alan wells

I came across this question tonight on Quora. It’s an area that I have quite a bit of experience so I thought I’d post my thoughts:

Having worked with a number of companies in a product management consulting capacity, I’ve found that the roles & responsibilities of a product manager vary widely based on company. That said, here are some common threads that I believe are generally indicative of a good product manager:

• Good product managers are extremely detail oriented throughout the product development process. You should be able to identify and resolve inconsistencies in the features/application you are defining and participate in the entire development process. Driving a quality product to release may require hundreds of minor adjustments, clarifications and decisions to get to that highly polished state of a truly great experience.
• Good product managers are pragmatic and clear communicators. The specs you write should be as simple as possible and no simpler. Knowing this line and staying on the right side of it is part of the art of product management. Your team needs to understand the intention of what should be created but you need to facilitate this understanding in the most efficient way possible. The level of communication required varies widely based on the experience of your team, whether you work together onsite or remotely, the backgrounds of individual team members, etc but as product manager you should have an instinctive understanding of what information your team needs from you right now.
• Good product managers have enough technical understanding of the product they are creating to know why some things are difficult to implement and why some things are easy to implement. Initially you will need help from your engineering team to understand the system you’re working on, but good product managers quickly internalize the basics and can have reasonably accurate guesses on time and effort required for changes. These guesses will need to be validated with your engineering team but should be directionally correct as your team is depending on you to make the calls as to whether a particular feature or change is worth the time required to implement it. Good product managers can also think about their product from an engineering perspective and understand how the thing they’re specifying fits into the existing patterns, database structures, etc that already exist in the product.
• Good product managers have great relationships with their engineering teams. Product managers typically have very few direct reports but have to work with many members of the team to get something successfully released. This means they can’t depend on authority to get things done – product managers must cultivate a strong feeling of collaboration and team work, so that when you ask someone to put in that extra effort to get the release out the door, they’re willing to do it because they know you would do the same for them.
• Good product managers maintain strong ownership and leadership of the build/release/get feedback/iterate process. In practice this means that a good product manager puts feedback systems in place (both quantitive and qualitative), actively monitors those systems and uses those signals to inform future decisions, and is adaptable and willing to quickly change thinking/approach when data indicates the reality is contrary to a hypothesis.
• Good product managers have good taste. A good product manager will strive to get the product out the door as quickly as possible, but knows when something just isn’t ready for prime time and will be the one to say so. Good product managers are keepers of a great user experience.
• Good product managers think of engineering bandwidth as the single most valuable resource on the planet. They should seek to refine the product development process so that the engineering team has everything they need to build the product as efficiently as possible. This means that required documentation is done in advance, concepts are validated with prototypes or other low-impact tests prior to investing time in full builds, the real data and assets needed are prepared prior to the dev team needing them. You won’t always achieve this level of preparedness, especially if working in an agile process, but the bar should remain high.

Finally, a less specific but important point: good product managers are prepared to do whatever is needed to release a quality product. Most of the time this means doing a great job with the above points, but at times you need to do things that may not exactly fall within your responsibilities. Do you think there’s a need for one final usability test before release? You should be willing to find the participants yourself. Is the engineering team close but not quite there on the current release? You should be willing to go buy pizza to keep them going or tell them all to go home and get some sleep if you think it’s better for the team and the product. Is the QA team having trouble tracking down a particular display bug that’s blocking release? You should be scanning the site with Firebug and trying to find the buggy CSS selector yourself. Good product managers are ready to get their hands dirty with what whatever needs to happen to move the product forward.

I was recently invited to be the alumni speaker at the UC Davis Design department graduation reception, and honor that I quite enjoyed. I had been thinking about what to to say for the last few months, and I settled on telling a few stories about what I’ve been working on since I graduated three years ago, and trying to explain some lessons through those stories. I believe that now is an incredible time to be a designer, and I hope my optimism provided an encouraging counterpoint to the ominous economic situation we’re all struggling with. Here’s what I said to the new graduates:

UC Davis Design Department Graduation Reception
June 12th, 2010
by Alan Wells

I have to admit that I find it a little strange to be standing before you today. Three years ago today I was sitting where you are now, happy to be finished with school but anxious about heading into a future that held all sorts of uncertainty. I’m still trying to figure out how this crazy place called the real world works, so I thought I’d share a little bit about what I’ve been doing and a few things I’ve learned along the way.

During my time at UC Davis, I studied both design and ecology. I started with an ecology major but became interested in design and how it could be applied to solving the problems in the world around us. Shortly before graduation, I was quoted in UC Davis magazine as saying that I wouldn’t take a full time job until untilI found a position related to sustainability. I thought that I could continue the freelance work I had started in school and find a job. Optimistic about my chances, I moved to San Francisco, signed a lease, and tried to get started – but the freelance work I had in school had slowed down, and I wasn’t making enough money to support myself. I needed a job – fast!

I applied for several positions at design studios but didn’t get anywhere. I also applied for a job as a web producer at a small startup called Affinity Labs. The word “design” wasn’t even in the job description, much less anything about sustainability, but it looked like something I was qualified for and I needed the work. I was offered the job and happily accepted it, acknowledging that my interests in sustainability would have to be put on the back burner for a while.

When I started at Affinity Labs, I spent most of my time sourcing content, writing emails, and engaging with the users on the social networking sites the company ran. Despite the fact that design was not in my job description, I found that I was able to bring my design skills into the position – first by designing emails and helping other producers with HTML. I was able to find ways to show my design skills, and was quickly moved into a position where I led the user interface design and software development process for the company’s social networking software platform – a job I would have NEVER been considered for had I applied for it originally.

Here’s the funny thing about the work I did at Affinity Labs – due to class scheduling constraints, I only took one web design class at Davis, and I definitely didn’t consider myself an “interaction designer”. But this is the first lesson about design that I’d like to pass on today: the design skills you’ve learned here can be applied to a wide range of problems. There is a trend in design to segment the field into an increasing number of very specific titles – “graphic designer”, “interaction designer”, “user experience designer” is particularly hot right now. But in my experience, these distinctions are fuzzy at best. The design process you’re now well-versed in is a framework that you can use to solve many different types of problems. Sure, different mediums have different tools and jargon, but those are the easy things to learn. The ability to develop an appropriate solution to a problem while working within constraints is the hard part, and you’ve been well prepared by your teachers here to use that process. So my advice to you is to broaden your design horizons as much as possible, and to open your mind to all the ways that you can use what you’ve learned here.

The willingness to work on a wide variety of projects was key to the next stage in my career. I was offered a position as a product manager at a growing gaming startup called Zynga. For those of you who don’t know Zynga or their flagship game Farmville, the company has turned into one of Silicon Valley’s hottest startups. At Zynga, I was hired to design and manage iPhone games – another area I had never worked in before, but again, I found that the design process that I already knew transferred easily. Zynga should have been a dream job for me – I was designing at the hottest gaming company around, working on Apple’s then-new iPhone platform, and being well compensated all at the same time. But that quote about sustainability kept coming back to haunt me – I couldn’t get much further from sustainability than making an iPhone poker game.

I desperately wanted to work on a project at the intersection of technology and sustainability, so I decided to build an iPhone application that would help San Francisco residents recycle. I needed data the City had collected to make the application work, so I pitched the project to them and asked for the data. I think they were skeptical that the project would actually happen (I was proposing to create the app with no financial support from them), but they gave me the data I needed. I spent the next three months working nights and weekends so I could release the app to coincide with a recycling campaign they were starting last June. Along the way, several incredible things happened that made the app a reality. I found a programming team to build the app, and when I told them I was volunteering my time to design the application, they offered to develop the app at no cost. Shortly after we started development, Mayor Gavin Newsom got wind of the project and decided he liked it enough to issue a press release about the app. Later in the summer, we were invited to participate in the Mayor’s press conference about Government 2.0 technology in San Francisco. Because of the support from the Mayor, our app was covered in Fast Company, Fortune Magazine, CNN.com, and several other major publications.

Just before we released the app, when I heard that Mayor Newsom was going to put his weight behind the project, I came up with a company name to brand the app with. That turned out to be a good decision – the app put Haku Wale on the map, before we even existed as a company!

The lesson that I’d like to convey here is about the power of working on things that matter to you. When you put your heart and soul into a project, you’ll be surprised by the support the world sends your way. I know this may be hard to believe, but it’s true. W. H. Murray, the Scottish mountaineer, once described this phenomenon: “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back – Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.”

The danger in not doing work that is meaningful to you is that you will find it hard to fully commit yourself to the work. And if you don’t fully commit yourself, you’re missing out on all that Providence has to offer. And you don’t need someone to hire you or give you permission to do work that matters – find a way to do it own your own, you’ll be surprised by what comes from it. When you do work that matters to you, magic things can happen.

Shortly after the success of the EcoFinder app, I joined forces with a high school friend of mine to officially start Haku Wale New Media Studio. We didn’t want to lose the momentum we had gained during the EcoFinder launch, so we quit our jobs, said goodbye to our full time salaries, and tried to make a go of it. While our studio is less than a year old, we’ve been fortunate enough to work on some interesting projects with great clients, most of which have strong connections to sustainability and social impact.

The final thought I’d like to leave you with today is that I believe that now is the best time in recent history to be a designer. I know the economic context that we live in today doesn’t paint a rosy picture, but I believe the graduates in this room are better positioned for success than just about anyone else graduating today. In recent years, the value of good design is finally starting to be acknowledged as a key component to commercial success. In many fields, technology is no longer the limiting factor or primary challenge – the challenge is in creating things that are desirable, understandable, delightful. At its core, I believe design is a process for creating something that didn’t previously exist. So the question for those of you graduating today is: how will you use that process? What will you choose to create?

I’d like to close with a thought from Daniel Burnham, the Chicago architect who built the first skyscraper: “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work… Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.”

Think big.

Thank you and congratulations to you all.

It’s hard to do, but if you get it right, the payoff can be huge. If I were on the team at Apple that designed the iPad, I would consider this post from Fred Wilson to be one of the highest compliments I could receive. Fred’s initial reaction to the iPad was lukewarm at best. After spending some time with it and seeing how the device fit into his home, he said this:

“I like how I feel when I am using the thing.”

Those of us who are early adopters, technology-savvy, or otherwise ahead of the curve often forget that it’s not about the walled garden but still abundant app ecosystem, the conflict between Apple and Adobe, or the presence or lack of multitasking. It’s about how it makes you feel. And in that respect, it seems as though the iPad is a resounding success. Or at least 2 million people seem to think so.

Fred’s post reminded me of Simon Sinek’s TEDTalk, where he talks about great companies (like Apple) that build brands around meaning:

An quote from László Moholy-Nagy’s 1947 book “Vision in Motion.”:

“The designer must see the periphery as well as the core, the immediate and the ultimate, at least in the biological sense. He must anchor his special job in the complex whole. The designer must be trained not only in the use of materials and various skills, but also in appreciation of organic functions and planning. He must know that design is indivisible, that the internal and external characteristics of a dish, a chair, a table, a machine, painting, sculpture are not to be separated…

There is design in organization of emotional experiences, in family life, in labor relations, in city planning, in working together as civilized human beings. Ultimately all problems of design merge into one great problem: ‘design for life’.

Wish I had this quote for the presentation I gave last week. Thanks to 37Signals: Signal vs Noise for this one.

Could I tell my clients this and still get design work? I’m not sure I’ve got the confidence to try it yet, but I really feel like this is the most honest description of the design process I’ve ever read. Exactly the way I think about design.

“When I do a design project, I begin by listening carefully to you as you talk about your problem and read whatever background material I can find that relates to the issues you face. If you’re lucky, I have also accidentally acquired some firsthand experience with your situation. Somewhere along the way an idea for the design pops into my head from out of the blue. I can’t really explain that part; it’s like magic. Sometimes it even happens before you have a chance to tell me that much about your problem! Now, if it’s a good idea, I try to figure out some strategic justification for the solution so I can explain it to you without relying on good taste you may or may not have. Along the way, I may add some other ideas, either because you made me agree to do so at the outset, or because I’m not sure of the first idea. At any rate, in the earlier phases hopefully I will have gained your trust so that by this point you’re inclined to take my advice. I don’t have any clue how you’d go about proving that my advice is any good except that other people — at least the ones I’ve told you about — have taken my advice in the past and prospered. In other words, could you just sort of, you know…trust me?” – Michael Bierut

So much of what designers do is intuitive, tricky, and not rational. I think that’s probably why we do what we do. But can you tell that to someone who isn’t a designer, who is uneasy with that kind of ambiguity?

At IDEO, they say that to work there you must thrive in ambiguity. I think that’s a quality of good designers… being comfortable with the ambiguity of the process.