Presentation from my latest Talk at Tokopedia - Behind Great Product session

1. Product Anti-Pattern;
Becoming a better Product Manager
Behing Great Product
— Tokopedia

2. WWW.DANA.ID
Let’s start with one Question
Who is Product Owner/Manager?

3. Solution
(Idea)
Customers
Delivery
(working
Product)
Problem
(Pain Points)
Process
Engineering
Team
Product Owner
Scrum
Master
The answer used to be simple…
Customer
Support
Customer’s
Complain
Marketing
& Growth
Growth
Metric
Scrum
Process
Scrum
Process
Business
Owner
Business
Commitment
But not anymore
Competitor
Churn
Users
Problem Space Solution Space

4. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Meeting w/ Internal Stakeholders
Talking to Customers
Navigating Internal Politics
Crafting our Product Roadmap
Running Product Experiments
Writing User Stories
Keeping up w/ Best Practices
Not nearly enough time
It used to be only Customer’s
But in reality, it’s not…
Source:
Alpha Product Management Survey (2017)
https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/429921/Content/2017%20PM%20Insights.pdf
Perfect amount of time Way too much time
1
2
1 Most of us think we don’t have enough
time to do our key tasks:
Run experiments, talk w/ Customers, and
crafting our Roadmap
2 While we struggle to manage internal
politics and align internal stakeholders
The Product Owner’s Dilemma

5. We do understand Product Management is
Heavily Hand—on Discipline
Source:
Alpha Product Management Survey (2017)
https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/429921/Content/2017%20PM%20Insights.pdf
So we also need to understand our shortcomings
and start identifying our Anti-pattern
Source of PM Best Practice
Best Practice is not enough
Anti-pattern
”common response to a recurring problem that
is usually ineffective and risks being highly
counterproductive” – Monsieur Wiki

6. WWW.DANA.ID
“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.“ – Michael Porter
#1 AntiPattern
Product = Proxy

7. Roadmap
Customers
Engineering
Team
Product Owner
Marketing
& Growth
Business
Owner Write Stories
2
1
3
1
Many prioritized feature from
Internal Stakeholders
2
PO doesn’t validate the priority and
Customer’s voice is drowned
3
PO just ”Write Stories” without clear
goals of Customer’s Value to Scrum team
The Pattern The Root-Cause
Source:
Challenges in Product Management
http://280.gr/challenges-pm

8. Median
3
Targeted
Notification
Managing Priority - 101
“All you need is Love” – The Beatles
Customer Value
(Business Metric)
Efforts
(Customization)
1
Voucher or
Discount
2
Pop-up
Banner at
Home
#AntiPattern: MVP = Lowest Effort
Most of the cases, PO just prioritized on Low
Effort Features because:
• Too much unknown (big scope)
• Easier to negotiate w/ Engineer on (2)
• Instant Gratification to Business or Growth
MVP
Release
#MLP: Minimum “Lovable” Product
Breakdown the Long-term feature first into
multiple “Episodes” and prioritized on
Customer’s Value
4
Pay Day
Notification
Notif for
Abandoned
Cart
5
MLP
Release

9. Aligning Metric (Customer Value)
“In the end, Love wins” – Deadpool*
Install
Registration
Explore
Order
Paid
*I just made this up, please don’t sue me
Browse Search
Product List
Product Detail Page
Marketing
& Growth
Business
Owner
Mostly talks about
1. Acquisition
2. Retention
Mostly talks about
1. Profit
2. ROI
Business
Language
Growth
Language
#AntiPattern: Vanity Metric
• Registration Number
• Active Session
• GMV
Focus on #Love Metric
• Transacting Users instead of Active
Session or Registration
• Transaction Numbers instead of GMV
• Referral Numbers: Customer who love
your product will recommend
• Churned Numbers: Customer who
doesn’t love your product will leave

10. Giving Feedback (ROI)
“Understanding is a two way street” – Eleanor Roosevelt
Efforts = Investment Value = Return
Investment
Total Hours planned x {Internal Man Hour Cost}
Screenshot:
Planning using Harvest Forecast
Install
Registration
Explore
Order
Paid
Return
Total Transaction x {Internal Profit Rate per Trx}
Define a weight system
To measure business impact
(i.e. Trx Number) for feature in
inner layer of funnel

11. Giving Feedback (ROI)
“Understanding is a two way street” – Eleanor Roosevelt
ROI Report ROI Report
Features
Investment Return
ROITotal Man
Hours
Total
Investment
Total Trx Total Return
Feature A xx IDR xx yy IDR yy % (yy-xx/xx)
Feature B
Feature C
#AntiPattern: Product = Proxy
Product Team seen to be a “Tactical” not
“Strategical” Leader
• “Just do this, let me handle the business"
• Story-writer
Bring the #ROI report
• Product needs to deliver feedback in
terms of promised Business Value
• Product needs to ensure Scrum Team
working on the stuffs that matter most

12. WWW.DANA.ID
“If I had asked people what they wanted,
they would have said: faster horses” – Henry Ford
#2 AntiPattern
Bias, Bias, Bias

13. Stages Roll Out
(A/B Test)
Customers Engineering
Team
Product TeamPersona
Qualitative
Idea
Generation
Prototype
Prototype
#AntiPattern: Selection Bias
Analytics
(Funnel Report)
Quantitative
Validated
Product Spec
1 Selection
Bias
Selection Bias
The sample obtained (Persona) is not
representative of the population
intended to be analysed (Customers)
1
Minimized the Impact
Selection bias is normal and sometimes inevitable. However
we can minimize the impact by:
- Doing Stages Roll Out (A/B Test) and Measure the impact
- Update the Persona based on Most Valuable Customers
2
“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.”

14. The Misconception
You make rational decisions based on
the future value of objects,
investments and experiences.
The Truth
Your decisions are tainted by the
emotional investments you
accumulate, and the more you invest
in something the harder it becomes to
abandon it.
Few Cust. Some Cust. Most Cust. All Cust.
All the Time Feature A Feature C
Most of the Time Feature B
Some of the Time Feature D
Very little of the Time Feature E
Keep yourself in check
Intercom’s Feature Audit
1
2
3
1
Worth Effort
check if niche, if not then improve adoption
2
Worth Effort
Understand why and is it something you
want customer to use more often?
3
Not Worth the Effort
Think about to kill it
NOTES
#AntiPattern: Sunk-Cost Bias
“Dating often goes hand in hand with the sunk cost fallacy”

15. KNOWN
KNOWN
UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN
KNOWN
UNKNOWN
“there’s limitation on what we can solve, alone”
#AntiPattern: More Bias
1. Interview Bias: you, subconsciously,
directed Users go to certain direction you
expect them to
2. Confirmation Bias: you only hear things
you want to hear
3. Reporting Bias: where are the bad news?
Unknown – Unknown = Bias
#Solve it, together
• Have another Person as gate-keeper
(ask feedback for your Questionnaire or do Retrospective session)
• Put Growth Mindset: accept all feedbacks and acknowledge your bias

16. WWW.DANA.ID
Samantha Stevens – Director of Product Management Tinder
Some truth-pills:
• Your solution is not perfect
• You do not understand everything about your Customers
• You may misidentified the problem or pain-points