Introduction to Product Sense: What It Is and How to Develop It

Welcome to Module 3 of the Product Leadership course! In this module, we're going to dive into a concept that's essential for anyone looking to lead product teams effectively—Product Sense. Product Sense is more than just intuition; it's a vital skill that product leaders must develop to ensure their teams create impactful and successful products.

What Is Product Sense?

Product Sense is the ability to recognize what makes a good product great. It involves identifying patterns in product functionalities, understanding customer needs, and connecting these needs to potential business opportunities. Essentially, Product Sense is the skill that allows you to envision solutions with limited information and find opportunities that others might miss.

At its core, Product Sense is about experience in product management—knowing how to create and modify products to achieve a specific impact. This involves having a deep understanding of what users want, what drives engagement, and how to improve the user experience consistently.

Can Product Sense Be Taught?

Product Sense might seem like an intuitive skill that comes only with experience. However, it can be taught and developed through practice and structured learning. As a product leader, one of your most important responsibilities is to help your team develop this ability. While hands-on experience is critical, there are ways to accelerate the learning process so your team can start making better product decisions more quickly.

The Four Pillars of Product Sense

To better understand and teach Product Sense, we can break it down into four main pillars:

1. Problem Structuring: This involves taking a systematic approach to understanding a problem before diving into solutions. It means creating a clear framework to guide your thought process and ensure you don’t miss important aspects.

2. Contextualization and Empathy: Great products solve real problems for real people. This pillar is about understanding the broader context of the problem—who the users are, what challenges they face, and how your solution can fit into their lives. It’s also about justifying and prioritizing your decisions based on a clear understanding of user needs.

3. Creativity: Product Sense requires creativity—thinking outside the box to come up with new ideas that add value to the user experience. Creativity doesn’t always come naturally, but it can be fostered in a team through exercises and a culture that encourages experimentation and the sharing of ideas.

4. Synthesis: This pillar is about taking a complex set of ideas and boiling it down to the essentials. Synthesis involves deciding on a single direction, making choices that reduce complexity, and setting clear metrics to measure success. It’s about communicating your thoughts in a way that is straightforward and compelling.

Product Sense in Practice

Let’s take an example of how Product Sense might be applied. Imagine you’re asked how you could significantly improve Slack as a product. Someone with low Product Sense might immediately jump to a list of features without considering who the target users are or what specific problems those features solve. They may struggle to prioritize solutions, resulting in a lot of scattered ideas without clear direction.

Instead, approaching the case with Product Sense involves taking a step-by-step approach:

1. Understanding the Problem: Start by asking questions to understand the problem space better. What aspects of Slack are we trying to improve? Who are the users we’re targeting? What are their needs?

2. Defining Strategy: Gain an understanding of Slack’s overall strategy. Are we focusing on engagement, monetization, or another goal?

3. Segmenting the Users: Identify a target user segment and list their specific needs. Prioritize these needs to decide which ones are the most important to address.

4. Proposing a Solution: Develop a simple, minimum viable product (MVP) that addresses the most important needs. Make sure the solution is connected to both user needs and the business strategy.

5. Defining Metrics: Set clear metrics to measure the success of your proposed solution. These metrics should be linked to the outcomes you hope to achieve.

6. Discussing Trade-offs: Be prepared to discuss potential trade-offs. For example, why did you choose to focus on engagement instead of monetization? Why did you target one user segment over another?

Breaking Down the Example

In this example, we can see the four pillars of Product Sense in action:

• Problem Structuring: Asking questions and framing the problem to understand the different aspects.
• Contextualization and Empathy: Understanding the needs of a specific user segment and justifying your choices.
• Creativity: Coming up with an MVP that addresses user needs in a novel way.
• Synthesis: Choosing a direction, defining clear success metrics, and communicating your ideas concisely.

Conclusion

Product Sense is a critical skill for product leaders and their teams. It’s the ability to connect user needs with impactful solutions, and it’s essential for creating successful products. By breaking Product Sense into the four pillars of problem structuring, contextualization and empathy, creativity, and synthesis, we can make this skill more approachable and easier to teach.

Remember, Product Sense is not something that comes overnight—it’s built through practice, feedback, and continuous learning. As a product leader, your role is to help guide your team along this journey, ensuring that they can make informed and impactful decisions at every step.