Hi, I’m Nastya, the Product Owner of EXANTE’s desktop and web trading terminals. I began working at the company nearly five years ago as a Junior QA Engineer. Since then, I’ve advanced to QA Lead and ultimately to Product Owner. In this article, I’d like to share my growth journey within the company and the steps that helped me progress. I hope that my story will be helpful to those seeking to advance their careers but are unsure where to start.
Hi! My name is Slava. I am currently working as a leading Product and Senior Project Manager at Uzum Bank. One of the leading digital banks in Uzbekistan.
We are growing fast. Really fast. Speaking in numbers, our interest income has increased x10 over the past year (!).
And, as in any similar projects with rapid growth, we constantly lack qualified personnel. So I and my colleagues always have a lot of work to do.
I have two teams with completely different products, and I also manage some projects as a project manager. And I have my own small business – an online tea and coffee shop. And in conclusion, I am the father of two small children)
So, I hope this makes it clear to you that I have faced all the problems, such as working at night, lack of sleep, working in a noisy environment, calls with crying children in the background, calls during breakfast on the wheels, when I take a child to kindergarten (never do that!) etc. and so on and so forth XD
You can ask me: how do you manage to do everything?
The answer is simple: I don't XD
But. This forces me to build a system that helps me quickly switch between different types of tasks, focus quickly and complete them over and over again.
So, today I want to tell you about one of the things, that can completely ruin your day. And sometimes – whole week. It's called "context switching".
Опросы – это не просто инструмент сбора мнений; они являются мостом между компаниями и их аудиторией, позволяя не только узнать мнение клиентов, но и вовлечь их в процесс создания и улучшения продуктов и услуг.
Сервис опросов Тестограф предоставляет широкие возможности для создания опросов, тестов и голосований, обладая функционалом, который позволяет не только собирать данные, но и анализировать их, делая выводы и принимая обоснованные решения на их основе.
Эта статья будет интересна широкому кругу читателей: от HR-менеджеров, стремящихся оптимизировать процесс подбора и оценки персонала, до маркетологов, ищущих пути повышения эффективности своих кампаний через глубокое понимание целевой аудитории. Она также окажется полезной для специалистов по UX/UI, стремящихся улучшить пользовательский опыт на основе реальных отзывов, и для организаторов голосований, желающих обеспечить прозрачность и достоверность результатов.
Launching a startup often means navigating through stringent constraints, particularly in the early stages where resources are limited. For technical founders, who usually possess deep expertise in certain technical domains, the inclination might be to hire a team of senior engineers—considering you often end up with only one expert in each domain, it might be risky to delegate entire segments to junior specialists.
This situation typically leads to a small team where each member is more skilled than the founder in their respective field. This raises an important question for the technical lead: what role should you play in this team?
While the apparent answer might be task setting and quality control, prompting engineers to do what they love (coding), a less obvious but crucial role emerges. As a leader, your primary responsibility could be to prevent your team from engaging in unnecessary or potentially detrimental tasks, a concept known as "overengineering."
In this article, I will explore the critical role of a technical lead in steering a team away from overengineering and ensuring that their efforts align effectively with the startup's goals and resources.
Product management runs on choices. What to develop next, what to put on hold, and what to discard altogether. Getting these choices right steers products toward success. It's more than just a list; it's understanding needs, managing resources, and aligning with the company vision. Prioritization is, without a doubt, a major skill for any product manager.
For most of us, the daily challenge is juggling plenty of tasks, features, and stakeholder requests. But not all demands carry the same weight. It's easy to get swayed by the loudest voice in the room or the most recent email in the inbox, but these aren't necessarily what the product or the users need most urgently.
To get it right in product management, we need the right tools and approaches. Let's see what it takes to nail prioritization.
Key challenges in prioritization
As I noted before, in product management, facing various and often unpredictable challenges is part of the job. However, deciding which tasks to prioritize can be especially confusing, and here are a few factors to consider.
1. Changing customer demands: Customers are the heart of any product, and their needs and desires can evolve rapidly. One day, a feature might be all the rage; the next, it's old news. For instance, a messaging app might find its users clamoring for dark mode due to its increasing popularity across platforms. Adapting to these shifting demands requires constant observation and a readiness to pivot.
2. Evolving market trends: The broader market can influence product decisions as much as individual user feedback. If there's a sudden surge in voice-activated technologies, products that don't incorporate voice features might find themselves left behind. Staying attuned to the market means continuous research and the agility to tweak your product roadmap accordingly.
Against the backdrop of a sharp decline in venture investments in various traditional industries (this is clearly related to the global economic situation), but against the backdrop of certain upheavals in the crypto industry, the question arises of a driver that can become one of the «pillars» of the development of a decentralized industry.
Today, it becomes quite obvious that the situation with web3 technology is becoming similar to the situation with programmatic advertising 10-12 years ago. When programmatic-ads just started, the major market players were not very optimistic - it was much easier for them to follow the well-known paths with chains of publishers and agencies. However, once programmatic got rid of the «childhood diseases» and became simple in use, effective in attracting customers, it has taken a dominant position in the modern advertising market - providing precise targeting and cost reduction. The situation with web3 is similar - all publishers ideally want to have systems for lifetime tracking of customer achievements (that is, Soul Bound tokens in web3), theoretically stable decentralized data storage systems that cannot be broken through a simple server attack, real users’ ownership for his content, as well as simple cross-border payment systems that have built-in algorithms for calculating all duties and taxes. Sounds like a perfect world, but even Amazon doesn't do that yet. Why?
The problem is the web3 entry point, which is difficult for users. As soon as they start talking about opening a crypto wallet, about 12 phrases as a backup, most users interrupt the onboarding process and immediately leave the site. This is obvious - over the decades of the development of the digital market, users have become accustomed to facilitating and simplifying systems for interacting with the site. One-click registration, effective convenient UI, visibility and the «metro principle», where the client is led by the hand – this is modern digital progress. And here some 12 phrases are offered, incomprehensible tokens - and, most importantly, why? So, it turns out that a self-sufficient audience of geeks or really advanced users revolves around web3, which is growing weakly.
When developing functional digital products, especially at the preliminary stages (from MVP to alpha versions) many teams use the «technology first» principle. This means a minimum of user convenience, a maximum of engineering competence. When evaluating the potential of a product, further efforts are already in the direction of creating ergonomic visitor paths, design and more. However, here lies the catch - since not two clients or a prospective investor can evaluate the entire user route, touch it with their hands and make sure that the system works, you can lose both clients and partners.
Avoid duplicate content
Many online merchants face a common challenge with multiple product variations, leading to duplicate content issues. When similar products have slightly different URLs like "?=sortby" or "?p=2", search engines may view them as duplicates, impacting your website's credibility and search rankings. To tackle this:
Generative AI is creating waves in the way we work, significantly revolutionizing the software development process. AI tools are appearing in various phases of software development, such as design, development, and testing. However, there aren't many tools specifically focused on software business analysis tasks.
But with a little creative thinking, we can put "one-size-fits-all" applications like ChatGPT to good use. It can definitely speed up execution of many typical tasks and free up analysts to focus on the more challenging, strategic aspects of the job.
This article is written in a how-to style. It is based on my personal experience and opinions, so it may omit some steps that are common in BPM practice but that I have not encountered in my work. The topic is broad, and each section deserves a separate article. Therefore, if you are interested in a specific topic, please comment, and I will prepare a more detailed description.
Regardless of how mature the product is, its owner will always be curious about how it performs, what the conversion rates are, and what areas for improvement there are. One of the most important tools that product owners should get access to at some point in time is an event tracking system.
As a product owner, it is common to face the question of whether to proceed with option A or option B. Or, which version of the screen should be implemented to achieve better results? Making such decisions can be challenging, especially when you are under tight deadlines with limited resources. Furthermore, such decisions are made based on personal judgment or copying the approach of a competitor, which can lead to suboptimal results.
The good news is that one can avoid such pitfalls by setting up a simple experiment environment that requires relatively low effort. In this article, we will describe how you can achieve this.
Background
As a product manager with over a decade of experience, I'm always looking for new ways to enhance my skills and help other product managers advance in their careers. One area that many companies focus on during the job interview process is analytical and creative problem-solving. And as product managers, we encounter these types of challenges on a daily basis. It's important to stay sharp and continuously develop our problem-solving abilities. That's why I made it a habit to practice a logic puzzle every day. But I also wondered if there was a common approach to solving these puzzles. That's when I discovered TRIZ – the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving. In this article, I'll provide an overview of what TRIZ is and how it can be applied in product management. Then, I'll apply TRIZ principles to solve a series of logical puzzles, showcasing the power and effectiveness of this methodology. So whether you're an experienced product manager looking to enhance your skills or someone who enjoys a good brain teaser, read on to discover the power of TRIZ!
If you find TRIZ to be a useful tool for problem-solving and innovation, there are many resources available to help you delve deeper into the methodology. The TRIZ Journal, for example, offers enough information on TRIZ, including case studies, articles, and other resources. You can also find books and online courses that provide a more in-depth look at TRIZ and how it can be applied in different industries and contexts. So if you're interested in learning more, there are plenty of opportunities to expand your knowledge and apply TRIZ to your work.
This is the first post in a series on Business Process Management (BPM). Having worked as a business analyst and product manager in various companies ranging from middle-sized startups to big corporations, I have observed differences in approaches to business process management - from almost complete disregard to excessive attention. So, I decided to share my views on the topic, why I think BPM is important, especially when a company grows fast and switches from the startup stage to a grown company, and what approach I think might work for a company of average size without involving too much time and resources.
I believe listicles have a huge potential for testing demand hypotheses. Have you tried using listicles for your demand validation? If so - let us know in the comments how this worked for you.
Do you know these "Top N something something" kind of articles? Like:
- 5 best GPS vehicle trackers
- The 14 hair growth products that actually work
- Top 10 Best CRM Software Tools in 2023
They are often referred to as "listicles" - articles presented in the form of a list.
I love them - they make picking a new phone, a movie to watch, an app to install much easier. I also use them at work all the time while looking for solutions to everyday challenges.
So what if we use one of them to benchmark our product against the best available alternatives?
Product Backlog Refinement. Is it worth the effort or a simple waste of your team's time? Vladimir Zolotopupov, Head of Analytics for Innotech's Automation Department, shares his team's experience and describes how they handle the PBR process.
This question comes up for a lot of us as we trying to advance our career and reach new heights. At the moment when I was challenged by it, I came across a wonderful book by Edmond Lau "Effective Engineer".
As always going through the book, I write new thoughts down. And today I want to share the compilation of things that I have found useful from the book. This is by no means an ad for the book, but I think it has some really interesting approaches for us to explore together.
Creating a product startup can be an exciting experience, but it can be a daunting one as well. On average, only 1 out of 10 startups is successful, according to the Global Startup Ecosystem Report. Therefore, to raise your prospects, there are quite a number of important considerations to make in advance.
Bearing in mind everything you need when launching a startup is a challenging task, so it’d be a sound idea to rely on some well-established methodology. That's why we were inspired by the Systems Engineering methodology, presented in such industry standards as ISO 15288 and CFR21. In this article, we’ll make a brief overview of this methodology and highlight how it can help entrepreneurs to encompass and structure the process of creating and developing a startup.
Nowadays a lot of product managers have to confirm most of their decisions with AB-tests. Yet, it is far not always clear how to choose the parameters for the test. A particularly difficult parameter to tune is often the level of statistical significance. If we choose too high level - tests will fail even though improvements do exist. If we choose too low level - we'll be getting lots of "confirmations" of false improvements.
When we make decisions based on AB-tests, once in a while we'll be making mistakes. We can limit the losses caused by such mistakes by choosing the appropriate level of statistical significance.
