Category posts
Product management fundamentals

GoPractice opens a series on how to create products that people need – on the basics of product management.

From this article, you will learn how product work differs through the prism of “problems and pains” from work through the prism of “increasing the effectiveness of the solution.”

Some believe that a product manager’s job is to formulate and prioritize hypotheses, and then turn them into knowledge through A/B tests and research.

Others think that a product manager’s role is to be a user advocate, make features, and improve product metrics.

And then there are those who see the product manager as the person who manages the roadmap, motivates the team, improves the unit economics, optimizes key funnel conversions, and is responsible for the product’s revenue.

In reality, depending on the team, product managers do some or all of the above.

But these are only tools that should help achieve the most important goal, a goal that product managers often forget.

→ Test your product management and data skills with this free Growth Skills Assessment Test.

→ Learn data-driven product management in Simulator by GoPractice.

→ Learn growth and realize the maximum potential of your product in Product Growth Simulator.

→ Join our discussion on LinkedIn. New topics to talk about every week.

In the simulator we introduce two types of metrics: growth metrics and product metrics. These categories help students understand which metrics should be used in which situations.

• Product metrics answer questions about the product itself. They help you to understand how the product converts new users into active users, paying users, profit, orders, support requests, etc.
• Growth metrics answer questions about the business built around the product. These metrics include revenue, number of active users, number of orders or calls to support.

Over the past few years, I have noticed another type of metric: efficiency metrics or added value metrics.

In this essay, we will discuss what these metrics are, why they are needed, and why the product team should focus on them.

→ Test your product management and data skills with this free Growth Skills Assessment Test.

→ Learn data-driven product management in Simulator by GoPractice.

→ Learn growth and realize the maximum potential of your product in Product Growth Simulator.

→ Join our discussion on LinkedIn. New topics to talk about every week.

In the previous essay, we discussed why it is important for product managers to work on improving the efficiency of their solution to the target problem, and as a result, focus on the metrics of their product’s added value in comparison to alternative solutions.

In this essay, we will use a specific example to demonstrate why product metrics depend on the added value of the product. In particular, we will study the levers of influence on the Retention metric.

→ Test your product management and data skills with this free Growth Skills Assessment Test.

→ Learn data-driven product management in Simulator by GoPractice.

→ Learn growth and realize the maximum potential of your product in Product Growth Simulator.

→ Join our discussion on LinkedIn. New topics to talk about every week.

This is part of a series of articles by Oleg Ya on the basics of product management and building products that people need.

In this article, you will learn to measure the added value of a product.

We will use simple examples to show how it works for different types of products. In previous articles, we discussed why increasing the added value is the core of product work. We also explained why product metrics do not always clearly characterize the effectiveness of solving a problem, so we introduced the concepts of problem-solving efficiency and added value metrics.

Measuring efficiency and added value is more complicated than it might seem. In this essay, we will explore some of the tried and tested ways to measure them.

This is part of a series of articles on the basics of product management and building products that people need.

In this essay, you’ll learn to determine how much better your product needs to be than the available alternatives to achieve product/market fit.

This is part of a series of essays on the basics of product management and building products that people need.

In this essay, you will learn about the variables that determine the strength of product/market fit. You will also learn why product/market fit can change over time and what this means for your product. We will look at BlackBerry’s history to better understand these dynamics.

For most teams working on a new product, product/market fit is the primary goal. This is a cherished milestone, after which the team expects rapid growth.

This mindset assumes that product/market fit is a binary variable. Your product either achieved product/market fit or it did not.

In reality, product/market fit is a spectrum. It can range between not being present to being weak, mild, or strong. Moreover, its strength can change over time, which affects the performance and growth of the product.

→ Test your product management and data skills with this free Growth Skills Assessment Test.

→ Learn data-driven product management in Simulator by GoPractice.

→ Learn growth and realize the maximum potential of your product in Product Growth Simulator.

→ Join our discussion on LinkedIn. New topics to talk about every week.

This is part of a series of essays on the basics of product management and building products that people need.

In this essay, I will discuss two different types of product work: value creation and value delivery. You will learn how these types of product work differ, in what conditions each of them has maximum impact, and what problems arise when you confound them.

The problem that a product solves for users largely determines the skills a product manager needs to successfully work on it. But this is far from the only variable that affects the nature of product work.

Some product managers focus more on creating value, others on delivering the value to users. Each of these types of work must be applied at the right time, but they are often mixed up.

→ Test your product management and data skills with this free Growth Skills Assessment Test.

→ Learn data-driven product management in Simulator by GoPractice.

→ Learn growth and realize the maximum potential of your product in Product Growth Simulator.

→ Join our discussion on LinkedIn. New topics to talk about every week.

This is part of a series of articles on the basics of product management and building products that people need.

In this article, we discuss the “growth product manager” role, how and when it appeared, and how it differs from the roles of marketing managers and core product managers. We will also examine the main tools that growth product managers use.

As the product manager profession matured, it began to specialize into different areas. We previously discussed that one of these areas is the task that the product accomplishes. In this respect, the product manager of a B2B task tracker and that of a casual mobile game have very different skill sets.

Another dimension of specialization is the type of product work that the product manager focuses on: Does the PM work on creating value or delivering it to users? It is across this line that core PM and growth PM separate.

→ Test your product management and data skills with this free Growth Skills Assessment Test.

→ Learn data-driven product management in Simulator by GoPractice.

→ Learn growth and realize the maximum potential of your product in Product Growth Simulator.

→ Join our discussion on LinkedIn. New topics to talk about every week.