What are product options and easy methods to outline them (with examples)

Product options had been the very first thing I needed to come to grips with once I grew to become a product supervisor. One in every of my first duties was to put in writing necessities for product options.

I labored in massive groups delivering massive and complicated merchandise, in order a beginner, I used to be requested to put in writing up how sure components of the product would operate. It required sturdy analytical expertise and nice written communication, in addition to a knack for collaborating with these round me to get it proper. It was extremely concerned work, and I’d admire the neatness and structured great thing about what I had created. Later, I’d be completely infuriated that the function by no means turned out like that.

This kind of detailed work is a good place to start out as a PM and a talent set to hone all through your product administration profession. Nevertheless, writing function necessities is just a small a part of the entire product administration course of, simply as a function is just a small a part of the product.

To be an awesome PM, you’ll want to perceive what a function is, the way it matches into the product growth hierarchy, and easy methods to handle it by means of the product growth course of.

Right here’s what I want I had been instructed once I began.

Desk of contents

What are product options?

A product function is a factor your product does, and that factor ought to assist resolve the general downside the product is making an attempt to resolve.

Take Google, for instance, whose mission is to prepare the world’s info and make it universally accessible and helpful. Search is a product that means that you can simply discover info you’re in search of, and the search bar — the product function — means that you can enter the time period you’re looking for through textual content enter.

This high-profile instance reveals glorious alignment from imaginative and prescient to product function with a unified objective of serving to to make info universally accessible. It additionally demonstrates {that a} product function ought to be each tangible and straightforward to grasp.

A product function is one half of a complete

Have you ever ever created a product function with love, care and a spotlight, solely to launch it to the world and watch it wither and die? If you look again on that have, I’ll wager you didn’t totally perceive the context through which that product function would function for customers.

Context is important once you’re creating the function, too. Understanding the place the product function sits within the product growth hierarchy will assist you to create higher options and handle them within the product lifecycle.

Each nice product begins with an issue to resolve. On the high of the hierarchy is the product imaginative and prescient, from which you derive the technique that you just articulate in your product roadmap. In your roadmap, it is best to have the themes that you’ll discover to take you nearer to your imaginative and prescient.

Let’s work by means of an instance. Let’s think about your product imaginative and prescient is to simplify the Friday evening takeaway choice by bringing all choices into one place. Your technique is to start out with takeaway-only eating places and you’ve got a beta model of your product out. You might be discovering that customers are battling the checkout course of and baskets are being deserted. So that you introduce a theme on the roadmap to optimize checkout.

Begin by fixing prospects’ issues

Nice! So what subsequent? Properly, you’ll want to know extra about why individuals are struggling to take a look at. Utilizing knowledge and speaking to prospects ought to uncover some potential causes.

Let’s say, for instance, that prospects are discovering it a ache to go get their card particulars and are abandoning their buy. Let’s say they’re going to an incumbent competitor as a result of their card particulars are saved on that platform.

In response, you resolve to introduce three options: Apple Pay, the flexibility to scan a card to autofill the fee particulars, and the flexibility to save lots of card particulars within the account. All of those options are designed to make getting that Friday evening takeaway simpler.

You’ll discover that, with the above instance, I didn’t lead with, “Apply pay is superior, we have to add it!” Nevertheless, one of these dialog happens day by day amongst product groups. Understandably so — in any case, product options are simpler to elucidate and talk than an issue.

Typically, it appears apparent that some function is simply the factor the product is lacking. Nevertheless, solely by means of rigorous understanding of the issue you’re aiming to resolve are you able to really make sure — or at the least positive sufficient to develop it — that the function shall be an asset to your consumer.

Methods to prioritize product options

There’s by no means sufficient time within the day to construct all of the wonderful options product groups wish to ship. So how do you prioritize product options?

If you happen to method this problem by asking your self which function is the most effective one, you gained’t get very far. Options are the end result of a course of that begins with the client downside.

Let’s return to our earlier instance: How would possibly you prioritize the options that intention to optimize checkout? Which options would finest deal with the issue?

Apple Pay might be a neater journey than scanning playing cards, however that can solely work on Apple gadgets. If nearly all of your prospects aren’t utilizing an Apple machine, this gained’t be one of the best ways to resolve the issue.

By approaching it from the perspective of the issue, you get a extra strong dialog concerning the cause behind what you’re doing, and this may drive higher choices. Speaking about trade-offs from the client’s perspective is way simpler than exchanging private opinions that can inevitably be influenced by bias.

The artwork of function definition

The piece I want I had understood earlier in my profession is the quantity of labor that goes into understanding what’s the neatest thing to construct — that, previous to my job of writing up the function definition, a complete host of labor had gone into understanding the issue and making an attempt out potential options. As we speak, I’ve a rising appreciation for the self-discipline and talent required to put in writing nice product definitions.

Particulars are necessary. Ever had a product the place you get misplaced in a loop of error messages? How infuriating!

In terms of speaking along with your engineers and designers about the way you count on a function to work, don’t neglect to go over what occurs when the consumer doesn’t do what you thought they’d do. Collaboration is vital, and the extra element you go into, the extra you’ll pull out earlier than you construct.

Nevertheless, the price of that is time, so it must be a cautious stability. It is perhaps worthwhile to ship options shortly after which return and make things better later. It relies upon totally in your product and what your customers will settle for.

Conclusion

Put merely, a product function is a factor that your product does. Nevertheless, in the event you begin by interested by options, you’ll miss a complete host of issues that may make your options profitable.

By working down out of your product imaginative and prescient and guaranteeing you retain specializing in the issue you’re fixing, you’ll find yourself with higher and extra worthwhile options. As soon as you actually perceive the issue your product is making an attempt to resolve, every thing else falls into place.