When Product Managers are talking about Design Thinking and Experience Managers are talking about Product Thinking you know something magical is happening.
A few years back, a friend of mine who’d just returned from her first big overseas jaunt. She was regaling us with stories of the little things that can blow your mind when you first encounter a new culture, with the prime example being that in Turkey they don’t refer to “Turkish Bread” they just call it “Bread”. We were all laughing at this little statement of the obvious that had come as such a shock to her, and quickly dismissed it as one of her foibles. I’d completely forgotten her story until a few years ago I stepped into a Hong Kong bakery, and alongside the Turkish and French Breads saw the label “English Bread”, which of course I’d only ever though of as “Bread”. Since that time the concept of “English Bread” has become shorthand amongst my friends for thinking about something the seems completely obvious from a new perspective.
I was again reminded of “English Bread” last week when a blog post on why Product Thinking is the Next Big Thing in UX Design started trending in my LinkedIn feed. As a long-time Product Manager I’d never really considered “Product Thinking” as anything other than “Thinking”, and it made me wonder if this is how UX Designers felt when Product Managers first started to talk about “Design Thinking”. Of course the real magic in both of these discourses occurs when we step back for our traditional viewpoints and consider how we go about our work with a different type of thinking.
When I first encountered “Design Thinking” I was working in Telecommunications, an industry that did not traditionally employ Product, Interaction or Experience Designers in developing it services – this will come as no surprise to anyone who’s ever been puzzled or frustrated by their mobile or internet rate plan. “Design Thinking” became a rallying call to consider how we crafted our solutions through the lens of Customer Experience, to understand Customer Journeys and include understanding of the customer problem we were solving with our products, as opposed to solely being guided by extracting the best business value from the market. It challenged us to understand the value of products in terms of the value that our customers extracted in the use of these products, as opposed to a single focus on the value to the business. It was only a few years ago when I moved into Digital Media that I first encountered UX Designers. The ways designers research and synthesise user behaviour to generate well considered, intuitive designs was a complete revelation. Building in iterative improvement concepts that called on Lean Product Development married the analytic world that Product Managers inhabit and meshing them with designerly thinking through Lean UX practices has been a great catalyst in how we jointly create genuinely awesome products.
I was interested to read Nikkel’s blog with it’s discussion of understanding the fundamental needs a product fulfils, the problem it solves – in short, it’s reason for existence. Thinking about the problem a product solves, and for whom this solution is designed, and seeking out the most effective problem-solution fit is fundamental to framing any product solution (and an area that product managers themselves can struggle to maintain focus). It was great to see him talk about product definition and reference a structure the Product Managers call “the Elevator Pitch” and use in both planning product portfolios as well as utilise in Agile Inceptions to provide quick and immediate context to Development teams. If you’ve not encountered this before, it forces product managers to quickly and clearly articulate who the product is for, the need it addresses, it’s name and category as well as what makes it unique from it’s competitors or alternatives.
When UX Designers are embracing Product Thinking, and utilising constructs that have become fundamental for both Product Managers and Delivery teams in reaching a common understanding of purpose, whilst Product Managers are looking at the world from a Designer’s perspective, there is surely magic to be found in how we all work together to create awesome products.
Lisa blogs here 
Nice one, Lisa. As a former telco employee in the nineties, I can attest that the idea of “customer first” back then was hardly the prime goal; it was—as you say—about maximising revenue. I distinctly recall one marketing manager relaying a business strategy that explicitly relied on obfuscating the value to the customer.
One of the things that I adored about Optus when I ported my mobile to them (Aside: Remember call number portability? It was the equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall for mobile phone users.) was that they actually spoke nicely to me…even on hold. They had this concept, like, the customer **matters**.
Virgin has gone further, incorporating the idea of lifestyle so powerfully into their offerings that when I get my bill I feel about fifteen years younger.
The ability to check usage and call spend (to say nothing of bank account cash flow monitoring apps) is a godsend and a massive timesaver. One sympathises for the 300 ABC Shop staff who will shortly lose their jobs, but at the same time this reflects a transformative reinvention; Aunty is now #myabc. Or, as one pundit (https://twitter.com/WadzTrudy/status/623978001663823872) has it, it is a victim of its “own digital success.”
At least ABC’s journey has the customer at its centre.
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