How to Become a Product Manager That UX Designers Adore
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Chapter 1: The Context of Collaboration
The year is 2020, and the world is grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic. As European cities cautiously emerge from lockdown, people seek convenient ways to shop for groceries, engage in physical activity, and escape the confines of home. Amid this backdrop, electric bike sales soar as families opt for e-bikes, leading to the most significant surge in the market to date.
Months earlier, the product team at VanMoof, a Dutch electric bike manufacturer, anticipated this sudden demand. They were poised to scale their operations and executed three key strategies simultaneously: releasing the S3 and X3 models at competitive prices with innovative features, establishing a direct-to-consumer sales channel, and securing $13.5 million in funding in May 2020.
Thanks to government incentives promoting cycling and walking, VanMoof's profits skyrocketed from an estimated £40 million to £120 million that year, followed by two additional funding rounds totaling $168 million. But how did these product teams foresee customer needs ahead of market trends? What research and insights underpinned their success? And how can product managers optimize their collaboration with UX research and design teams to achieve similar victories? Let’s explore.
Section 1.1: Essential Strategies for Product Managers
To be the product manager that UX teams admire, consider these three strategies:
- Give Space and Listen
- Familiarize Yourself with the Design Process
- Involve UX Early in Customer Interactions
Subsection 1.1.1: Give Space and Listen
The primary piece of advice for working with your design team is to take a step back and listen. While it’s essential to provide feedback on the research and design work your team does, your foremost role is to support them in executing their tasks efficiently.
For those in design, how often have you encountered a product manager suggesting adjustments like, "Can we shift that button to the left?" or "Let’s make this design 'pop' more?" Your responsibility as a product manager is to manage the risks associated with launching a product.
Different Risks in Product Management:
- Business Risk
- Value Risk
- Feasibility Risk
- Usability Risk
As a PM, you primarily handle the Value and Business risks, ensuring the product meets customer needs and contributes to business growth. Meanwhile, your design team focuses on Usability Risk, which involves creating a product that users can easily navigate and interact with.
To support your UX team, prioritize listening over speaking in meetings. They are skilled professionals, and your role is to facilitate their work.
Section 1.2: Asking the Right Questions
Your secondary task as a product manager is to glean insights from your design team to make informed decisions. This might include understanding the rationale behind design choices, such as:
- "What led us to choose infinite scroll for the inventory page?"
- "Did we conduct A/B testing to support this design decision?"
The goal is to delve deeper into the design drivers and ensure the team has the necessary resources to gather insights effectively.
Chapter 2: Understanding the Design Process
To engage meaningfully with your UX team, it’s critical to familiarize yourself with their design process. The Double Diamond framework, for instance, is a popular model that allows teams to explore ideas without judgment and then refine them to the best options.
Double Diamond Design Framework:
- Discover: Identify real user pain points.
- Define: Narrow down use cases to create user stories.
- Develop: Generate low-fidelity mockups for selected ideas.
- Deliver: Finalize one design for engineering handoff.
As a PM, you should actively participate in crafting user stories, ensuring alignment with user needs.
In the video “How to Collaborate with Product Managers as a Product Designer,” insights and tips are shared on fostering effective partnerships between product managers and designers.
Section 2.1: The Consequences of Ignoring UX Research
Neglecting UX research can lead to significant pitfalls, as demonstrated by the Tesla Model S Plaid's steering yoke design, which faced backlash for being impractical. Early user feedback could have prevented this product misstep.
Subsection 2.1.1: Engaging UX Early in the Process
Integrating your UX team into customer interactions early is vital. Many PMs shy away from this due to a fear of negative feedback, but constructive criticism is essential for product improvement.
Usability Testing is a crucial method to identify both explicit and implicit user challenges. In these sessions, team members typically take on roles to facilitate discussions, demonstrations, and note-taking.
Check out “How UX Designers Work with Product Managers?” for comprehensive strategies on optimizing collaboration between PMs and UX designers.
Final Thoughts: Becoming a Beloved PM
To emulate the success of VanMoof’s product team, it’s vital to provide your UX team with the time and space they need to excel. Understand their design processes, ask intelligent questions, and involve them in customer engagements early on.
As Reid Hoffman wisely noted, product managers should act as Predictive Anthropologists, anticipating customer desires and delivering solutions before needs arise. By following these strategies, you can become the product manager your UX team truly appreciates.