Breaking into Product: Part 2 — Designing a Product
Hey there!
Welcome to “Breaking into Product” — post #2.
If you are planning to enter (or have recently entered) the Product space, you will love our posts! With this series, we aim to share exclusive content and insights on preparing for product management interviews, common Q&A, interview preparation strategies, etc to help you ace your interviews.
“What do you think about Spotify?” One mistake that the majority of the people interviewing for product roles make is that they bombard the interviewer with all the things they love and hate about the product when they face such questions. They express strong opinions (which isn’t a bad thing) in an unstructured manner which ultimately portrays that your thoughts are running haywire. They think about how better the product could be for them.
In such questions, it is important to remember two things — that you are designing the product for a specific user base and that whatever you are thinking needs to be communicated properly, with a structure.
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PS: There are multiple ways to solve design questions. In this article, we highlight the step-by-step process we use to solve them.
The Framework
While developing answers to these questions, the outline in your head should have the following: Asking the right and all questions that come to you, understanding what you are trying to achieve, arriving at the solutions, and prioritizing the top ones in a structured manner.
Note: It is not mandatory to stick to the steps jotted down below. Every question is different. Tailor your approach accordingly.
Step 1 — Understand the problem and the goal
The approach to solving almost every product problem starts with getting clarified and being crystal clear about what the problem statement is. Ask questions to identify who and what you are trying to solve for, it will help you deliver the best possible product.
Also, define what the end goal is, and what are you trying to achieve with this product.
🧐 For example — You are asked to “Design a chair for the elderly”. Seems simple right? Not necessarily, the following things are unclear:
- What type of chair? Rocking chair, dining chair?
- Are you targeting a specific group of elderly folks, like disabled elderlies, poor elderlies, or homeless elderlies?
- Is there a specific problem that the chair is trying to solve?
Step 2 — Structure is everything
I couldn’t stress this enough, provide a structure to what you are doing. Communicate to your interviewer about what you are thinking step by step. Help them understand how you are arriving at your solution.
🧐 For example — You could say something like, “First I’m going to talk understand the problem statement and then come to the solutions.. ”
Step 3 — Identify and understand the users/customers
Once you have a solid understanding of the problem, try to determine what the potential users/customer trait (i.e. user persona) could be. It is again, not as straightforward as it seems.
🧐 For example — If you are designing a chair for the elderly, your primary users are the Elderly but Your secondary users could be:
- Their family members (including toddlers)
- Their caretakers
- Any other people they might be living with or are around a lot
Now, understand the characteristics of the primary users (elderly) by asking the interviewer:
- Where do they live
- What is their monthly pension/income
- How many caretakers/family members do they have
Step 4 — Think about the use cases
For each user identified in the third step, jot down the use cases. Write down how, why, and when would they be using this product.
🧐 For example — A caretaker of the elderly would use the chair :
- To help them move around when aren’t able to do it themselves
- They might need to clean the chair
Step 5 — Identify any existing solutions
Think about the existing solutions to the problem. Are there any? If yes, do they have any weak spots? How would you solve them with your solutions?
🧐 For example — The existing movable chairs today are not easy to self-use by the elderly since they have limited mobility and dexterity. Adding a simple touch feature that lets them move the chair around easily solves this problem greatly.
Step 6 — Brainstorm your solutions
Take a minute to gather your thoughts and start crafting your solutions. You know what you are solving for, who you are solving for, and why you are solving in the first place, start to explain the vision of your product. Explain in detail which feature is solving for which use case you identified in step 4.
Step 7 — Prioritise
A PM’s job is not only to come up with solutions but to be good at prioritizing the right ones. So go a step above and beyond what’s asked in the interview to show that you can do it.
Out of all the ideas you came up with, identify the ones that solve the most important and pressing problems. Justify to the interviewer why you chose to prioritize a few over the others.
🧐 For example — If you have come up with 5 new features, you can recommend the top 2 along with valid reasoning.
Step 8 — Wrap up
It is always useful to summarise your findings from this exercise at the end. It helps the interviewer look at the bigger picture which was in your head at the start.
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Tips and Tricks:
Having a few tricks up your sleeve always makes your life easier. Here are a few I found helpful:
- Write down everything — For each step, you take to solve this question — write it down
- Show your work — You can always choose to share what you are writing down. At the on-campus interview, you can show your notepad/ paper. If you are giving an online interview, you can open a document and share your screen.
- Think out loud — This isn’t an examination, the interviewers are not looking for correct answers, they are trying to determine if your approach is correct. So think out loud to show them your approach/structure.
We hope this helps you structure your “approach” towards guesstimates. Feel free to reach out at thehustlers2021@gmail.com for any questions or guidance.
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Will come back with another interesting case study. Bye!
