Numbers Don’t Lie!
As a newbie product manager, I daily face challenges and always wonder if I am making the right decision & if I am focusing on the right areas in the product journey.
Understanding customers' pain points and prioritizing one over another is something that decides whether your product is going to take a hit or be a hit!
When I was learning product management skills, most mentors asked me about the data, as data never lies!
If I am considering turning my idea into a business — Does the data say you should build it?
If I am considering prioritizing one feature over another — Does the data says So?
If I am considering targeting my GTM strategy on specific geography — Did the data tell you to do that?
Questions like these were being programmed into me as I was entering the product management territory. I am asked to research, survey, analyze, and trust the decision that numbers bring forth!
But can the numbers be wrong?
Yes, if not done right or done carelessly — numbers are definitely wrong!
As a product manager, it is your responsibility to watch the user, not just the data that is brought to you on a silver platter.
To do that, you must face your customers yourself and watch them as they use your product.
Yes, this is how it must be done!
When you watch your user, a few things will start to come to you:
- If this user is your ideal user?
- What are the problems the user was facing before and after?
- Are you creating a new problem for the user?
- What is it that the user is not telling you but still facing difficulty performing crucial tasks?
- Is the user flow making your user leave the product?
- Is the user using your product to solve a completely different problem that you never even anticipated?
- Do I need to improve my current product, if yes, what should I improve?
- Is it time to add a new feature, it yes, then what?
- Do I need to surface specific functionality, I thought was not that frequently used?
- Am I diverting from the company's vision and taking it to a completely different road, do I need to STOP and RETHINK?
These are a few questions that you need to ask yourself to correct your course on the product journey.
With this kind of qualitative questions and observations — Yes you can trust the numbers your analytics board shows you!
So watch out for the quality of the quantity you are being shown before you mistrust and make the wrong decisions before you blame the numbers!
