The 2 greatest clarifying questions in product development
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The 2 greatest clarifying questions in product development:
- "On what time frame?
- Under what circumstance?"
Everything that is true can become false, and vice versa, depending on how far in the future you are looking.
"Don't focus on the competition" → great advice, for the next few weeks or months. Terrible advice, if you're talking years or decades.
"Rewrite this code to be more scalable" → makes sense for a long-term growing eng team. Doesn't, if you don't have product-market fit.
Most start-up mistakes are not because people have never heard of some "playbook."It's because they make the wrong call on which playbook to use in their current context OR they misread the current context.
Example: ask 3 seasoned PMs what feature they'd recommend you build next. You will get a bunch of ideas.
Should you actually go ahead and build these ideas today? Of course not. Because these same PMs would probably also tell you it's a terrible idea to stretch yourself thin.
How do you avoid applying the wrong playbook?
4 things you can do:
- Force prioritization. If someone shares a specific idea, like "We should do X," ask: "After what milestone should we do X?"
If they say "Now," ask: "What should we drop so we can make room for X?"
- Get the full framework. If someone shares specific advice or a playbook, ask: "Under what circumstances would this be great? Under what circumstances would it not be?"
Try to understand the flow chart that is underlying their recommendation.
- Describe your specific context whenever you ask for advice.
Generic questions will only get you generic answers, which may be not just unhelpful, but wrong.
No entry sign "How do we prioritize features?" White heavy check mark "For our 3-person team pre-PMF, how do we prioritize customer requests?
- Take all Twitter "should's" and "shouldn'ts" with an enormous heaping of salt.
Ask yourself:
- What influences this person's worldview?
- Where does their experience on this topic come from?
- Who do I believe they are trying to speak to?
- What outcome are they hoping for?
The Internet is a treasure trove. Just about every answer we need is somewhere out there, accessible at our fingertips.
But there are a billion wrong answers too.
So read carefully. Think critically. Understand your context, and force specificity when you can.
Translations
🇨🇳 产品开发中最重要的两个澄清问题
产品开发中两个最大的澄清问题：“在什么时间范围内？在什么情况下？”
一切真实的东西都有可能变成虚假的，反之亦然，这取决于你对未来的期待有多远。
“不要专注于竞争”→ 对接下来几周或几个月的建议。如果你说的是几年或几十年，这是个糟糕的建议。
“重写这段代码以使其更具可扩展性”。对于一个长期成长的工程师团队来说，是有意义的。如果你的产品与市场不匹配，就不需要。
大多数创业公司犯的错误并不是因为人们没有听说过什么“战术手册”。“这是因为他们在当前环境下做了错误的选择，或者他们误读了当前环境。
例如:询问 3 位经验丰富的项目经理，他们会推荐你下一步开发什么功能。你会得到很多想法。
你是否应该今天就开始建立这些想法?当然不是。因为这些同样的经理可能也会告诉你，缩减功能是个糟糕的主意。
你如何避免使用错误的战术手册？
你可以做四件事：
- 强制优先。 如果有人分享了一个特定的想法，比如“我们应该做 X”，问：“在什么里程碑之后我们应该做？” 如果他们说“现在”，问一问：“我们应该扔掉什么才能给 X 腾出空间？”。
- 获得完整的框架。 如果有人分享了具体的建议或者剧本，问他：“在什么情况下这是最好的？ 在什么情况下不会这样呢？” 试着去理解他们推荐的基本流程。
- 当你寻求建议时，描述一下你的具体情况。 一般的问题只会给你一般的答案，这可能不仅没有帮助，而且是错误的。 不好的版本 “我们如何优先考虑功能？” “对于我们的 3 人团队，在 PMF 之前，我们如何确定客户请求的优先级？”
- 不要全盘接受 Twitter 上所有的“应该”和“不应该”。
问问自己：
- 是什么影响了这个人的世界观？
- 他们在这个问题上的经验从何而来？
- 谁会是他们的听众？
- 他们希望得到什么样的结果？
互联网是一座宝库。 我们需要的每个答案都在某个地方，触手可及。
但也有十亿个错误的答案。
所以仔细阅读。 批判性地思考。 理解你所处的环境，并在可能的情况下强调其特殊性。
