Series: Learning the “Product” Mindset for UX Researchers (Part 1)
In-depth insights from the book “Product Management for UX” by Christian Crumlish published by Rosenfeld Media
This is an ongoing series of articles for UX Researchers, especially those who are transitioning to the field and want to know what it is like to be in tech company teams and how to work with them. One experience that is unavailable to career starters and switchers is to work with agile teams — a product manager, a dev team, and other roles like product owner or product marketing.
In lieu of that practical experience, I am writing a series of in-depth reviews into what I have learned and understood from Christian Crumlish’s Product Management for UX (not an affiliate link) into how work is done within a UX team.
Overall, this book is excellent and is required reading for researchers looking to work in the industry that has a product manager, product owner, and developers on their teams and follows Agile or Scrum. I highlight and review specific sections (with page numbers) that are critical from a UX Researcher perspective.
Who is this for? This book was written for career switchers and those entering the field. However, this is equally valuable for job seekers who need basic and in-depth information on the product mindset, what the product job entails, and how agile teams operate. This book is for any UX practitioner looking to work better and understand their teammates.
Is this worth it? Yes! This book discusses the product manager (PM) tasks (and what they are not). Surprisingly, it contains a lot of methods for data analytics, prioritising tasks, leadership hard and soft skills, thinking frameworks, and much more. Much of this can help you refine your own profile, complementary skillsets, and upgrading your ‘language.’ This book will help you speak the business language, understand the expectations, and demands of the PM and how to complement what they do with your work.
Why read this? The next ceiling in job hunting or advancing in your interviews is nailing a conversation with a product manager. For companies without a senior UX team leader, your next interview will inevitably be with a product manager. One of the things missing for those transitioning in UX is an opportunity to work with non-designers and agile teams. If you think doing and writing a case study is hard, entering the mind of your multi-disciplinary teammates is very hard. For this reason, this book is valuable in letting you in on the mindset, the role, tasks, and expectations of the key player that will define your research tasks and roadmap. Crumlish shares his experiences and those of other professionals in the field.
Dear Job Hunter or Career Switcher,
You have successfully unlocked Level 1 in your application process: you’re getting callbacks now from recruiters; your profile is getting noticed; you’ve fixed your ever changing mission statement, portfolio (online and deck presentation), resume, cover letter, and being out there in the community. Level 1 is about (1) regaining confidence, (2) knowing what you want. Congratulations! You’ve made it, despite rejections.
Now you are unto Level 2: case study presentations and interviews with different members of the UX or product teams. It’s time to learn about your future team members.
Team Members
- Product Managers vs. Product Owners (5)
Crumlish distinguishes the roles between these two in terms of scope and function:
Product Managers are conductors of cross-disciplinary teams to deliver software experiences to advance strategic business goals. In some companies, PMs are expected to have programming-capable minds or with background in technical design and architecture. (5)
Product Owners manages the engineering team during development and focused on tracking tasks and invented in the absence of product managers. They might be hired from the engineering pool with a Scrum background. Other orgs and businesses may define this role like an entry level or low level PM. (5)
I made a beginner’s error thinking that PMs are programme managers. Product managers are NOT project managers. Crumlish distinguishes the latter role as a separate discipline that specialises in operational execution of simultaneous interrelated projects.
Another distinction that I have learned is that the product manager role requires them to maintain an overall strategic view of the business compared to other team members whose work require depth in an area.
2. UX Designers vs. Product Managers (36)
Crumlish doesn’t separate UX into researchers and designers. In his book, he assumes that all designers are more or less proficient researchers or use the industry standard methods in user research. What both research specialists and UX designers share though are that both are purists, seekers, and revolutionaries that make compromise difficult for practitioners in these roles. (35) I agree, since our job description is to primarily advocate for the user’s implicit and explicit needs and wants into any product or service development. This makes it difficult but also necessary in any team member.
Designers for him spend their time researching, sketching, ideating, critiquing, prototyping, testing, etc. Those in the leadership position also have an additional role to lead art direction, design strategy, and even managing the professional development of designers. (36)
The overlap between these two roles comes into when some UX tasks are undertaken by the PM (see the book for more):
- Personas and User Journeys
- Research synthesis
- Stakeholder facilitation
- Service design
- UX strategy
- User research
- Usability testing
This is where potential conflict may arise. However, research objectives differ: PMs have specific business goals to meet while the UXers have the privilege of only concentrating on the users. I would argue though that UX leaders and seniors become similar to PMs when they take on a similar role of accounting for the business goals and client needs into research consideration. Strategy is an advanced skill set for UXers.
Product Manager Mindset
How does a PM think about the relationship between research with business strategy? Short answer: delivering value.
What is value then? Since PMs straddle between keeping the business and users/customers happy, they have a different definition of what value is. Crumlish cites his mentor Jay Zaveri who defines it as something that customers need, desire, or want which they did not even know existed. It hits on three components: differentiated (cheaper, faster, better), accessible (what was once exclusive is now available), and initiates a change in human behaviour (beneficial to the user or customer). (2)
For PMs, the key impact of any research is to uncover insights that contributes to unearthing a product or service of “enough value to be ‘hired’ by the user” and repeatedly uses. (2) This then translates as a sustaining value as well to the organization. This is the trifecta of innovation: when insights meet a product/service and grows a business.
Rightfully so, a good PM, Crumlish argues is aware that financial growth metrics alone does not create true value. Therefore, a good PM understands the necessity for user research. (You can also now assess any PM by this standard.)
Conclusion: UX researchers need to understand that what is good to know is not necessarily need to know from the perspective of your UX team mates. However, that something good may turn out to be later on what is critical information for your roadmap and PMs. By learning to help PMs quickly in their needs, we’ll gain the space and time to think through good to know insights and translate them to impactful ones.
In the next article, I’ll dive deep into the differences and how research is understood by the PM and by a UX researcher.
