 Hello, everyone. My name is Sneha and I have been a part of Product School for a couple of years. I am here today to talk about how to take an idea and create it into a product. So I will talk about how to think like a PM, how to execute like a PM. What is the role of taking risks? And how can we make a difference to our users and in the world? My name is pronounced as Sneha Camp. I am a senior product manager in Salesforce Security, their threat detection and response team. A little bit about me. Before joining Salesforce, I was a technical product manager for wealth management at Morgan Stanley. Before that, I was product manager at multiple different startups. I started my career at a two people company called Save Day, where I wore all the hats. I joined as a product manager, but I was also a part of doing some of their sales, some of their marketing, doing customer support, a lot of operations, you name it. After Save Day, I joined another startup called Human Interest and that company became a unicorn startup in the Silicon Valley. So as you can see, all of my previous experience has been in financial technology industry. And I recently made a switch into security with Salesforce. So it's been a fun journey so far. I have a master's in computer science from Cal State East Bay. I also have some special interest in learning about cloud and exploring new technologies in cloud. So I got a cloud practitioner certification. So I can understand what is going on with the cloud. So diving into the presentation, the first thing that I introduced that I was going to talk about is how to think like a PM. And this, for some people could be inherent. They, they are just their personalities like a PM. So they always think like a PM. For some others, it could be inherited over time, being in a PM position, working with PMs, or just having a product manager or product owner friend can get you interested in a position like this. In product management, people can be off any, any experience, any industry, any domain, you could be a designer, you could be a customer support person, you could be an engineer. So how do we really think like a PM? The first thing is an idea and whether it's an idea related to the product or project you might already be on, whether it could be your own original idea, you want to start your own startup, you think that you can combine a spoon and a fork and make a spork, that could be your own idea. So it all starts with an idea and idea can come from your existing customers, it can be a whole new market, it can come from stakeholders, where you might be working with, working with at that given time, it could be operational stakeholders, it could be your leadership, it could be your friends and family, or it could just be your own idea like a spark. So it starts with an idea. And once you have that idea, the next thing a product manager thinks about is who would be the users and the customers of this idea? And if this idea ever becomes a reality, who would use it? What problem does this product solve? In case of a spork? Well, you don't need to wash two different silverware, you could, you would only wash one. You could, it saves space in your kitchen. It could be a big cost saving opportunity for bigger restaurants where they don't have to buy two different utensils, they just need to buy one. So just think in that way on what problem is it going to solve on an individual level, what problem does this product solve on a much larger scale? The second thing that you need to think about is what are the different use cases of this product? So for example, I have this air pod right here. What are the different use cases of this air pod? This air pod can be flipped open, it can be flipped closed, it can be charged, you're able to take the air plugs out of this air pod. Those are different use cases that are associated with this air pod. So you need to think of different ways on how can you divide this product into different use cases? And does each use case solve a problem? Or make anything in the world better? Any experience in your user's lives better? Competition is another very, very important aspect of product management to learn about who else could be competing with you in the market? Are there companies that already exist that solve the problem that you are trying to solve? Are they lacking in anything? Is there opportunity of having a opportunity of growth in the market? And you don't want to be defeated by another competitive product? And that brings me to the last point of how do you make money off of this idea? How are you able to generate revenue and eventually generate profit off of this idea? So these, these are not the only things that a PM think about, but these are the core things that you must think about if you are into product management. Now here, I have an example of a product. And I just thought I would pick this product because it's the simplest thing that all of us use at some point, maybe throughout our day, throughout our week, which is the pen. Let's say at some point, you have an idea that I think I want to build a better pen. You think about, okay, who are the users of this pen? Is this a pen for a child? Or is this a pen for a grownup? Is this a pen for elderly? Is this a pen for people who live in space? Then you have to build a gravity defined pen. Is there, is this pen going to be gender specific or gender neutral? These are just some of the random things. When it comes to how do you segment the users of your product? What are the problems with pens? This is a pen right here. The pens are usually always very thin and sharp, the pens get lost. Sometimes if you write too much, your fingers start hurting. The pens are not forever, they need refills. A lot of the, a lot of the times pens have color limitations, they would be blue or black or red. So these are some of the problems that you might think of, if you want to build a better pen. Now, what are the use cases with this pen? You either uncap the pen, or you click a button to turn it on. In this pen's case, you twist it to turn it on. You glide it on a surface to write it, and then you twist it back to close it. Another use case of this pen could be to refill that you need to twist it open, and you need to have a new nib or ink refill to basically, if you want to continue using this product. Your competition for a pen could be all the pen companies, but all the pen companies are only your direct competitors. Your indirect competitors are keyboards or a phone or tablet or notes application or Microsoft Word. You know, these are all your indirect competitors. So competition can be direct or indirect. So as a PM, you need to think of what are the different variations of your competition. Now, revenue, do you want to expand the current users of the pen? Do you want to target a new segment? Do you want to start building wood or plastic pens? What is the opportunity to grow your customers? What is the opportunity to sell more and make revenue off of your idea? So this was all about how do you think like a PM? The second part is, let's say you have done all the thought process that you had to, you know, exactly what you are doing, you know, exactly who you are building for, you know, exactly how to generate revenue and profit off of idea. How do you execute it? Execution for a PM usually starts with designing in there, either in their head or on a piece of paper or on a lucid chart or mirror or any tool like that or working with a designer to help them design things. The second part of design is the technical aspect of it. Let's say you have figured out that this pen is going to look like and be like a certain way. How will it function? Like there need to be a twisting to it, there need to be like a spring inside it. So all those things are technical details. In case of a software, it's probably going to be like an architecture diagram where this is how the data gets inside the system. This is the gateway it's going to go through. This is a database where it's going to be stored at. These are some of the functions that can connect with your database to do any operation on the data to generate any sort of report. So that all those details go into the technical architecture. And lastly, which is which you would see in all the job descriptions of a product manager is to be able to write product requirements. Once you have thought your idea through, you have the design, you have the technical architecture, how do you write the product requirements? Now going back to our favorite example of the pen. What goes into designing a pen? It would be things like how long this pen is going to be, how wide this pen is going to be, what will be the style of this pen? You want to put like a silver back part, you want to put a silver like holder thing or silver front or whatever you know, a pen would be gray color. So all those things go into the design of the pen. The second part is the technical architecture, meaning will this pen be made of steel or plastic or any other material? How would you refill it? What would be the system of operation of it? Like you need to twist it open glide and things like we already talked about. Now coming to the core product owner responsibility, which is writing product requirements. When you think about the system of operation of a pen, you say this pen should be able to write. That is my goal. The system of operation behind it is you make it operatable. Meaning you twist this pen to make sure your ink, your pen, what's this called nib is out and you're able to glide it. Now, these are some examples of product requirements ability to create a plastic mold with given design. This is a very generic product requirement. When you say ability to create a plastic mold, if if you want, depending on what level of detail, how you work with your engineer, you can go even further deeper into a requirement like this. It says ability to create a plastic mold with given design. You could say ability to create a plastic mold with XYZ amount of plastic with given design or ability to uncapped with the right amount of pressure. In this requirement, you could define that what is the pressure like you need to be able to twist it once 360 degrees so it gets uncapped or you need to pull it real hard so it gets uncapped. So just examples like these, right? Once you have your design and your technical requirements ready, then it becomes really easy for a product manager to be able to convert them into requirements that can be given to an engineer and you can say that, Hey, this is my requirement. Why don't you go ahead and help me build this? Now, risks. This is a quote that I heard recently. It's called life is a series of calculated risks. And my favorite part about this quote is that is the word calculated. It doesn't say life is a series of risks. It says calculated risk, which is very, very, very important in a product manager role or a product owner role or any business, even your own startup. If you are taking risk, you have to know what are the tradeoffs behind the risk. I will get into details of what it means. So let's take a look at some examples on design risks. Designers' minds think in very different way. They are very unique. They fly across the oceans. They go into space just by their own thoughts, by their own designs. I love that. The risk behind that is sometimes it's unrealistic. It could be too elaborate. Engineering risks, engineers, depending on how your team operates, a lot of times engineers do a lot of context switching, meaning one project to another project, the priority shuffle. So it becomes hard for them to focus. So that is an engineering risk. Resource risk, you don't have budget, you don't have headcount to deliver what you want to or what you need to. You cannot stick to your roadmap. Quality risks. So this one is a really scary one. Let's say you have done all the thinking, you have built your product, and you are now testing it. And the product is bad quality. There is a difference between a poor quality product and MVP, which is minimum viable product. I won't get into the details of that. But a high level is that a minimum viable product does what you need them to do with limited functionalities. A poor quality product does not do what you expect them to do and has a lot of bugs and errors and break while you try to use them. Market risks. Well, who needs a pen anymore, right? We have so many options to be able to take notes in our phones and our laptops, anywhere else. This is a very big market risk for a product like a pen. I love this picture right here. It's the sky jumping over the risk and getting to an opportunity. There's little alligators and looks like there's also a little hand speaking out of the water. Alright, so going back to the pen, what are the risks with a pen? Well, a pen could be too heavy. So for example, this pen, which is a steel pen is much heavier than this pen, which is a plastic pen. I like this pen more, even though it's too heavy, it writes better. So trade off this pen is light, but it doesn't write too well. I can refill this pen, I cannot refill this pen. So these are all the trade offs that you think about when you think of design, when you think about use cases, when you think about who is using this, for example, this is an expensive pen, this is a cheap pen. So your user base changes for who is going to pay for pen one versus who's going to pay for pen two. Another risk could be like it leaves like take imprints, it's it's really just a poor quality example of a poor quality product. Slowly dying market. Yeah. So depending on how you think what your experiences have been in the past, it's hard to keep up with all the new trends that are emerging in the market. So it's important to know your market well, to know your users well, you don't want to be delivering a product that has a slowly dying market, because then you're not really thinking long term on the ROI on the return of investment that you're putting into building something. A good way to prepare and mitigate risks are to before you start building something, you conduct reviews of designs, you conduct review of technical architecture before you start building them. Make sure you study the market and always, always be ready to change direction, always be ready to pivot from the original thought. If you see new trends, if you see that, hey, originally, I thought that most of my customers are going to be between the age of 20 and 30, but I'm also getting a lot of traction from the customers that are between 60 to 80. So why don't I change my strategy and go behind the customers that are between 60 and 80 so I can make the most of what I have built from revenue and from a market expansion perspective. So these are the three things that we talk about today. The first is how to think like a PM, what should we build? Why should it be built? How should it be built? Who are the users? How will they use the product? The second is how to execute like a PM. Once you have done the thinking, once you have done all the discovery and scoping, how do you execute it? You need to learn what are the steps. Most of the steps nowadays that are being that is popular being used in most of the companies called agile methodologies. It's very important to learn about that if you want to grow in product management career. It talks a lot about what are the steps to build a product? What is your plan to deliver it? How long are you planning to continue building it? Do you have like MP phase one phase two? How do you plan to test it? Are the developers going to test it? Do you have a QA team? What is your plan to launch? Are you working with any of your marketing specialists? Are you going to put it in a blog? How do you launch it? And lastly, make sure that you are evaluating the risks. You are proactively identifying the risks and are ready to change directions. If your data is indicating otherwise, then what you originally thought. And that's a wrap. I hope that this session was useful to you. Product school is a great community if you are trying to get into product management or if you're trying to get better in better position in your already existing product management journey, if you're trying to break into leadership, product management roles, product school is a great resource. So please do check it out. Thank you very much for giving me your time. My name is Sneha and you can connect with me on LinkedIn. Thank you very, very much.