Start with Problems
A product manager is not the idea maker in the business to focus on bringing value to the business. Instead, a PM needs to be the idea taker, where every and any idea that comes from anyone can be brought back to its core to identify the opportunity.
The Core.
Most ideas that come from internal or external users come as a solution. While well-intended, starting with the solution can cause a lot of heartache for the product team as well as creates considerable risk to ensure that the opportunity is being utilized to its fullest potential.
This is why, no matter the idea, we bring it back to the core problem that the user is trying to solve and understand what the job is that the user is trying to achieve and ensure that there aren’t other opportunities present.
Once the problems are defined, the PM can then work to define different solutions and are in a better unbiased position to make decisions.
Mitigating Risk.
As a PM goes through the discovery process with the problem in mind, they then work to understand the risks of the solutions and work to mitigate them as much as possible.
The four key risks that a PM should account for is value, viability, feasibilty, and usability:
Value is the risk of the user actually wanting the solution.
Viability is the risk of the solution working for the needs of the business.
Feasibility is the risk of the team actually being able to build the solution and in a reasonable amount of time.
Usability is the risk of the design of the solution being understandable to use for the user, where they can navigate the solution and at the same time understand what they are getting from it.
The PM partners with both design and engineering partners to more fully define the risks and discuss what can be done to mitigate them. The PM is accountable for value and viability, while design and engineering are accountable for usability and feasibility respectively. While each member of this trio is accountable for a risk, all are collaborating and working together to come to the best solutions in the quickest amount of time as possible.