? What are their primary use­cases? What are key constraints/risks? How do we go to market? What is the value proposition? How do we monetize? What are cost considerations? What is the supporting evidence? What are the KPI? Who are the stakeholders? EXERCISE: Review a given product case and identify the problems Session 4B, 3/4
Product Prioritization & Product Roadmap
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Building a prioritization matrix and decision modeling Building a product roadmap ○ Relative vs. absolute timelines ○ Themes ○ Swimlanes ○ Features vs. improvements vs. bugs ● EXERCISE: From a set of features around given product area, build a prioritization decision matrix and defend your choices ● HOMEWORK: Build a product case for a given product outline Session 5A, 3/11 Driving Toward a Solution: Conveying the Concept
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Getting stakeholder buy­in Conveying to the execution team: storyboarding & wireframing © Copyright 2014 Andrew Breen
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EMT Program Communication primer: be convincing, be open, be solution oriented EXERCISE: Build a storyboard/wireframe for a given product case Session 5B, 3/11 Driving Toward a Solution: Organizing Execution
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Understanding Project vs. Product Management Waterfall vs. Agile vs. Lean vs. other product development techniques ○ Iterative Agile deep­dive: Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming, FDD, etc ○ Lean primer: test and learn What is a spec? What is a requirement? ○ Separating the what from the how ○ Use­cases & user/job stories Acceptance, Testing & QA ○ User acceptance criteria ○ Continuous integration ○ Automated testing EXERCISE: Write use­cases and user­stories for a given product case HOMEWORK: none; prep for presentations *** No Class March 18 ***
Session 6A, 3/25 Product Case Presentations (part 1)
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Present your product case to your stakeholders and convince them to move forward (group; presented and hand­in) Session 6B, 3/25 Product Case Presentations (part 2)
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Present your product case to your stakeholders and convince them to move forward (group; presented and hand­in) © Copyright 2014 Andrew Breen
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