Product Collective - 🔢 Data for product people

What Product Managers need to know about data

What do Product Managers need to know about database design? Product managers and database design seems like an insignificant relationship, doesn’t it? We often relate the word data to titles such as software engineers, data scientists, analysts, and much more. The team at Chisel suggests that there’s value for product managers to communicate directly with a database and access the information they require whenever they need it. (via Chisel)

Data analysis for product managers. As a product manager, having a strong understanding of data analysis is essential to making informed decisions and driving the success of your product. Product data analysis can help you identify the root cause of product problems, find potential areas for improvement, and validate solutions to a customer or business problem. Guodong Zhao explains how to approach common product data analysis problems in the real world. With this data analysis mindset, you can successfully leverage data to drive your product success. (via UX Collective) 

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Spend a day in your customer's shoes

Somebody had asked me earlier this week about how I first got into product… and what I did on that very first week on the job. It reminded me of the very first role I had in product… working for a ticketing company serving pro and college sports teams. My job, however, was to launch a new mobile ticketing product into an entirely new market… high school sports!

There was just one problem, though. I had never stepped foot inside of a ticket office anywhere. And now, I had to create a product (in a matter of months) to serve these ticketing customers.

So I decided that I needed to spend a day in their shoes… almost literally.

We were fortunate to have a pro sports client right nearby who used our more robust ticketing system. It was much more complex than what the high schools would be using, but I figured if I could convince that customer to let me “shadow” their ticket office team for a few hours… well… I didn’t really know what would happen. But I just thought it couldn’t hurt. 

And it ended up helping me… a whole lot. For me personally, I got to empathize with the entire process that the ticket office team had to go through. Overall, it made me realize how super simple the experience needed to be. They didn’t need whistles and bells and delighter features. They needed to be able to quickly sell a ticket. Get people in. Get people out. NOW!

I share all of this to encourage you to do one thing today – and that’s to figure out a way to live a day in your customer’s shoes. However, you need to do it and make it happen. It doesn’t matter if it’s your first week or 100th week on the job. It can only help you get the empathy you need to build a better product for them. 

SQL for product managers—the definitive guide. Product management is about taking your product in the right direction with the fastest speed possible. Data is always going to be an integral part of your decision-making and having the ability to do the primary analysis yourself can definitely boost your speed as a product manager. The team at HelloPM explains what SQL is SQL and how product managers can use it to make better decisions, faster. (via HelloPM) 

The Product Manager's guide to data analytics. Data analytics plays a crucial role in modern product management, helping teams make informed decisions, optimize product performance, and drive growth. The team at Maven delves into the intersection of product management and data analytics to help you understand how to integrate data into your product management process successfully. (via Maven) 

Product Managers must get past being ‘data driven’. It’s incredibly rare to have access to all the data you’ll need to make good decisions. But the days keep rolling, ideas keep popping up and sprint planning comes every two weeks. You have to prioritize through uncertainty or else competing interests will do it for you. Therefore, in every product manager interview, one question separates the novices from the pros: How do you make decisions without data? Olivia Belitsky reflects on her experiences and explains how she’d answer that question. (Via Built In)