Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value

by Melissa Perri

Unknown knowns are those moments when you say, “I feel like this is the right thing to do.” This is intuition from years of experience. Although we should all listen to our intuition, you should also be cautious because this is often where bias thrives. It’s imperative to check and experiment to see whether your intuition is right.

Involve them. Listen to your customers and focus on their problems instead of your own solutions. Fall in love with those problems. Also, go seek out data to prove and validate your ideas.

Instead of seeking more detailed information, upper management should be limiting its direction to defining and communicating the strategic intent, or the goals of the business. The strategic intents combine to communicate where the company is heading and what it desires to achieve when it gets there. The strategic intent points the team toward the outcomes the businesses wants to achieve.

users finding your product is acquisition; users having a great first experience is activation; keeping users returning to your product is called retention; users recommending others because they love your product is referral; and, finally, users paying for your product because they see value in it is revenue. Put it all together and you get AARRR—Pirate Metrics. Get it?