I went too quickly in my previous post about my product management adventure (link in the comments)....
I jumped the gun and started talking about implementation. The truth of it is that there are 2 important planning steps that did before starting the implementation.
I jumped the gun and started talking about implementation. The truth of it is that there are 2 important planning steps that did before starting the implementation.
- Defining the success of the product
- Identifying the #metrics we need to capture to identify that success and causes of success.
The success of my product was based on its goal (which goes back to the problem I was trying to solve).
My primary goal was to create save user’s time by creating a platform where they could find, create and share a specific type of content.
My secondary goal was to improve the user experience interacting with this type of content to make it more engaging (although we will not address this second goal for the time being).
I would then consider the product successful if:
My primary goal was to create save user’s time by creating a platform where they could find, create and share a specific type of content.
My secondary goal was to improve the user experience interacting with this type of content to make it more engaging (although we will not address this second goal for the time being).
I would then consider the product successful if:
- Users were saving time by finding the content on the site quickly (from google or anywhere else on the site)
- At least 5% of Users engaged with the content by sharing it, searching for other content or creating some themselves (quality content and interested audience)
- At least 2% of visitors were retained week over week (stickiness)
Although these seem arbitrary at first, they serve as the foundational goal for my MVP as by seeing if these goals are met I will know what I need to work on to achieve them.
Taking inspiration from Alex Reeve's January 2021 post on product metrics (link in the comments), I attempted to Identify my NorthStar and Signposts metrics linked to my products goal and success definition. As this is an MVP I chose not to add specific Guardrail metrics but instead set lower-bound alerts for some of the Signposts metrics.
North Star: Average user engagement time
Signposts:
Taking inspiration from Alex Reeve's January 2021 post on product metrics (link in the comments), I attempted to Identify my NorthStar and Signposts metrics linked to my products goal and success definition. As this is an MVP I chose not to add specific Guardrail metrics but instead set lower-bound alerts for some of the Signposts metrics.
North Star: Average user engagement time
Signposts:
- Number of users (for a given time period)
- User source (direct? Social Media? Organic Search?)
- Average page views per session (do users go to other pages which increases their engagement time? Do most of the users have to navigate to find the content they are looking for)
- Monthly user retention (how many users come back month over month?)
- Search Position and Click through rate (we want the content to be well tailored for the users and easily accessible)
Alerts:
- Average engagement time under 8 seconds → content is not properly tailored to the user
- Retention under 2% → not the right users or not the right content
- Lower Search Position and Click through rate → content not engaging/important enough for Search Engines to promote it for users
By defining what success was and the metrics I needed to track to asses it, I had now a better idea of what to build and what to include for the MVP. I was now ready for the final planning step before implementation: the product release strategy and plan.
What do you think about these metrics? Which ones would you have chosen?
What do you think about these metrics? Which ones would you have chosen?
