100 questions for the new product manager
An exercise in creative curiosity that will help you think about your product from new angles.
How do you know what you don’t know? How do you find out what your unknown unknowns are? How can you build a framework to ask the right questions that can reveal gaps in your own knowledge? In this article, I’ll go over one approach that I found to be fun, interesting, and valuable.
So much new!
I joined a new company about a month ago. Anytime you start a new job that is as nebulous and complex as product management, there are going to be questions. What are our organizational goals? Who do I need to work with to get things done? Who are the key players on my development teams? What is in flight? Where are we going?
On top of all the normal questions, I also joined the company in the midsts of a major reorganization. This ultimately meant that I’m now assigned to own all of our mobile apps; something I have never done before.
At first, I was trying to be the sponge. You know, go to every meeting you can, try to pick up on key projects, meet with team members, etc. While it certainly kept me busy, I didn’t feel like I was getting any closer to my goal of learning enough to be productive. I especially didn’t feel like I was getting closer to learning the specifics of mobile development. I needed more structure to my learning; which meant that I needed more structure to the questions I was asking.
Thats when I tried the 100 questions exercise.
Get it all on paper
I put on some good tunes. I’ve written elsewhere about my love of Spotify and building mood shaping playlists. For the interested, Epic Mountain has some hot bops if you wanna do deep work.
I also closed out all apps that could possibly interrupt my flow (looking at you Slack) and opened a blank word doc. The goal was to write out 100 questions with no constraints.
This is harder than you might think. Seriously. Try it.
The constraint of needing to get no less than 100 questions on the page meant that I had to get creative.
The first several rolled right out onto the page. These are questions I had been stewing on in my mind since being assigned to mobile. These were the questions like:
3. How many active users do we have?
4. How long are the average sessions?
5. What type of platform and devices are being used?
The first 20 or so questions were easy. I was on a roll and already knew I would have some research to do after my exercise.
Then things started getting interesting. The constraint of needing to get no less than 100 questions on the page meant that I had to get creative. Before long I found myself asking more philosophical questions like:
24. Do users even want to complete a course on their mobile device?
25. Who are the executive champions for this project?
26. Who are the detractors and what can I learn from them?
Some of the questions forced me to think about mobile development as a general concept.
33. What are the must-have considerations of any mobile app?
34. What type of data should I be collecting through the app?
35. What is the best way to manage testing pre-launch versions?
Rounding out the last 25 became a real exercise in creativity and curiosity. Here is where the questions pointed me toward thinking about things that surprised me.
82. How do I stay apprised of latest mobile development trends?
83. How can I ensure that the app is accessible for all users?
84. How can the app reach our target demographic of underserved learners?
85. How can I implement a process to ensure scalability, security and quality?
Curiosity is a key trait of a successful Product Manager
Making sense of the wall of questions
After finishing my 100 questions, I next wanted to categorize them. I started by writing each question out on notecards on a Figjam board. This helped me to remember the questions that I had written down and cement the question in my mind. It also had the added benefit of spurring additional questions! Dope!
Finally, I started to categorize and organize my questions into key areas. I created columns for: Marketing questions, Product Questions, Business Questions, UX Questions, Technology Questions, and Process Questions.
I knew that I could answer some of the questions with some legwork on my part, but others would require asking somebody, and some would require coordinated work to answer. I created three rows for my matrix and sorted each column into one of the three rows.
Now, I had something that I could work with a bit easier. I had 100+ questions sorted into different categories and into bits that I could plan around working by myself or with others to answer.
From here, I could plan my day around answering the various questions.
As a plus, I’ve also found this resource helpful for preparing for meetings with others in the organization. For example, if I know I have a meeting with an executive coming up, I can quickly reference some of my business questions that I think this person will be able to help me with.
This practice has been helpful in showing that I have prepared for the meeting and seems to have left good impressions while helping me to get the answers I actually need.
Conclusion
Sometimes when you’re overwhelmed by all the possibilities that are presented to you as a Product Manager, it helps to employ a framework. I find that asking questions is the quickest way to focus learning and this is definitely an exercise I’ll use in the future. I think there is a lot more that could be expanded upon in this exercise, and I would be anxious to hear about how you might use the 100 questions to focus your learning efforts.
Good luck and stay ever curious!
