Develop Product Management Mindset for Interviews

How does an interviewer judge the Product Management Mindset?

From a Seasoned product manager perspective, when some question is asked in an interview, a developer product manager answers smartly taking all factors into account.

While answering a question in an interview one doesn’t just answer. What is expected is tell them the answer,  explain why this is the best answer, assumptions taken while answering, how the answer can change with changing variable

Or one needs to be the best in storytelling. While telling a story: Explain Situation, Problems, Limitations & reasons for limitations, Options available in hand & Action taken with the result

 

Type of questions asked in Product Management Interviews:

1. Product Creation Questions: This is the favorite question
   Format: Design X for Y.
   Purpose of Interviewer: Identify Issues, organize thoughts, Ask for clarifying questions, Defend answers
   Approach to answer: Understand, Brainstorm, Prioritize & Explain

Understand the user & their needs, Brainstorm as many solutions as possible & order the effectiveness & time it will take to develop, explain the best solution; how this is helpful

 

2. Product Estimation Questions:
   Format: How many X Could Y or How many X does Y do
   Purpose of Interviewer: Observe performance under stress, Discern ability to simplify the problem
   Approach to answer: Clarify, Estimate, Explain

Clarify with sensible questions, Estimate using Top-Down or Bottom-Up approach, explain out load the assumption & how the answer can change with variables

 

3. Instructional Questions:
   Format: The interviewer asks to teach him something. Eg How to make scrambled eggs.
   Purpose of Interviewer: access communication skills, measure empathy, gauge documentation skills. It is important to check how clearly PM can demonstrate technical topic to the non-tech team, business logic to tech team & documentation skills
   Approach to answer: Tell them what you will teach followed by providing specific instructions (Don’t assume pre-assumed knowledge) & Demonstrate empathy

 

4. Personality & Behavioural Question:
   Format: Tell me one time when you did X. X can be an important career decision or the time when you created influence
   Purpose of Interviewer:: Assess successful Experiences as PM, Determine if you accept responsibility for the mistake, Ability to communicate
   Approach to answer: Be honest, Tell a story

 

Take-Home case study:

Approach: Ask for clarification about the challenge, Stipulate final answer may change with more data, do extra work to stand out like user testing or create mockups

 

PM Interview Process:

1. Resume Submission
2. Contact by a recruiter:  basic info, current & expected CTC with Notice Period
3. Hiring Manager from Product Team asking product creation & Vision question
4. Interview with engineers or designers
5. Talking with other stakeholders
6. Vote between all stakeholders
7. A final in-depth discussion with Product Head

P.S: Each interaction will give you a chance to ask questions, ask related questions to be prepared for next round

 

Ask Questions about suggestions: (15% chance of winning the battle)

Ideas about the questions which can be asked: Discuss Product Roadmap, Competition, Industry News

Eg:

1. Internal consensus on responding to new competitors move
2. adoption of new technology
3. The most important thing for the interview for the candidate who takes up this role

 

Conclusion: Get the best out of each interview

 

Extra Tip:

Red Flag: Product Management fitment in the org structure can give a red flag; if they are autonomous then its best

Also, get a clear path of advancement & why they are hiring of this role: replacement because of promotion or firing, do they need product manager or project manager

Take the best decision now because working somewhere you hate is worst than not getting the job offer

P.S: I thank LinkedIn Learning for this: the complete credit of this learning goes to
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/interviewing-for-product-management-jobs/more-resources-to-prep-for-the-product-management-interview

If you are interested please go through in detail

 

The Lean Product Playbook Quick Summary

Dan Olsen, evangelist of Lean Product Development created a framework called Product-Market Fit Pyramid. This is a guide which lets the Product Manager or startup founder build a product step by step & ultimately deliver to World what customers love

How to create products that customer love:

Five key components in PMF:

• Your target customers
• Your customer’s underserved needs
• Your value proposition
• Your feature set
• Your user experience (UX)

It talks about Problem Space &  Solution Space. Bottom 3 are problem space & top 2 are solution space

The Lean Product Process consists of six steps:

1. Identify your target customers- User Persona
2. Determine underserved customer needs
3. Define your value proposition
4. Specify your minimum viable product (MVP) feature set
5. Create your MVP prototype
6. Test your MVP with customers

 

1. Identify your target customers- User Persona 

• While identifying user Persona its very important to understand 5 customer segments- Innovators, Early adaptors, Early majority, Late Majority, Laggards.
• Create user personas & product benefits- create customer benefit ladders
• Create Importance Satisfaction matrix
• Frameworks- Gap Analysis – bigger gap, under serve the need is, jobs to be done- opportunity score
• Product value proposition- Kano model for – must have, performance benefits, delighter

2. Determine underserved customer needs

• User story= Feature with benefit
• Template- As a __ i can __ so that __
• INVEST- Implementable, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, Testable

3. Define your value proposition

• UX design iceberg has 4 layers- Conceptual Design (bottommost), Info Architecture, Interaction Design, Visual Design (Topmost- Visible part of iceberg)

• • Conceptual design is just above feature set. It includes persona as well – like Uber map based design.
  • Info Architecture- Functionality Design Structure. Improve usability & find-ability. Eg site map including mobile api
  • Interaction Design- user flows- action & response
  • Visual design- look & feel- includes color, typography & design

 

For Analytics follow AARRR Framework- AARRR stands for Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral and Revenue – https://medium.com/@ms.mbalke/aarrr-framework-metrics-that-let-your-startup-sound-like-a-pirate-ship-e91d4082994b

Qualitative feedback helps to define while Quantitative feedback helps to optimize the product

 

10 best practices:

1. Have a point of view but stay open minded
2. Articulate your hypothesis
3. Prioritise ruthlessly
4. Keep your scope small but focused
5. Talk to customers
6. Test before you build
7. Avoid local maximum- best results achieved with options, consider alternatives outside of these options
8. Tryout promising tools & techniques
9. Ensure team has right skills
10. Cultivate your team collaboration- Product team is like basketball team where PM passes the ball to by writing stories, to interaction designer to visual designer to developer to QA

 

Other important points to be considered:

• Design principles: Gestalt principles- https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/gestalt-principles
• Learned loop- build measure learn loop
• Waterfall: BDUF- Big design upfront approach
• Agile methodology: Define, Design & code approach
• While estimating take into account Known knowns, Known unknown, unknown unknown always get missed
• Extreme programming & lean development
• Scrum is time boxed framework
• End of each sprint add increment to Shippable / potentially releasable product followed by product demo to show its in shippable state
• Kanban- whip, swim lanes- row for each team member, focus is on flow not time boxed, measurement by throughput – 10 items per week others matrix- cycle team & lead time
• MTMM- Metric that matters most

 

 

Payment Industry in India

Market Research:

• Digital payments in India currently aggregate less than $200 billion, of which mobile is still at just $10 billion in financial year 2018 (estimated),
• Payment integration into popular apps in India will drive the digital payment market in India to $1 trillion over the next five years.
• The number of mobile payment users in India surged 75.5 per cent from 32 million in 2016 to 56.2 million in 2017
• Digital payments in China leapfrogged to over USD 5 trillion in the past four years on the back of rising mobile and data penetration. Data usage for 300 million Indian smartphone users has jumped to 5-10 GB per month from 1GB in the last year.
• Wechat- the surge in digital payments in China was triggered by its integration into e-commerce and social platforms, which leapfrogged to over $5 trillion in the past four years and now boasts a 95% market share

What are key growth areas in the Indian payments market?

India Going Digital-

• With a population of over 1.25 billion eager to partake in rapidly evolving advancements in technology
• 2015 data – Population- 1.25 Bn | Mobile Phone Users- 1 Bn | Internet Users- 300 Mn | Smart Phone Users- 240 Mn
• 2020 estimation- Population- 1.35 Bn | Mobile Phone Users- 1.2 Bn | Internet Users- 650 Mn | Smart Phone Users- 520 Mn

Favourable Regulatory Environment–

• Digitize India initiative by government- Cash handling charges & Cash transaction charges.
• With government’s added emphasis on cashless economy, the industry has grown between 30-40% YoY over the last 5 years. Ever since the demonetisation drive in November 2016, digital transactions have gone up as much as by 55%.
• Reserve Bank of India made it clear in its annual report last year that demonetisation failed to purge black money, the ban forced people to go digital.
• KYC regulation making it secure for users & increasing their trusts
• 2 factor authentication with card payment from RBI making it more cumbersome for users & leakage increase with every step introduction
• Aadhar making KYC easier
• Cryptocurreny introduction
• UPI setup process from NCPI to stich all payment solution in one platform
• Virtual address option for users who want security & even easy to transfer with Mobile Number & aadhar number
• BBPS integrated bill payment system

Emergence of “Nextgen” payment service providers-

• Bank led- Pockets by ICICI, Payzapp by HDFC, SBI Buddy by SBi, Yes Pay by Yes bank
• Telco led- Airtel Money, Vodafone m-Pesa
• Preapaid Wallet- Chillr, ITZ cash, Oxigen
• PPI Licensors
• Payment Bank- Airtel, PayTM
• Chat to cash & Cash to chat let- Watsapp, Hike, PayTM

Enhanced Customer Experience

• The convenience & ease user now expects from e-commerce like Flipkart, Amazon, Cab hailimg service – Ola, Uber now has made him more demanding
• Attracting customers with offers & cashback- Phonepe, PayTM & Tez

Equipped with the power of deep data analytics, data visualisation, and awareness &acceptance amongst target segments, alternative lending companies will be able to customize their offerings to meet the specific customer requirements.

 

How one can create differentiation Now?

Problems of SMEs:

• Multiple accounts- current & savings
• Credit Limit on the basis of CIBIL score
• Easy EMI Option

Technology:

• Launch Peer to Peer payment system using NFC feature like android pay, samung pay OR Audio QR like Google Tez
• Paylater: Buy Now paylater option which will give freedom to buyer & credit limit to him which is required as of now. This is to be provided after proper profling of users. Linking to CIBIL Score will help here
• Collaboration with Alternative lending companies – According to a recent PWC report; more than 225 alternative lending companies have been founded in India in 2017. It is just a matter of time before alternative lending becomes the primary source of borrowing for small and medium businesses (SMBs) and individuals, who do not have the on-paper eligibility for loans demanded by the conventional banking system.
• Live Chat bots and virtual assistants like – Siri, Google Voice, Alexa and Echo
• Payments using cryptocurrency
• Focus on being multilingual

Product Management – Role which integrate Customer, Business & technical Know-how

Hi All,

Here i share some basics about Product Management which one should take care if you are planning to start your career in same & revise again if you are doing this confidently from last few months or years.

This is what i could gather while doing a course from Udemy by Mavo Institute.

Product Management: Mavo Institute

History of Product Management: Inventor & Geniuses >> P&G started focusing on Product marketing >> Inuit started using Field Studies- ethnography >> Role which integrate Customer, Business & technical Know-how

Definition: Role which integrate Customer, Business & technical Know-how

Product Management Lifecycle

• New Product Identification:
  Sources: customer Survey, Industry Journals/Blogs, conferences, Input from sales & support team
• New Product Definition:
  # Develop high level specification
  # Business Case: Problem Statement, Recommendation: Approach how problem will be solved, Cost Benefit Analysis, Alternative analysis, Organization Impact Analysis, Product Description
• Product Development:
  # Create detailed specification
  # Develop & Test Prototype
  # Customer feedback
  # Market Feedback
• Product launch & growth
  # Develop Documentation for sales & service
  # Provide support for sales & service’
  # Customer feedback
• Product Discontinuation
  # Decide on discontinuing
  # Start planning a new launch

Product Branding:

Brand is what people feel about you/your product at emotional level

Find what does your company stand for
To grow brand:
# Be different
# Be Alert
# Be Relevant

Product Positioning
A strategy that aims the brand to Determine the distinctive place in the marketplace relative to competition & in the mind of consumer
Positioning Process:

1. Analyse Position of competitors; Google Autofill, Marketplaces, Company database, Research Firms, mainstream Media, Blogs

2. Create marketing Mix- 4 Ps
3. Develop a positioning Statement

My Company <Name> is developing <offering> to help <target customers> to solve/provide <pain point/benefit> with <secret sauce>

Design Thinking
Only 50% of ideas convert into a product
Design Thinking Approach:
Empathize >> Define >> Ideate >> Prototype >> Test

Empathize: Key Activities: Job Shadowing, Interviewing
Define : Key Activities: Synthesize findings, Describe Problem
Ideate: Key Activities: Brainstorming, Game storming
Prototype: Key Activities: Story Boarding, Wire framing, Build Stuff with inexpensive materials
Test: Key Activities: Show users to get feedback, Iterate

Agile Product Development:
Albert Einstein once said: Learn from yesterday, Live for today & Hope for tomorrow
What is Agile Product Development: Alternative approach to traditional plan driven
Continuously questioning what could be done better in order to achieve better results

Agile Manifesto:
Individuals & Interactions over Processes & tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer Collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

Scrum Process: Agile development framework
Based on small no. of simple rules to rapidly deliver better software

Scrum Rules:
Developers
Product owners
Scrum Master

 

https://www.udemy.com/product-management/

Mobile Wallet In India: Current Status & Future Scope

What is a mobile wallet?
it’s a mobile-based virtual wallet, where you preload a certain amount in your account created with the mobile wallet service provider, and spend it at online and offline merchants listed with the mobile wallet service provider.

Types:
There are four types of mobile wallets in India – open, semi-open, semi-closed and closed. Open wallets are the ones that allow you to buy good and services, withdraw cash at ATMs or banks and transfer funds. These services can only be jointly launched with a bank. M-Pesa by Vodafone and ICICI is one such example. Apart from the usual merchant payments, it also allows you to send money to any mobile numberbank account. Airtel Money is a semi-open wallet, which allows you to transact with merchants that have a contract with Airtel. You can’t withdraw cash or get it back. You’ll have to spend what you load. Then, there are closed accounts, which are quite popular with e-commerce companies, where a certain amount of money is locked with the merchant in case of a cancellation or return of the order, or gift cards. Lastly, there are semi-closed wallets like PayTM, which do not permit cash withdrawal or redemption, but allow you to buy goods and services at listed merchants and perform financial services at listed locations.

Eligibility: Only banks are allowed to issue open wallets

Law governing mobile wallets
The Payments and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 is the primary law governing payments systems in India, with the RBI as the body that supervises related matters

What happens to the money you preload?
Explains Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder CEO, PayTM, “When you register with us, we create an escrow account in which your preloaded amount is deposited. Only when you make a payment, the respec tive amount is credited to PayTM account. We don’t have any control over your money, so there is no question of the service provider running away with the customer’s money.”

Top 6 Mobile Wallets in India
1 PayTM: which received the mobile wallet service licence from the Reserve Bank of India last year, aims to cross the 100-million users mark by 2016..
With its mobile first strategy, Paytm does more than 30 million orders of various digital and physical goods every month.

2. Mobikwik: Started in 2009, MobiKwik claims to have 12 Million users

3. Oxigen: Oxigen is one of the oldest players in the payment market while the company jumped into the mobile wallet space just last year. With its service, people can share money with their friends and family over their preferred social networks and messaging platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Google+, and Twitter.

4. Citrus Pay: It claims to have completed transactions on its platfrom to the tune of 1bn dollars. In addition the company has attracted funding from from investors such as Sequoia Capital, Beenos, and E-Context Asia, among others.

5. mRupee: mRupee, a Tata Teleservices offering in the mobile wallet space, This semi closed wallet is licensed by Reserve Bank of India.

Others Include: ItzCash Card Limited, Vodafone M-Pesa Limited, Airtel M-Commerce Services Limited and MMP Mobi Wallet Payment Services Limited

Future:
¬ Mobile wallet market in India is expected to reach US USD 6.6 billion by 2020 as per the India Mobile Wallet Market Forecast and Opportunities, 2020

¬ more than 40 per cent of e-commerce transactions started happening via mobile phones in India with more than 52 per cent transactions through digital payments.

Ref: http://yourstory.com/2015/10/mobile-wallet-future/

The contribution from phones and tablets is expected to increase to 30 per cent by 2020. Mobile payments in India are estimated to grow from $86 million in 2011 to $1.15 billion in 2016, with a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 68 per cent, according to estimates.

Factors that count
It will be driven by:
¬ Tapping into the untapped market
¬ A focus on providing merchants with multichannel payment services
¬ Wallet payments through near field communication (NFC)
¬ Tokenisation, biometrics — because mobile devices will be a mainstream option for person-to-person or person-to-business payments
¬ Crypto currencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin Developing solutions that are not payment solutions, but are touch payments — solutions for merchant, gift, loyalty, data analytics, and so on
¬ Financial inclusion: a wallet that can cater to this will definitely rule the Indian market
¬ Analytics solutions – payments transaction data analytics will be a major source of payments-related revenue.
¬ And, finally, remittances in developing countries is to grow by 5 per cent. (The annual domestic remittance stood at $13 billion in 2010 and was expected to reach $20.3 billion by 2014, growing at a compounded annual rate of 12 per cent.) These are clear indications that the mobile wallets market is definitely a lucrative one, with investors ready to pump in money.
Ref: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/catalyst/the-future-of-mobile-wallets-in-india/article8332085.ece

6Wresearch, a global market research and consulting firm, said in a report that India’s Mobile Wallet Market is projected to reach $11.5 billion by 2022.

In financial year 2014-15 alone, m-wallet transactions registered a swashbuckling growth of more than 130 per cent as compared to previous year. “In the forecast period, the growth of the market is much dependent on spreading awareness to the potential customers, RBI regulations, shift towards mobile transactions especially in Tier 2 cities and Government of India’s visionary ‘Digital India’ project.”

http://www.in.techradar.com/news/Indias-mobile-wallet-market-likely-to-cross-11-billion-mark-by-2022/articleshow/49325172.cms

For reference:
http://www.altimetrik.com/wisdometrik/mobile-wallets-market-opportunities-and-challenges/
http://www.iamwire.com/2015/04/mobile-wallets-what-scope-india/114860
http://www.dqindia.com/top-6-mobile-wallets-in-india/6/
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/catalyst/the-future-of-mobile-wallets-in-india/article8332085.ece
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/computing/A-guide-to-mobile-wallets/articleshow/48641325.cms
http://www.in.techradar.com/news/Indias-mobile-wallet-market-likely-to-cross-11-billion-mark-by-2022/articleshow/49325172.cms
http://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/features/seven-mobile-wallets-every-indian-should-know-about-754812

Being assertive

Being assertive

What Sony played at its annual shareholder meeting in 2009 – See more at: http://www.innovationamerica.us/index.php/innovation-daily/2024-#sthash.RzDypz8y.dpuf

Source: http://www.innovationamerica.us/index.php/innovation-daily/2024-

Mary Meeker’s ‘Internet Trends 2014′

Some take-aways, including a few relevant to the Indian reader:

• Internet usage has slowed (but the fastest growth is in ‘more difficult to monetize developing markets like India / Indonesia / Nigeria’).

• Smartphone usage is still growing, though slowing down: ‘fastest growth in underpenetrated markets like China / India / Brazil / Indonesia’ But there’s lots more room for growth: usage is at around 30% of a total of 5.2 Bn cellphones worldwide.

• Tablets are still at early stage rapid growth and mobile data traffic is accelerating.

• Revenue from mobile apps is far more than from mobile advertising (Apps make 68% of mobile monetisation).

• Cybersecurity is a big worry, with 95% of networks compromised in some way

• Education may be at an inflection point; online education is finding takers across the world

• OTT (over the top) messaging services — like Whatsapp, China’s Tencent WeChat and Viber — have gained over a billion users in less than five years.

• Image- and video-sharing is rising rapidly.

• Apps are moving from multi-purpose (for web or phone) to ‘there’s an app for that’ (i.e single-purpose) and ‘invisible’ apps (they open only with context, run like a service layer).

• Facebook (21%), Pinterest (7%) and Twitter (1%) are the leading social media traffic referrers.

• Web plays like Buzzfeed and the Huffington Post get the most action on Facebook, but US TV giants follow closely, and brands like the New York Times and the Guardian are hanging in there.

• The BBC gets most shares on Twitter, with NYT coming in second and web-native Mashable third. Forbes comes in at #8.

• All sorts of things are being re-imagined, including dating, music listening, grocery shopping, currency itself..

• ..but the big one is “People enabled with mobile devices + sensors uploading troves of findable & sharable data.” (And not ‘findable’ — i.e., not publicly available or searchable — isn’t dong too badly either!)

• Two-third of digital universe content is consumed and created by the consumers themselves.

• MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) which include sensors and actuators, mainly in mobiles and, to a lesser extent, tablets, but also in laptops, cameras, wearables have grown 32% YoY, to just under 8 Bn units.

• Data processing costs (computing, storage, bandwidth) are whooshing downhill; the Cloud is growing.

• Better-designed user interface + consumers generating vast amounts of data = data becoming more usable and useful.

• New companies are doing old things in new ways and growing. Fast!

• Data mining and analytics has lots of room to improve and grow.

• Big Data is being used to solve big problems.

• Screens are growing. And smartphone are the most viewed and used in many countries, including India (where TV gets 96 minutes a day, laptops + PCs 95 minutes, tablets 31 minutes, and smartphones 166 minutes).

• Media engagement actually rises when people are using multiple screens.

• Smart TVs are a rising percentage of TVs shipped (38% in 2013).

• YouTube channels have huge reach and growth.

• People choose to watch and share good video ads.

• Twitter + TV boosts ad impact.

• Internet TV is beginning to replace linear TV, particularly with millennials.

• 500 Mn (80%) of China’s internet usage is via mobile.

• In 2013, nine out of the top ten global internet properties were ‘Made in USA’ and 79% of their users were from outside the country. By March 2014, that had dropped to six, with four China sites muscling in, all four of them getting no traffic from the US.

• China is pretty much the mobile commerce leader in terms of innovation.

• While the big four (Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon) still lead the Internet companies in market value, China’s Tencent is now number five. From the top twenty, thirteen are US companies, four are from China, two from Japan and one from Korea.

• 60% of the top tech companies were founded by first- and second-generation Americans (immigrants to the US or the children of immigrants); among them, at #21, Cognizant, with co-founders Francisco D’souza (Indian origin, Kenya-born) and Kumar Mahadeva (Sri Lanka-born).

• Of the world’s 2.6 Bn Internet users as of 2013, India has 154 Mn, approx 13% of the population, and has grown 27% since 2013 (2012 growth was 36%).

• Of the world’s 1.7 Bn smartphone users as of 2013, India has 177 Mn, approx 10% of the population, 55% up from 2012.

• Mobile traffic as a percentage of Internet traffic has been growing globally at around 1.5x. It is now (as of May 2014) 25% and likely to maintain that speed or accelerate.

Read more: http://forbesindia.com/blog/technology/mary-meekers-internet-trends-2014/#ixzz35jutOqHY