Product managers should not focus on designing solutions but define issues and priorities

Article Description: focus on the problem rather than the solution.

This article is translated from an article in the Mindtheproduct community, formerly known as focus on the problem and not the solution.

Last year, a classmate in the Prodcuttank forum raised a question, let me wish I jumped to the stage to answer him. "If the product manager defines all the products, what is innovation and creativity?" he asked. Stop I just want to shout out: you are wrong!

Many people have heard the concept of "product manager" as a jammer or an intruder. They think that we design the product, define the solution, and then throw it outside the wall, and the product is done. Maybe 10 years ago, but now we have a better product design approach.

Product managers should not focus on designing solutions, but define issues and priorities. Concerns, not solutions, have a whole host of benefits:

1. You use your time to focus on the needs of your users. That is, what you want to solve, why to solve-not how to solve
2. Your delve will naturally take you further to understand the user
3. Background information on user stories and roles will be increasingly enriched. This helps each participant establish a connection and find a solution;
4. Avoids the local excessive optimization. Instead of looking for a single solution, focus on the whole issue, articulate it to the team, and open up a broader space to think about solutions

Once you have studied, explored, described, and defined problems and their priorities, you can work with the team to conceive the solution to the problem and get the job done better. In this way, everyone's creativity will come in handy, and you will certainly get a better final solution.

One of my proudest moments at huddle is that after just a story-writing time, a developer came up to me with 10 minutes to demonstrate a solution to the problem that we were going to spend 3-5 days (not working hours) on. It would be impossible if he didn't know the user and the problem at all.

So, please keep asking yourself: What problems do you want to solve?

Resources

1. Martin "Focus on the problem, not the solution" (English) http://mindtheproduct.com/2011/11/focus-on-the-problem-not-the-solution/

Extended Reading

1. John "Product Management and Project design" (English) http://johnpeltier.com/blog/2011/11/16/product-management-and-solution-design/