product management organization Archives - Page 3 of 3

Why Do Product Managers Need To Focus More On The Universality Of Products?

May 17, 2022 by Dane Palarino

Have you ever wondered why some products are so easy to use for everyone? Suppose you are in the metro and see an older person trying to get a ticket from the ticket vending machine but unable to get one. After all the efforts, he seeks help from someone. Here, a product manager needs to focus on the scenario where the elderly couldn’t get help from someone. Product teams need to focus on this situation and iterate carefully on making a product universal. That is a product design that everyone and anyone can use.

Product manager interview questions are now drifting towards a more comprehensive approach to product design- universality. Let’s have a closer look at what universal design means.

What Does Universal Design Mean?

Product development is an extensive process. It includes going back and forth like a pendulum from iteration to wireframing until desired product goals are achieved. Today, with changing market trends, universality concerns more product companies.

Here you can question the reason behind this.

Like in the above example, numerous products need updates so that everyone who wants to use the product can easily use it. So, by definition, universal design is that product design that makes the product easily accessible to all people regardless of condition, age, gender, disability, and other factors. The beat here is to create a universal product without any modifications. Look at these examples to better understand the versatile design of products.

Spotify: Spotify is an online music streaming platform that allows users to enjoy different genres of music at a very affordable price. Their design is universal because you can listen to the same music on your pc or laptop that you were listening to on mobile with just a click.

Automatic doors: When you go to a shopping mall, you must have encountered automatic doors. It is always a fun sight to enter without pulling or pushing anything. Did you know that its design was made to suffice universality? Maybe not, then try to think now. Suppose there’s a person in a wheelchair or a mother with bags and her baby. Can they open the door with a doorknob? Maybe yes, with a slight push or pull here and there. But, their experience would have been different and more comfortable if they could quickly enter the mall without requiring any help or pulling some strings. That is where universal product design comes in.

Why Do We Need Universal Product Designs?

Agree or disagree, there’s one point in life where we can not function as per our ability. In those instances, products based on universality principles can help us use a product or service without feeling isolated. Universality forms its basis on two principles-

Understanding and respecting the diversity in people
Informed responses to a variety of people

What Are The Key Principles Of Universal Design?

Universal design primarily promotes an inclusive approach to include every group or section of society as its users. In simple words, it will help maximize the number of users benefiting from the product or service under development. Universal design has seven fundamental principles that guide product teams to make a universal design. These were designed to make communications, products, and environments more inclusive and universal. Here’s the list of seven principles:

Practice Equity

Equity as a value means to be fair and impartial. No one likes to be treated differently because of their ability. Therefore, products should focus on fair use and provide a similar experience, if not identical.

Flexible use

Products and services shall be able to accommodate different abilities and preferences. The designs shall allow users to control and use the product as they wish.

Intuitive and simple design

The products should be simple to comprehend and use for every user irrespective of their age, qualification, knowledge, or skill. In simple terms, users must know which steps to take after carrying out the first step.

Perceptible information

Every product design must be simple enough to communicate all the necessary information to the user effectively by using multiple verbal and non-verbal cues.

The low magnitude of physical effort

Product teams must know user satisfaction is their priority. So, every product they develop must aim to make users’ lives easier.

Error tolerance

Remember the undo button on pc, and it works the same way. Here, product teams must know that their users may commit some accidental error, and there shall be some mechanism.

Size and space

Teams need to enhance the user experience by providing a proper approach for use, i.e., irrespective of the user’s shape, size, posture, or mobility, and he must be able to access the product.

Takeaway!

This is why a product manager recruiting agency like Palarino Partners works to bring consensus among the candidates’ expectations and the product companies so that a potential candidate can work at the desired place without compromising values and vice versa.

How To Crack Product Strategy Interview Question?

March 1, 2022 by Dane Palarino

Strategy questions are not new in big organizations like Google and Amazon. One example of such a question is – “What change or step would you implement if you were the CEO of Google?”. Such questions might give you pain. But here is the good news: If you know the approach to answer the questions, it will become a piece of cake for you.

The further article will uncover the ways to crack the product strategy interview question in any product management organization. Let’s get started.

Decide On The Business Objective – Many candidates tend to skip this step. They start answering the questions without deciding on the objective and hence in an unstructured way. Interviewers mark this as a red flag. Most of the time, you might have seen that strategic questions are ambiguous. This is the reason for their difficulty level.

So, the first step to giving the correct answer is to listen carefully and confirm with the interviewer that you have understood the questions correctly. The interviewer will happily clarify your doubts in the beginning. But if they notice that you have started answering the questions regardless of understanding them completely, they will get a negative impression of you. Thus, set the business objective and try giving as clear answers as possible.

Look For The Solutions – After deciding the business objective, start looking out for the solutions to fulfill that objective. To do so, create a structure and find the solutions within that structure. Many candidates skip the step of creating structure, which they should avoid. At the time of brainstorming, people usually get distracted by ideas that do not support the business goals. Thus, establishing a structure keeps your brainstorming in accordance with the objectives.

Discuss The Solutions – This is the step where the interviewer will ask you about the practical solutions to the problems. Whether they do that or not, you should mention the solutions with the help of highlighting trade-offs. For example – Your interviewer might ask you to delve deeper into the measures of increasing prices.

The other part of proposing the solutions is to prioritize the things in order. You can discuss or recommend the solutions on the basis of the opportunity they had to offer. Be ready for the cross-questioning as the solutions you will provide will depend on the assumptions and judgment. But at the same time, the main focus of your interviewer is on your thinking abilities. Therefore, prioritize the solutions with sound logic, and you will be good to go.

Conclusion – Lastly, rewind the initial question and recapitulate your suggestions. The product manager NYC believes that recapitulation clearly denotes that you have finished answering the question and you are effective with communication skills. Ensure to make a recommendation and emphasize the risks and next steps that could be taken to avoid the problem.

How To Practice The Product Strategy Questions?

Professionals recommend a four-step approach for practicing the product strategy questions –

Research About The Company To Which You Are Applying – Collect the information about the company you are interested in getting a position. Study the products and target market of the company if you are applying to a specific team. Look for useful reviews and descriptions of the products and press releases. This process will help you face the company with more confidence.

Learn How To Answer The Questions Effectively – Use the steps as mentioned above to answer the product strategy questions effectively, like deciding the objective, generating solutions, and so on. You can also try to solve some sample questions on a piece of paper before going for an interview. It will help you a lot when it comes to understanding the structure of a good answer. Do not forget to apply these techniques in the actual interview also. Just knowing them is not enough.

Practice And More Practice – One of the most fantastic ways to excel in the interview is to practice out loud with yourself or with your peers. It helps build your confidence and communication skills when you face the actual interview. Your peers can help you in taking up your mock interview, especially if they are familiar with the process of PM Interviews.

Practice With Experienced Professionals – If you know an experienced Product Manager, it is like icing on the cake. You can practice with them and hit the bull’s eye in your actual interview.

To Sum It Up!

It is needless to say that a Product Manager forms a crucial part of every organization. And the points as mentioned above clarify the ways with which you can crack the product strategy interview questions.

If you still have any questions about Product Management or Product Manager interviews, Palarino Partners will be more than happy to answer you. We build world-class Product Management teams to make your organization reap the maximum benefits. Feel free to contact us for more information.

How To Make Good Decisions As A Product Manager?

January 27, 2022 by Dane Palarino

If you are a product manager, you may be well-versed with the importance of decision-making in your organization. Your decisions largely determine the success of the product. Some decisions include – which design will work the best, which features to develop first, and the list is endless.

One wrong decision and you are bound to face losses. On the other hand, a clear and confident decision is the key to forming a successful product in a product management organization. And if that sounds difficult, you need not worry. We are here with the proven tactics that will help you form better decisions as a product manager. Let’s get started.

Product goals and company mission – Your company’s mission and the roadmap of the products depict different stories. But are they moving towards the same goal?

There is a strategic relationship between product goals and the company’s mission statement. And it takes effort to execute your vision. Thus, align your goals with product positioning. Here is what you can do –

Many times product teams develop the products in a vacuum. The actual product may be the one you want, but misalignment can end up causing delays and roadblocks. Therefore, it is important to understand the vision of your organization and communicate the same to every team member.
Make a list of at least five company goals that will get influenced by your product decisions. It will help the product managers focus on their big goals, resulting in better results for the organization.
Take a look at your company’s mission and product goals. Analyze the gaps and find out which aspects of the products you can improve to gain the maximum benefit.
Do not forget to build a flexible product roadmap. Why? It will help you stay in sync with strategy shifts as the vision of your company may evolve over the period of time.

Look after your users – Everybody expects you to be good with communication, research, marketing, and more as you are a product manager. It sometimes poses problems while making quick and efficient product decisions. What is the solution? The answer is empathy.

Empathizing with the users and your team helps you better understand the people who use products and people who develop them. For instance – if you know the needs, tastes, and preferences of the customers, you will try to solve their problems related to the product in a better way. Furthermore, if your team feels that their manager understands them perfectly, it will reflect in their contribution towards the success of the product.

Talk to your customers – It doesn’t matter how great your product is. But if there isn’t any demand for the product you develop, it will bound to fail. So, prioritize the demands of your customers, and you will be sure to succeed. If you expect your customers to tell their needs to you, you might need to think again. It is only you who have to be proactive in researching about the demands of your customers. Collect their feedback and then make decisions accordingly. All in all, follow the customer-centric approach and design optimal solutions.

Minimal viable product – You cannot deny that it takes a lot of hardwork to build an entire product. So, before moving forward to the designing aspect of the product, you can follow the strategy of a minimal viable product or MVP. It is like a basic version of the product with as minimal features as possible, and these should be must-have features. MVP was created to attract early adopters. In this way, you will get the feedback of the potential customers and hence add new features to make the final version of the product. It won’t be wrong to say that MVP provides you with an excellent solution to track your flaws and come out with an outstanding product. Thus, it takes the chances of making quality product decisions a notch higher and helps you fill the gaps.

To sum it up

Product managers are the key to making vital decisions for your business. As a product manager, you can make multiple choices. But it takes only one decision to fail, and you will have a negative impact on your career.

So, experts advise following the above-mentioned tactics to make worthy product decisions and steer clear of the mistakes in the product development process.

Now, if you are looking for the best product manager for your organization, look no further than PALARINO PARTNERS. We recruit product managers for private software companies and help them avoid the costly expenses of mis-hire. It is important to give supreme importance to product management and product decisions to build a successful business. And if you think the same, contact us right away. Connect with us for further information on product management, and we will surely uplift your business.

How To Build A Resilient Product Management Team?

December 6, 2021 by Dane Palarino

During difficult circumstances, resiliency is crucial. Consider these suggestions to build stronger, more knowledgeable teams that are ready to face the challenges ahead. It takes experience and training to build a strong product management organization. It’s also impossible to train your employees to be resilient if resilience isn’t already ingrained in the company’s DNA. It’s much more challenging to do so through difficult circumstances. But it’s not out of the question. It all starts with you, leaders.

Here are some suggestions for increasing the resiliency of your management team during these difficult times:

1.Treat The Workday As Though It Was 24-Hours

Everything you do should be predicated on the notion of a 24-hour day if your company spans across different countries and time zones. It allows team leaders to consider their geographically scattered team members as part of a single overall team servicing their clients, rather than several teams that may or may not be aligned.

2.Consider Overlapping Abilities

Consider the talents your team possesses throughout a 24-hour workday against the skills it has overall. You can’t always predict when an event will occur, but you can ensure that particular essential skill sets are shared amongst teams.

To discover any gaps, create a skills matrix and compare it to the demands of your global consumers. If your team is supporting a specialty product for a customer, for example, ensure the skill set required to keep that product is accessible in your time zone and in the time zones next to it.

It ensures that new staff members who can assist with a problem are never more than a region away, which might be the difference between a dissatisfied and a delighted customer.

3.Keep Communication Lines Open

It takes some work to stay in contact as a resilient team. Resiliency extends beyond conventional team meetings when everyone is informed and exchanged in a waterfall structure, with an “always-on” attitude.

You and your team should employ a messaging system that is constantly available to your team and, when necessary, to your clients. It establishes a precedent that they are immediately accessible to contribute to the team if someone is working.

Always-on communications foster a culture where messaging is the natural way to communicate and cooperate with other team members, eliminating response delays. It’s essential to keep remote team members engaged with one another.

4.Have A Contingency Plan In Place

Nobody can foretell family emergencies or other unforeseen situations, yet they are bound to happen at any time: You can count on it. The first step in dealing with unexpected team absences is to: Assume that they will occur at the most inconvenient times. Assume that unforeseen absences will occur at the worst possible moment.

You should be able to call out to your team and acquire a stand-in without missing a beat in a matter of minutes. The same concept applies to scheduled absences; therefore, devise a strategy that allows your team members to transfer their tasks to take vacation time.

In either case, transitioning the workload to maintain business continuity is critical. It comes with an added benefit: team members are less stressed when they know they can rely on a backup when they need to be away.

5.Make Information Available.

Strive to make information – from fundamental business policies to corporate and customer knowledge – available in two clicks when establishing a resilient workforce. Remind your teams that keeping information secret benefits no one and may even damage them. It’s critical to make information easily accessible to everyone, whether you’re serving internal or external clients. Consider putting your documents in a file cabinet in your home: If you were ill unexpectedly, no one would have access to that information, making it almost hard for anybody to step in and help you while you were gone.

Make calendars visible to all team members as a simple first step. Then, if a team member is forced to leave the workplace abruptly, a colleague may step in and take over any scheduled meetings.

The work will be something, and it will make the entire thing in some dependency that may generate the whole thing. The phrases that may have led to the scenario, which will be vital and relieving in some way

6.Make Sure Your Team Is Ready For Hardship

It’s critical to teach your employees the soft skills they’ll need to deal with hardship. We are currently confronted with unprecedented problems on a global basis, but the same can be said for local events. Developing a culture of camaraderie, in which individuals care about one another, is critical for any remote team.

Ascertain that your team members realize that discussing these problems freely at team meetings is acceptable. There should be no constraints when it seems to discuss global, regional, or local concerns. It gives everyone the impression that they are dealing with hardship compassionately and as a team.

Finally!

PALARINO PARTNERS can help you build a better product team than ever before.

Let’s face it: the workplace has evolved. To build a successful product team in a post-COVID world, you’ll need all of the methods we’ve considered so far, as well as others we don’t even know about yet. PALARINO PARTNERS can assist you in setting the scene for a product team that feels secure, supported, and comfortable in their workplace.

How to Establish the Perfect Product Organization Structure

October 22, 2021 by Dane Palarino

Product organization structures are an integral part of running a successful business. A product organization structure should be designed to meet the needs of the company and its customers. There are many different ways to organize your products, so choosing the right one for you will take some time and thought. Product organization structures allow companies to focus on the customers they want to serve and how best to meet their goals. There are several factors that you will need to consider when planning your product organization structure:

Product Line Organization

Product lines refer to a group of products within a company that either share a common feature set, benefit from common distribution, or are marketed as a group. Product lines are often organized by the customer’s perceived similarities and shared attributes. Product lines can include individual parts, components, and variations of a specific product like car seats, car seat base, car seat connectors, or mobile device cases made from different materials, such as rubberized plastic, leather, silicone, and aluminum. Product lines can also include different model types of a particular product, such as brands of ovens, smartphones, or laptops.

Product line organization is often used to divide products into similar categories based on features, size or material type, or any combination thereof. Product lines are useful to businesses because they allow the company to focus on making their products as good as possible within each separate category. Product lines are generally organized by grouping together individual product offerings that offer the same benefits but may vary slightly in form factor, color, materials, etc., and market them as a group. Product line organizations can separate products with differing benefits and markets but share the same branding, marketing, and retail positioning.

Product lines allow companies to target specific segments that purchase these comprehensive product collections or bundles, such as consumers who love Android devices that purchase multiple different brands of Android phones; or parents who want all their children’s car seats from the same brand so they look similar and function similarly. Product lines are separated by grouping together products that offer the same type of benefit but may vary slightly in form factor, color, materials, etc., and market them as a group. Product lines make it easier for customers to understand what they need without overwhelming them with too much information about each product.

Product Type Organization

Product type refers to distinct products that share very few common benefits other than being produced by the same manufacturing process. Product type organizations are often used when a company is unsure of what products they will need to produce in the future. Product type groups are generally organized by grouping similar products together from an assembly line process; for example, computers or smartphones would have a common manufacturing process. Product type groups can also include dissimilar items that share only a single manufacturer process, for example, vehicles and air conditioners. Product type organizations can be difficult if you’re unsure which product types your business should focus on. Still, overall, product type organization ensures that staff is fully knowledgeable about how to assemble each specific product when it comes time to do so.

Product Family Organization

Product family organizational structures are used when grouping together families of very similar products with slight variations between them. Product families are often used when a company has many similar products that can be sold together to the same customers, for example, printers, printer ink cartridges, and printer paper. Product family organizations are great because they allow companies to target specific customers within their demographic with products that meet distinct needs while still producing other products that are far more flexible. Product family groups are also useful because they allow staff members to specialize in certain product types or lines. Product family organizational structures provide flexibility in production so businesses can adapt quickly when new opportunities arise. Product line organization is often not ideal when there is high variation in parts used between different products in the same groupings, so it’s best suited for companies who stick with consistent materials across all of their product offerings. Product family organization is generally the best organizational structure for companies that sell similar products with slight variation.

Product Family Group

A product family group is a type of product line, and it is used when grouping together families of very similar products but with slight variations between them. Product family organization can be difficult if you’re unsure of which product types your business should focus on, but overall product family organizational structures ensure that staff members are fully knowledgeable about how to assemble each specific product when it comes time to do so. Product line organizations make monitoring progress much easier because they allow groups like accounting or marketing to track results across all items in the same category rather than having to monitor individual goods. Product line organization is typically not suitable if there is high variation in parts used between different products in the same type of grouping. Product family groups are useful because they allow staff members to specialize in certain product types or lines. It provides flexibility in production so businesses can adapt quickly when new opportunities arise. Product family organization is generally best suited for companies that stick with consistent materials across their product offerings.

Conclusion

Product line organizational structures provide good opportunities for making money by increasing price-charging power, market bargaining power, and exploiting economies of scale. Still, it can be difficult to monitor progress on a per-item basis. Product line organizations make monitoring progress much easier because they allow groups like accounting or marketing to track results across all items in the same category rather than monitor individual goods. Product line organization is typically not suitable when there is high variation in parts used between different products in the same type of grouping. Product line organizations are good business choices for companies that sell similar items and need to be able to change prices quickly, but they can be difficult if you’re unsure of which product types your business should focus on; Product family groups allow staff members to specialize in certain product types or lines and it provides flexibility in production so businesses can adapt quickly when new opportunities arise. Product line organization is generally best suited for companies who stick with consistent materials across their product offerings.