How to answer Product Design Questions - BEST Framework to follow!

hello everyone and welcome to my channel my name is diego granados and i'm a product manager in today's video i'm going to show you how to answer one of the most important parts of the product manager interview the product case question and if you're new here don't forget to subscribe and check out all my other videos to learn more about product management and how to become one [Music] every product manager interview is gonna have a section where they're gonna ask you a product case question these are sometimes called product sends or product design question and the tricky part is that there is no common question at all the interviewers can ask you almost anything they want regardless of how crazy it can sound product case or product sense questions can get pretty crazy but don't worry today we'll go over a framework and the more you practice the sooner you realize that you can handle any product question they throw at you and during an interview for any of these product case questions you should have pen and paper ready to write down your ads [Music] during a product case question the interviewer is also going to evaluate you in your communication skills are you able to express your ideas clearly and are these ideas being communicated in a concise way and with a good structure and a very important one if you don't have the previous product management experience can you think and express yourself in the same way a product manager would but if everybody is using the same framework wouldn't we all give the same answer in short no the framework is just a way to guide you and your interviewer through an answer in fact it is to some degree expected that your answer will have a very similar structure to that of other candidates but it's very unlikely that you will actually give the same answer or arrive to a very similar conclusion as any other interviewee so with so many options and so many frameworks out there which one should you use well use the one that you're more comfortable with during an interview you have to sound natural and make it a dialogue with the interviewer everybody can remember a framework but the execution is what matters today i'll show you a framework that has no acronyms but rather steps to solve the problem this framework is not about introducing new concepts we're not reinventing the wheel here so use the one that works for you or even better adapt from multiple frameworks and create your own interviewers do not care about which framework you use they care about how you approach the problem there are different types of product case questions that you can get asked during an interview here are some examples you can get asked about improving a specific company product like how would you improve google maps or how would you improve microsoft teams and of course the product will depend on the company that you are interviewing with however interviewers can also ask you about improving your favorite tech or non-tech product another type of question they can ask you is about designing a product for a specific segment for example how would you design a new vending machine for blind people [Music] okay let's talk now about the framework the entire framework we're gonna follow looks like this one typical mistake that people do in an interview is that as soon as the interviewer asks a question like how would you design a new type of vending machine interviewers jump into solving the question right away you need to take a moment to understand the question they're asking you and here are some basic things that you should clarify about the case they're giving you in the interview number one constraints if the question is about a company product like improving hololens for microsoft it is most likely that you are in this exercise a pm for microsoft and you can be safe by confirming with your interviewer if the question is more generic like designing a new type of tv or a new type of vending machine then you need to know what kind of company you are a pm for the interviewer might tell you that you are working for a startup and therefore you have a limit on budget and time or you might be working for an r d facility for a company like facebook google or apple and you don't need to worry about constraints you can simply ask your interviewer something like for this case do we have any time and resources constrained that i need to be aware of or if it's a case where you need to improve a specific product for a company say hololens you can ask something like since we're improving hololens i'm assuming that in this case i'm a pm for microsoft is that right and are there any other resource and time constraints i should be aware of number two goal it is important that if the interviewer did not tell you the goal right away you find out what that goal is for this case it will be central to the entire framework however it's not a good idea to simply ask a question like what is the goal of developing this product it is kind of a lazy way to ask a question and the interviewer might ask you back what do you think the goal should be instead think of how the product is related to the company you're working with in this case question for example let's say that you are asked to design a new type of vending machine for google you can tell your interviewer something like this as far as i know google does not design vending machines at all in this case we are trying to enter the market with a new product so i'm thinking that increasing user adoption can be a good goal for us is that okay or do you have another goal in mind but what about revenue or profit or user satisfaction as long as the metrics are related to your constraints and the product it will be okay pick one and confirm with your interviewer and number three scope it is also important that you think of setting a scope for your solution using the example of the vending machine for google the requirements for a new type of vending machine may be different depending on whether it's going to be used for food or technology products or even google products setting a scope for this prompt can help you have a better idea of the type of users and constraints you need to think of pick one and let your interviewer know why you chose it but if you're not sure which one to go for you can ask your interviewer something like thinking of vending machines it's likely that the design and the needs will be different depending on the type of content it will have like food versus electronics or even google products and it can also be different depending on the locations that will be placed is there something in particular you'd like to focus on for this case and these three are some basic things that i recommend you should figure out before jumping into the next step of the framework don't be shy about asking other questions until you're ready to begin answering the case okay now that we clarify the constraints the goal and the scope of the question it's a good time to set the context of the both you and the interviewer are on the same page take a moment to talk about the competitors in the market that you know of if you have experience with the product talk about it what are the advantages or disadvantages about it don't spend more than a couple minutes here if you are designing a new product or a solution that currently doesn't exist in the market talk about what are the alternatives how are people solving this problem today finally if you are asked a question like what is your favorite product talk about it why is it your favorite product if you chose a product that is not very common which i highly recommend explain it briefly to your interviewer why is it better than other similar products all of this is gonna help set the context for the product and the rest of the case question okay now that we have more clarity around the question and we set the context now it's time to talk about the users and perhaps you want to ask your interviewer for one or two minutes to brainstorm and write down all the users that you can think of how long should you take well here's a trick that you can do to practice how much time to take during an interview start a timer and without looking at it try to guess when a minute and a half or two minutes have passed there's a moment where you will start feeling anxious that too much time has passed and you're close or over that minute and a half or two minute mark use the same approach in an interview ask for some time and when you start feeling that anxiety that you're close to a minute and a half or two minute mark it's time to start talking but what if you have not finished writing down your ideas and you feel that too much time has passed here's something you can do start talking about your ideas and call out that you are still brainstorming you can say for example okay i'm still finishing my list of users but let me tell you what i'm thinking about for the different segments we should target this is gonna give you just a little bit more time to finish that list of users that you were creating alright let's talk about now how to brainstorm different users my first recommendation is to avoid age ranges it doesn't really tell you much about the group and you might end up confused and confusing your interviewer instead focus on characteristics of the different groups for example group them by live stage you can talk about kids young adults adults and elderly or even by occupation students who are in college or grad school working professionals stay-at-home parents single parents or just parents and it can even be more related to specific activities frequent gym users or being outdoorsy and think also about people with disabilities someone who uses a wheelchair or someone who is blind and now mix them to form groups of users young adults who are working professionals and part-time students stay-at-home parents who uses a wheelchair kids who are in school or high school students and it's important to know that if you are going to talk about kids most likely you'll need to talk about parents while the users may be a kid the customer is most likely an adult and as you brainstorm these users think of the groups who are most likely going to use the product you are working with in the case additionally each group will have its own characteristics for instance working professionals will likely have little time to spur so every activity outside of work will compete to become a priority keep that in mind as you go through an answer overall i recommend that you brainstorm at least three different groups of users but what if the interviewer already asked you for a specific segment for example if the interviewer asked you to design a better atm for the elderly don't catalog them in just one big group there will likely be other users like adults or young adults for this product and you can't forget about them and within the group of elderly you can also have multiple segments for example you can even have users in this segment that may be blind list different segments within this group of users as they can change the direction you'll take during the case okay so we have our three groups of users and it's time to pick one choose one and confirm with your interviewer tell them why are you picking that segment for this particular case but which one should you pick there is actually no standard rule to select one so pick the one that you think makes the most sense for the case and don't forget to tell your interviewer why you picked that one for example you can pick one because you think it'll represent the largest market share and you can say something like this to your interviewer before we look at the pain points for our users out of these three groups of users i think we should target the young working professionals who are also part-time students i believe they can represent the largest market share for our product and since our goal is to enter the market with this new product i think it makes more sense to go after this segment would that be okay for you or do you prefer that we focus on another group alright so we created a group of users we mentioned the reason why we selected it and we confirm with our interviewer it is now time to think of the existing pain points for this group of users and once again take your time to brainstorm it's okay to take a minute and a half or two minutes or so and if you need more time is the tip that i shared before and talk about what you currently have written so far while brainstorming out loud in these product case questions you are asked to design or improve a product because there is a gap there is something that the current solution is not solving for the group of users now put yourselves in the shoes of the user segment that you selected and think of at least three pain points that are related to the product you're working with a common mistake here is that interviewees sometimes share pain points that are related to them and not to the group of users they selected when you think of the user groups that we talked about earlier there will be themes that are prevalent for each group that will be related to the pain points for example working professionals will likely have less free time and if the product requires a lot of time to be used that's a pain point for this group if you talk about kids you most likely will talk about parents and as you can imagine safety in any shape and form can be a pain point one last example for someone who uses a wheelchair when designing physical objects you may need to think not only of the space but also on how a wheelchair moves one distinction of these pain points versus the previous step where we brainstorm our users is that we will not select just one of the pain points we will actually use all of them and try to come up with solutions once you are ready to tell the interviewer the papers you brainstormed use a clean structure to list them remember make it as easy as possible for your interviewer to follow your thought process for example you can start by saying something like okay i thought about three payments for this group of users first and now that we understand the context of the problem the customers we are targeting and their pain points it's time to come up with a few ideas to improve or design our product once again ask the interviewer for a couple minutes to brainstorm solutions i told you about brainstorming three users and three pain points and i also suggest coming up with at least three solutions you can have more if you want just be conscious of your time during the interview and the fact that if your interview is over the phone you need to keep it structured and concise now to solve your customer pain points you don't need to map one pain point to one solution you can propose a solution that solves more than one pain point at the time or even all of them however don't forget to always propose at least three solutions and how do you come up with solutions or improvements to the product i have two rules and three suggestions for you rule number one make sure your solution actually solves at least one of the pain points i know it sounds obvious but i have seen many many candidates call out features or improvements that end up not solving any of the payments for the users and rule number two make sure that your solution is also related one way or another to the goal of the prompt for example if the goal that you and your interviewer agreed on at the beginning was to increase the customer satisfaction maybe an improvement on reducing price might not be the best way to achieve customer satisfaction and now on to the suggestions number one don't hold back on having more technology whether you are improving a pair of shoes or a mobile app don't be afraid to suggest new technologies to improve it don't limit yourself to just the technology that already exists in the product number two don't be afraid to mix multiple products from the same company for example if you're improving powerpoint hololens can be part of one of your solutions as long as it makes sense and as long as it solves the pain point go back to rules number one and number two and suggestion number three let your imagination run wild and have a moonshot idea do not be afraid to think of a crazy solution for the problem think of this if you had a magic wand how would you solve the problem that's your moonshot idea just make sure that your ideas follow rules number one and number two in fact companies like google love hearing about your moonshot ideas but what if it's so crazy that it's not visible what if the technology doesn't even exist don't worry we'll talk about prioritizing these solutions next all right time to prioritize our improvements to the product as always if you need time ask for it there are many ways to do this exercise during an interview for example you can prioritize based on visibility desirability and viability or impact versus effort analysis or any other framework to prioritize that you are comfortable with that you may already know so what is my recommendation regardless of the framework that you use to me there are four things that you have to take into account when prioritizing features during an interview number one the objective we clarified at the beginning of the prompt number two the pain point or pain points that if we were to solve will help us achieve our goal faster number three visibility and time remember your moonshot idea well you can say that while the technology is not available today you can prioritize r d for that solution because it can give you a huge differentiator in the future once it's completed and number four this last one applies only to physical products prioritize physical changes or improvements first once a customer buys your product it's easier to change software than changing a physical component of the product is there a perfect way to prioritize during an interview not really but having a framework and letting your interviewer know your thought process will lead you to a great answer we are almost at the end of our product case question now that you listed your features and prioritize them it's time for you to measure whether your ideas were successful if they were implemented the metrics that you will use to determine whether your idea is successful will depend on the type of solution you are implementing and for simplicity of the interview we can divide the metrics into two types user metrics that will help us understand how users behave over time around our product and product metrics that will help us understand how the users are interacting with our product let's do an example of metrics for a mobile app if you are developing or implementing a mobile app here are some of the metrics that you will talk about and if you are talking about a hardware or physical product your metrics will actually change here are a few of the metrics that you can track now you don't need to mention all of them during an interview pick the ones that you consider the most relevant and let the interviewer know for example you can say something like this now that we've prioritized and implemented the features i mentioned before and since our goal is to enter this new market i would measure the improvements on the mobile app by looking at the number of downloads daily weekly and monthly active users and the retention rate and i think we can also track the amount of time that it takes to users to discover our new feature that can also help us identify whether there are any issues in the ux and how we implemented this feature and while there are other metrics that we can use to track success in the mobile app these are just a few metrics to get us started if you're interested we can talk more about different metrics while this was an example on mobile apps as you practice more and more for your interviews you'll realize that you'll talk about different technologies and different products and you'll have to do some research on what are the most common or the most basic metrics to track for these different technologies that you will talk about and finally at this stage you are officially done with the product case question if you have a couple minutes left on this case you can use them to very quickly summarize the question the goal the product the user segment you worked with the pain points and improvements the prioritization you did and the metrics to track success of your improvements thank you so much for watching i hope you enjoyed this video and learn about a new framework to answer your product case question i wish you the best in your upcoming interviews and i'll see you next time you

Channel: PM Diego Granados

Views: 113,639

Keywords: product management interview, product sense, how to answer pm case question, how to answer product sense questions, product manager interview, product management interviews, product management interview questions, product sense questions, google pm interviews, facebook pm interviews, google product manager interview, circles method product management, circles method example, circles method product management examples, pm interview, product sense interview, product management

Id: H8mogX0OwIQ

Length: 20min 24sec (1224 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 04 2020