Lead on Purpose

Promoting Leadership Principles in Product Management

Tag Archives: data


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Using the right data methods in product research

Delivering a solid product that customers love requires an up-front knowledge of the market in which customers and potential customers operate. Understanding the problems they face, and solving those problems with a software solution, is the end goal.

I’ve been asked many times what the best way is to discover a market and understand the needs of customers in that market. My answer is usually some form of “it depends.” Some have potentially millions of customers (e.g. B2C) and other markets have far fewer—generally high-paying—potential customers (e.g. B2B). Attaining access to data differs depending on the makeup of the market.

At a high level, there are two methods you use to acquire market data, regardless of the industry: they are qualitative and quantitative research. Let’s explore how you can use both to get the data you need to deeply understand your market.

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An Effective Leader Leads by Influence, not Authority

Guest Post by Ken Sandy

The earliest mistakes you make in your career are often the most memorable and where you learn the most. In one of my first product management roles, I was delighted when a C-level executive tasked me to lead an important and urgent project and assemble a team for it.

I called a meeting together with people from the marketing, engineering, and design teams. I gave what I thought was a rousing speech, in which I asked that they drop whatever they were doing and commit themselves to this new project — it was of great importance to the c-suite, so it should be our top priority.

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Making tough decisions

Making big decision is not easy; in fact it might be one of the most difficult things we ever have to do. The tendency is to postpone decisions as long as we can and put of the pain.

At its root the word of decision means to cut off. When you make a decision you go with one thing and leave all the rest behind. Cutting yourself off from other choices is not easy, and that’s at the root of why we tend to put off big decisions. We postpone decisions for various reasons: we don’t want to offend people; we’re not sure who or what to choose; we’re afraid we’ll be wrong in the end. We need to stop putting off big decisions.

According to Seth Godin, the key to making big decisions is not time: “First rule of decision making: More time does not create better decisions. In fact, it usually decreases the quality of the decision.” Why is it better to act quickly? Seth goes on to say, “Deciding now frees up your most valuable asset, time, so you can go work on something else. What happens if, starting today, you make every decision as soon as you have a reasonable amount of data?”

A CEO I know recently made a decision to consolidate three teams into one. Two of the teams were led by VPs, which meant one of them had to go. There was a fair amount of disagreement whether the CEO made the right decision, but I was very impressed by his decisive action. I don’t know any of the details behind the decision, but from my perspective he didn’t draw it out, he was cordial and fair to all parties involved, and he didn’t apologize. He admitted he might find out he was wrong at some point, but he accepted full responsibility for the decision and is moving forward.

“Leadership is an action, not a position.” ~ Donald H. McGannon

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The Product Management Perspective: As a product manager you have to sort through a lot of data. Don’t get bogged down in the details. Be decisive. When you encounter decisions that must be made about your product, get the information and make the decision. Don’t procrastinate; your product’s success depends on it.