“Product managers believe they should spend 53% of their time on strategic activities, but only 8% can focus at this level.”

Pragmatic Institute

But who will do all the manual, time-consuming work that still needs to get done?

You might’ve guessed the answer: AI.

At Canny, we asked ourselves:

This is how we came up with Autopilot. It’s an AI-powered suite of tools that simplifies and automates feedback management. One of Autopilot’s key features is Feedback Discovery. It finds, extracts, and deduplicates feedback from customer conversations.

Now, it can find feedback on ten review sites:

1. G2
2. Capterra
3. App Store
4. Google Play
5. Trustpilot
6. Trustradius
7. Product Hunt
8. Salesforce AppExchange
9. WordPress
10. Shopify

I’m excited to walk you through this new feature.

Why automate feedback management?

When you dreamed of being a product manager…we bet you didn’t dream of this:

• Manually copy-pasting feature requests from G2 to a spreadsheet
• Sifting through that spreadsheet with hundreds of lines of customer feedback
• Desperately trying to find patterns and commonalities
• Attempting to find duplicated ideas and merge them
• Building features no one ends up using

There are more issues with managing feedback manually, including:

• Inefficiency. Sorting through large volumes of feedback can be unproductive and overwhelming.
• Human error. It’s easy to miss important feedback and make mistakes.
• Inconsistency. Manual processes can lead to inconsistencies in feedback categorization and management. This creates even more manual work down the line.
• Lack of scalability. As the amount of feedback grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to manage manually.
• Delayed responses. Manually sorting feedback can delay the response time to customer issues and feature requests.
• Lack of comprehensive view. It’s challenging to get a holistic view of all feedback across different platforms.
• Difficulty with tracking trends. It’s harder to identify patterns and trends in feedback.

Let’s see how automated feedback management can solve all these issues.

What is Canny Autopilot?

Canny Autopilot is an AI-powered extension of our core product. Our suite of AI tools includes:

1. Feature Discovery – to find, extract, and deduplicate feedback in customer support, sales communications, and now in public reviews
2. Smart Replies – to respond to your users and ask for more context
3. Comment Summaries – to summarize busy comment threads and give you the main outcomes

Our product has always been feedback-first – we believe it’s the foundation of all good product management. We built Autopilot’s Feedback Discovery to help product managers find, extract, and deduplicate that feedback faster and easier.

We spent months testing, iterating, and perfecting it to ensure it extracts feedback with very high accuracy. To achieve this, we used a multi-layered AI approach. This means we don’t just ask AI: “Is there feedback here?” We keep asking questions and iterating on results until we get the most accurate output possible.

“We don’t just have a single-stage process. We’re not going straight to the API and asking: ‘What is the feedback here?’ or ‘Is there a bug report in this?’ Instead, we have a multi-stage process. We ask one small question at a time and try to get the most accurate response possible. This is how we get higher fidelity and accuracy rates.”

Niall Dickin, engineer at Canny

We’ve received lots of positive feedback so far.

“I LOVE how it auto-scans our support tickets and magically finds customer feedback without me lifting a finger. We’ve been able to 10x the feedback coming into Canny & remove many duplicate posts, with only a few minutes of work a week.”

Keenan Jones, VP of Product, Credit Repair Cloud

Finding feedback in customer reviews

But we didn’t stop there. Today, Autopilot finds feedback not only in your customer communications. Now, it can scan your public reviews and find feedback there.

After Autopilot detects feedback, it extracts and imports it into your Canny portal. Then, it finds duplicate requests and merges them for you.

Note: if you don’t want Autopilot to automatically merge duplicated feature requests you can turn off automated mode. This way, you’ll see what Autopilot recommends to merge, but you’ll be able to make those decisions yourself.

“I thought, surely I can’t just turn it on, and it’ll do its magic. But that’s exactly what it’s doing. We’re seeing hundreds of support tickets turned into actionable insights…with very high accuracy.”

Matt Cromwell, senior director of customer experience at StellarWP

Why public review sites?

Reviews often contain feature requests that slip by unnoticed. That’s why we connected Autopilot to ten public review sites (and we’ll keep adding more). Now, you can capture all the feedback right where it lives. You no longer need to:

• Manually scroll through and read every review
• Look for feature requests and feedback in those reviews
• Copy-paste each idea to your feedback portal
• Compare these ideas to your existing feature requests
• Identify and merge duplicates one by one

Autopilot now does all that automatically. 

The truth is, your feedback is out there. It lives in your App Store, Product Hunt, and Trustpilot reviews. And right now, you’re relying on humans to find and pass it on.

It’s easy to let that feedback slip through the cracks. When it does, you don’t have the full picture of your customer sentiment. And you can’t make objective data-based decisions for your product.

Autopilot automatically captures your feedback from anywhere it lives. There’s no limit to how many sources you can connect to Autopilot either.

“Canny’s Autopilot ensures feature requests never fall through the cracks. We’ve seen an 80% increase in requests logged since introducing Autopilot.”

Owen Doherty, COO at OrcaScan

Getting started with AI

We get it – trusting AI might be daunting. You might not want to use customer chats, sales call recordings, and other private data just to test an AI tool.

Instead of testing Autopilot with your customer communications, try it with public reviews first. You probably don’t need to get your team’s approval for testing Autopilot with public reviews.

Use your free AI credits – every account has them, even our free plan! Once you see the quality of feedback detection and extraction, you can decide whether or not you want to connect more sources.

We did this specifically for those who are nervous about fully trusting AI right away. 

How does it work?

Autopilot’s Feedback Discovery can find feedback in minutes. All you need to do is connect a review site and watch it happen. Here’s a quick step-by-step tutorial.

Once you connect a review site, Autopilot will scrape it to identify possible feedback. Then you can either:

1. Use Autopilot in automatic mode to let it merge duplicated posts (you’ll still see an audit log and will be able to adjust what Autopilot did)
2. Review Autopilot’s suggestions and decide what to do with each item

Conclusion: save time and focus on strategic tasks with Autopilot

We know that manually collecting user feedback might not be your idea of strategic work. We get how much time feedback management takes. And we want to make this simpler for you.

Autopilot’s Feedback Discovery can free up your time for strategic tasks. Try it today with public reviews and see how much feedback is out there.

Maria Vasserman

Maria loves all things creative – writing, photography, movies and beyond 🎥 When she's not creating content to tell the world about Canny, she's either photographing a wedding, jumping at a rock concert, camping, travelling, snowboarding, or walking her dog 🐕‍🦺

All Posts - Website · Twitter - Facebook - LinkedIn

The post Introducing automatic Feedback Discovery for leading review sites first appeared on Canny Blog.

The post Introducing automatic Feedback Discovery for leading review sites appeared first on Canny Blog.

In just under 100 years, product management has seen many changes. It’s become increasingly more technical. Today, some PMs work closer with engineers than with marketing, and many need to know basic coding.

Technology, business, and the product world will always evolve. Your users, competitors, and the industry will also change. To stay competitive and relevant, you need to innovate.

There are many tried-and-true PM tactics that can help you drive innovation. But, we want to encourage you to look beyond them.

We asked 18 product leaders to share unconventional product management strategies they use. Let’s explore their ideas and insights in this blog post.

Why do we need new and unconventional approaches?

First of all, “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” There are many outstanding and sound product management frameworks out there. You don’t have to change just for the sake of changing.

Still, remember that things around you will always evolve.

Many experts discuss how AI is changing product management. Some worry that AI will replace PMs, while others are excited about AI helping them uncover powerful insights.

“The integration of AI into product management has been nothing short of transformative. An advanced AI algorithm can sift through vast datasets and decipher intricate customer behavior and preferences.”

Kamil Rejent, CEO at Survicate

The bottom line: you need to adapt.

The good news: you can use frameworks that serve you well and still explore new ideas. You don’t have to abandon your tried-and-tested methods, especially if they deliver results. At the same time, we encourage you to challenge the status quo (even a little bit). Who knows – maybe you’ll find the next big breakthrough in these unconventional tactics.

As you discover new frameworks, keep this in mind.

“It’s not about the framework itself. It’s about fixing the right problems in our process. It’s easy to get caught up in the latest, shiny new framework. But it is important to stay focused on what needs improving in our own backyard.

So, whether it’s a traditional framework or an unconventional approach, the key is to pick what works best for our unique challenges.”

Elisa Montanari, head of organic growth and website strategy at Wrike

Potential issues with popular frameworks

Many traditional frameworks work really well. Our clients, partners, and even our team use them! Here’s how we prioritize feature requests, for example (using weighted scoring).

However, we know that “what got us here won’t get us there” (to the next stage of our business). So we keep using what’s working but always look for new and interesting ideas. We also try to apply strategic thinking and critically assess how we’ve done things so far.

“Some businesses or people get ‘stuck in the mud’ regarding how things are done. When they resist changing processes and ways of thinking, they rarely meet their full potential.”

Clare Garrity, operations at Canny

Well-known product management frameworks are popular for a reason. But they do have some drawbacks.

Here are some potential issues with conventional approaches to product management. They sometimes:

• Get outdated
• Become very complex, rigid, linear, and inflexible
• Slow down feedback loops
• Separate teams instead of uniting them
• Don’t work for all your tasks

Let’s look at the Waterfall method, for example. It’s a project management framework that product managers use too.

Waterfall is one of the earliest frameworks that follows a linear and sequential approach. Each project stage informs the next one – it cascades down like a waterfall.

Waterfall has many benefits, such as:

• Clear project structure
• Fixed costs
• Simplified progress tracking
• A repeatable process

Here’s where it falls short.

1. The team must complete each phase before moving on to the next.  This extends the development cycle – if you need to change something, you need to start over with each phase. This increases costs and leads to delays. That’s why adjusting the project plan mid-process is often not feasible. As a result, a product may no longer meet current market demands or use the latest technology by launch time.
2. Typically, you can’t integrate feedback until the end of the process. This long feedback loop can prevent you from iterating quickly.
3. Different teams work on their respective phases independently. This separation can lead to communication gaps, misaligned objectives, and a lack of collaboration.

This is why the Agile framework came along – to propose a new approach that will fix these issues.

Let’s explore more tactics you might’ve not heard of.

1. Pretotyping

No, this isn’t a typo 🙂 You’ve heard of prototyping – a design process that creates a mock-up for testing.

Pretotyping takes a step back. It’s about creating simulated versions of products to gather feedback before full development. In other words, pretotyping happens before prototyping.

“Pretotyping is a set of tools, techniques, and tactics that help you validate any idea for a new product.”

Alberto Savoia, Google’s first engineering director​, author of “The Right It”

How to implement it

Goals:

• Gauge interest before investing in development
• Validate assumptions
• Determine the probability of product success

A pretotype is meant to be a quick experiment. You want to test your ideas with the minimum amount of money, time, and effort. Here’s how you could do it.

1. Pick one key assumption.
2. Choose a pretotype. Alberto Savoia offers the following options.

3. Set a market engagement hypothesis. How many (and what kind of) people will do what with your pretotype? For example: X% of Y will do Z

4. Test your pretotype. Put it into the real world, and watch how people interact with it.

5. Learn, refine, hypozoom. Evaluate your results. Refine your pretotype with your new data. 

If your hypothesis held, test your pretotype in other situations. Alberto calls it “hypozooming”.

Example: IBM

IBM wanted to test speech-to-text technology. First, they wanted to know if users would even want to use such a tool.

They simulated actual hardware and software using a hidden typist. The testers held a microphone and looked at a monitor, but they didn’t have a keyboard. They spoke into a microphone and watched text appear on the screen. They thought that a computer was typing what they were saying. In reality, it was a person.

IBM saw interest in this tool and started developing it. They also got early product marketing through this test.

2. Lean UX

You’re familiar with both “lean” and “UX” terms, but how do they work together?

Lean user experience (UX) is about integrating UX design throughout the product lifecycle.

“The core objective is to obtain feedback as early as possible and use it to make quick decisions. Agile product management works in rapid, iterative cycles. Lean UX mimics these cycles to use the generated data in each iteration.”

Frank Spillers, CEO/CX, and UX + service design lead the Experience Dynamics

One of the easiest ways to get that early feedback is to build a minimum viable product (MVP). This approach can even follow the pretotyping idea from the previous section. Here’s how:

1. You’ve built and tested a pretotype
2. You know there’s a legitimate interest in your idea
3. Now you can build an MVP

An MVP is a bare-bones version of your product. You include only what’s absolutely necessary and leave out all the rest. This way, you don’t spend time and other resources building something that might not work. An MVP’s purpose is to validate your idea.

“As you consider building your own minimum viable product, let this simple rule suffice. Remove any feature, process, or effort that does not contribute directly to the learning you seek.”

Eric Ries, author of “The Lean Startup“

An MVP helps you gather quick and actionable feedback. You can use that feedback as you continue perfecting your product. Feedback helps you stay focused on your customer and their experience (UX). When you put user experience at the center of your product development, you apply the Lean UX method.

Most product managers think of MVP (Minimum Viable Product) as:

"The V1 of the product they want users to use."

That is 100% WRONG.

In Product Management, a few concepts (like MVP) are frequently used, yet grossly misunderstood.

MVP as a concept has revolutionized the way…

— JustAnotherPM | Sid (@JustAnotherPM) October 16, 2023

How to implement it: think, make, check

To test out lean UX yourself, follow these main steps.

1. Think. Brainstorm potential areas for improvement. Use existing customer feedback, research, and more. Then, set a hypothesis.

Example: reducing the number of steps in the onboarding process will improve user retention.

2. Make. Build an MVP.

Example goal: simplified onboarding experience.

Example steps:

1. Reduce required steps from seven to three
2. Add a progress indicator to help users understand how far along they are
3. Give a skip option for non-essential information
4. Include tooltips to guide users through the process

3. Check. Analyze the performance of your MVP. Did it validate your hypothesis? If not, go back to step one.

Example:

• The team tracked user retention, drop-off rates during onboarding, and overall user satisfaction
• Result: 15% increase in user retention and 20% reduction in drop-off rates

The results validated the hypothesis. Based on this, the team permanently implemented the new onboarding process.

Example: Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud solution for file sharing and syncing. Here’s how they applied the Lean UX model.

1. Think. When the Dropbox team was first building the tool, “the founders wanted feedback from customers about what really mattered to them.” Their hypothesis was: “File synchronization is a problem that most people don’t know they had. Once they experience the solution, they won’t be able to imagine how they ever lived without it.”
2. Make. Dropbox’s MVP was a simple demo video that showcased the core functionality. This video gauged interest and collected user feedback before full development. This low-cost approach validated the demand for such a service.

3. Check.

“[The MVP video] drove hundreds of thousands of people to the website. Our beta waiting list went from 5,000 people to 75,000 people literally overnight. It totally blew us away.”

Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox

Dropbox achieved incredible product success with the help of Lean UX.

3. Impact mapping

Impact mapping is a collaborative planning technique. It’s based on:

• Outcome-driven planning – first, define the desired results. Then, plan backward to determine which steps will help achieve those outcomes.
• Mind mapping – a visual brainstorming technique that helps organize information. It involves writing down a central idea and branching it into related subtopics.
• User interaction design (IxD) – designing how users interact with a product. The focus is on making the product intuitive and easy to use. IxD includes creating layouts, menus, buttons, and other interactive elements.

Basically, an impact map is a mind map on steroids. It takes your mind map further and adds strategy and IxD to it. This helps you align product development with user and business goals.

“Impact mapping is fast, visual, and collaborative. It makes it easy to engage people from various roles and backgrounds. It exposes hidden assumptions and documents important decisions. It provides just enough structure to facilitate effective planning and prioritization. But it doesn’t get in the way with complicated syntax or bureaucracy.”

Gojko Adzic, author of “Impact Mapping“

How to implement it

Gojko separates his impact map into four main parts:

1. Your main goal
2. Actors (i.e. users)
3. Impact (desired action)
4. Deliverable (what do I need to do to make the desired action happen)

This product strategy combines several popular approaches, and it’s easy to get confused. Tim Herbig, a product management coach, helps clarify the difference between them here.

Learn more about impact mapping in this podcast from Tim Herbig.

Example: Codurance

Codurance is a software consulting company. They used impact mapping to help a client prioritize social media platform features. This client had a large product backlog and roadmap but lacked prioritization clarity. Here’s how they created an impact map to fix this problem.

1. Goal: achieve a target number of users for a new social media platform
2. Actors:
   • Primary users
   • Advertisers
3. Impact (desired actions)
   • Users: increase engagement; encourage users to share content and invite friends
   • Advertisers: attract advertisers by demonstrating a growing and engaged user base
4. Deliverable
   • Users: develop features that simplify and reward content-sharing
     • I.e. add a share button, notifications for friend invites, etc.
   • Advertisers: create analytics tools to show advertisers user engagement metrics and growth trends.

“The client was very happy – they are now clear about each feature. The impact map helps them provide a strong argument if investors ask for features that do not align with original product goals.”

Mashooq Badar, founder of Codurance

4. Opportunity solution tree

An opportunity solution tree is a problem-solving technique. It helps teams evaluate potential solutions to a given opportunity. Similar to impact mapping, it’s a very visual approach.

The tree has a few sections:

1. The root = desired outcome
2. Opportunity space = customer needs, pain points, and desires
3. Solution space = potential solutions you’re exploring
4. Assumption tests = to evaluate which solutions will best combine customer and business value

Teresa Torres, the author of “Continuous Discovery Habits,” developed this framework.

“We struggle with the distinction between the problem space and the solution space. The heart of a good product is getting comfortable in the problem space (or the opportunity space). It’s about really taking the time to frame a problem well before jumping to solutions.”

Teresa Torres

How to implement it

1. Identify the desired outcome. Start with what you want to achieve. What’s your business objective? How can you use this exercise to support it?
2. Map out opportunities. Brainstorm all possible ways to achieve that desired outcome. Consider different customer needs, pain points, and market gaps.
3. Explore solutions. For each opportunity, list potential solutions. Focus on how these solutions can address the identified opportunities.
4. Prioritize and test. Rank the solutions based on potential impact and feasibility. Begin testing the most promising ones and iterate based on results.

Example 1: trivago

Trivago is a hotel comparison website. Their team built an opportunity solution tree to “tailor the search experience and help the user move down the funnel.” Here’s how they implemented this strategic planning framework.

1. Identify the desired outcome
   • Better understand user intent through both explicit and implicit user signals
   • Tailor the search experience
   • Guide users down the funnel
2. Map out opportunities. Trivago phrased opportunities as user needs they could solve:

• “I need to decide where to stay”
• “I wish it would take less effort to find hotels that meet my preferences”
• “I only want to see hotels that meet my preferences, not all the other irrelevant ones”
• “I need to trust that my preferences are reflected correctly”

3. Explore solutions

• Refine filters
• Showcase relevant hotel details
• Suggest personalized options based on user input

4. Prioritize and test

• Prioritize features that help reach the desired outcome
• Conduct user interviews
• Test assumptions

“Product management is no perfect science. With the opportunity solution tree you can make sense of it and give it structure only to a point. It helped us get buy-in from the UX research team and the product leadership to embark on the continuous discovery journey.”

Sören Weber, senior AI product manager at Trivago

Example 2: Wrike

Wrike is a project management tool that helps businesses simplify their workflows. Elisa Montanari is the head of organic growth and website strategy. She shared her experience with this technique.

“[The] Opportunity Solution Tree helped me prioritize at a high level and kept our strategy focused. But when it came to the nitty-gritty daily tasks, it wasn’t as effective. Some of my colleagues found it hard to adopt for everyday use.”

Elisa Montanari

Elisa manages a Scrum development team of 8 and an SEO team of 3. Her insights bring up an important point: focusing on one particular framework shouldn’t be the goal. 

“This experience taught me something important: it’s not about the framework itself. It’s about fixing the right problems in our process.”

Elisa Montanari

It’s also OK to try something, see that it doesn’t work, and move on.

5. Innovation games

Innovation can help your product stand out and succeed.

“The toughest part of innovation? Accurately predicting what customers want, need, and will pay for.”

Luke Hohmann, CIO at Applied Frameworks, author of Innovation Games

Luke Hohmann came up with a concept called innovation games. They are:

• A form of primary market research
• Structured activities to foster creativity and collaboration
• Designed to help you uncover your customers’ true, hidden needs and desires

Typically, you’d gather existing or potential customers to play these innovation games. However, you might not have the resources or enough existing customers. Then, you can play these games internally – with your team. Your results will be different because your team knows your product and isn’t always the target customer. Still, you can test these games with them and assess the results. Later, you can repeat the experiment with real users and compare the results.

You need a facilitator for each game. Ideally, a product manager or product owner from your team facilitates them.

Here’s a quick description of each innovation game.

1. 20/20 vision. The facilitator writes down potential features on Q-cards and tapes one to a wall. Then, the facilitator shows the feature cards one by one. Participants decide if each is more or less important than the one on the wall. No ties allowed!
2. Buy a feature. Participants use a set budget to “buy” features from a list. They can pool resources to afford more expensive features. This will force them to prioritize what they value most.
3. Give them a hot tub. Mix in wild, unexpected features with normal ones to see customer reactions. This helps understand what surprises or delights users and what they truly want.
4. Me and my shadow. Observers closely follow a user interacting with a product. They note actions and ask why users do certain things. This reveals hidden usability issues and user thoughts.
5. Product box. Teams create a mock product box with crafts, imagining they’re marketing it at a tradeshow. This helps identify what users find most appealing or essential about the product.
6. Prune the product tree. Draw a tree where branches represent different product features. Participants add “leaves” (new feature ideas), showing which areas they think need growth. Then, you collectively “prune” the product tree. The goal is to leave only the most impactful feature ideas.
7. Remember the future. Participants envision a future where they’ve used the product extensively. Then, they describe how it made them successful or happy. This reveals aspirational goals and desired features.
8. Show and tell. Users bring in examples of how they’ve used the product. They explain why these uses are important to them. This highlights real-world applications and user priorities.
9. Speed boat. Draw a boat with anchors, symbolizing features that slow it down. Participants label these anchors with disliked features, prioritizing which issues to fix first.
10. Spider web. Place your product in the center of the spider web. Ask participants to add competing products around it. Then, visually show how these products are related. For example, use a solid line for complementary products and a dashed line for direct competitors. This helps you visualize the competitive landscape.
11. Start your day. Participants outline their daily routine using the product, highlighting helpful and frustrating moments. This helps identify pain points and opportunities for improvement.
12. The apprentice. Developers use the product as real customers, experiencing its strengths and flaws firsthand. This hands-on approach helps identify usability issues and areas for enhancement.

How to implement it

In his book, Luke proposes 12 different games. You don’t need to try all 12, though! Here’s a helpful graphic that separates these games based on your focus area. For example, if you’re interested in learning more about your users’ needs, you can try “Me and My Shadow,” “Show and Tell,” or “The Apprentice.”

If you’re still unsure which ones to choose and how to facilitate them, follow these key steps.

1. Define objectives. Set clear goals for what you want to achieve – enhancing creativity, improving problem-solving, etc.
2. Consider time limits. Choose games within your available timeframe to ensure full participation and engagement.
3. Accommodate diverse preferences. Select games that cater to different learning styles and preferences (i.e., visual or hands-on activities).
4. Align with team goals. Pick games that are relevant to your team’s projects or real-world scenarios.
5. Rotate and refresh. Introduce new games if you feel you’re not getting the desired results.
6. Use technology. Incorporate digital tools and platforms for virtual or tech-enhanced game experiences. For example, Lucidspark offers free templates for the Buy a Feature game.
7. Monitor engagement. Observe and assess engagement levels to ensure the games are effective and enjoyable.
8. Gather feedback. After each session, collect feedback from participants to refine future game choices. A tool like Canny can help you with this.

Example: Ford Motor Company

Liz Schemanski is a former UX Designer at Ford Motor Company. During her time there, she inspired her team to use the “Buy a Feature” innovation game.

Goal: identify which features users valued most and were willing to pay for. Their process looked like this:

1. Familiarizing participants. Users explored five potential features through scenarios and tasks. Those features weren’t fully built yet.

“We already had some basic screens in a prototype that would show each of our feature concepts. They didn’t need to be perfect; they just needed to show the potential and possibilities of each feature.”

Liz Schemanski

Here’s one scenario Liz’s team used during this experiment.

2. Shopping phase. Participants received a set amount of “monies” to spend on the features. The features were not labeled, which allowed users to choose features based on their preferences without bias. The goal is to pick the features they find the most valuable.

“Each tool was priced equally. [That’s because] our main goal was not to find out which feature we should build first based on complexity. Rather, it was to understand which features the participants valued most without being influenced by the cost to build.”

Liz Schemanski

3. Feedback collection. After making their selections, participants explained their choices, revealing their preferences and reasons. This provided valuable insights into user needs and priorities.

“Some sample questions we asked included:

• Why did you put down the full ten monies for this?

• Why did you put down equal monies for these two tools?

• Why did you pay six monies for this tool and two monies for that tool?

• Why did you not buy this tool?”

Liz Schemanski

This approach helped gather qualitative data on user preferences without building full-fledged prototypes. Buy a Feature proved to be a cost-effective method for early-stage product development.

6. Platform thinking

Platform thinking is “product thinking applied to digital platforms.” What’s product thinking? It’s a mindset that prioritizes the user when designing solutions.

This approach connects your target market and the developers of your product. A “platform” lets them interact and create value together.

1. A developer builds a product and envisions how users will interact with it
2. Users join the platform
3. They add value by creating content (Facebook), selling products (Etsy), providing services (Lyft), and more
4. The platform becomes better thanks to its users
5. Developers watch these interactions and improve the product based on them

Instead of just selling a product, you build a platform that facilitates these interactions. This helps your product grow and become more valuable. The more people use and contribute to it, the better it becomes.

“It moves beyond traditional linear business models. Those rely on a straightforward supply chain from production to consumption. Instead, platforms facilitate interactions between multiple interdependent sets of customers. This creates value through network effects.”

Dan Pontefract, founder of Pontefract Group

Many successful products use the platform thinking approach. Common examples include Amazon, Uber, Netflix, Spotify, and others.

How to implement it

Follow these steps to adopt platform thinking. 

1. Identify what you offer. Start by figuring out the unique value your platform can provide that others can’t. Understand your customers’ needs and how your platform can meet them. Find your product differentiation.
2. Create a strong foundation. Build a core feature that everything else revolves around. This could be a marketplace, a set of tools, or a service hub that others can build on.
3. Encourage user interactions. Make it easy for different groups to interact on your platform. For example, eBay benefits from both buyers and sellers actively engaging.
4. Partner up. Work with other companies, developers, and partners to expand your platform’s capabilities. This means inviting others to create apps, services, or products that complement your core offering.
5. Grow gradually. Start small and gradually add more features based on user feedback. This lets you quickly adapt to changes and continuously improve.
6. Set clear rules. Establish guidelines for how people can use your platform. Explain how you handle data and manage interactions. This helps maintain trust and smooth operations.

Example: Glassdoor

Glassdoor could’ve been just another job search site. Instead, they became a platform for real and honest company reviews, salary data, interview insights, and more. They are a true example of platform thinking. Without reviews from users, Glassdoor wouldn’t be as valuable.

1. What they offer. Glassdoor’s unique value: workplace transparency. They empower employees to share honest reviews. Users can submit comments about their employers, company culture, the CEO, and salaries. You can’t find this information anywhere else on the web.
2. Their strong foundation. Glassdoor’s core: a comprehensive database of employee reviews and ratings. This foundation supports additional tools and services. Detailed company profiles, salary comparisons, and interview preparation resources are some examples.
3. Encouraging user interactions. Users can view some information at first, but eventually need to submit their own reviews to keep browsing. This helps Glassdoor grow and increase their value.
4. Partnering up. Glassdoor collaborates with recruitment agencies and organizations. They offer access to valuable data for detailed analysis and reporting. Businesses can also get enhanced profiles (paid service). This allows them to customize their Glassdoor profiles. They can showcase job listings and highlight why they are great places to work. This approach expands Glassdoor’s platform capabilities and provides additional value to its users.
5. Growing gradually. Glassdoor initially focused on company reviews and gradually expanded its services. They got proof of concept first and grew later.
6. Set clear rules. Glassdoor established clear guidelines for content submission. The goal was to ensure the accuracy and reliability of reviews. They maintain strict policies for data handling and user interactions. This helps build and maintain trust among users and companies.

7. The 10x rule

Larry Page, Ken Norton, and Grant Cardone advocate for this strategy. The 10x rule encourages a product leader to build tools that are ten times better than the competition.

Larry Page calls this aiming for “moonshots” or 10x improvements rather than incremental changes. He believes that aiming for significant breakthroughs leads to more innovative thinking. As a result, companies achieve more.

“It’s natural for people to want to work on things that they know aren’t going to fail. But incremental improvement is guaranteed to be obsolete over time. Especially in technology, where you know there’s going to be non-incremental change.

So, a big part of my job is to get people focused on things that are not just incremental. Take Gmail. When we released it, we were a search company. It was a leap for us to put out an email product, let alone one that gave users 100 times as much storage as they could get anywhere else. That is not something that would have happened naturally if we had been focusing on incremental improvements.”

Larry Page

This ambitious strategy might seem reserved only for large companies. Or it might seem like you need big visionaries like Larry Page to use this approach. But it’s not the case.

“Not everyone is aiming to land on the moon, and not everyone works for Google or SpaceX. That doesn’t mean you can’t use moonshot thinking. If you set crazy ambitious goals and miss them, you’ve probably still achieved something remarkable.”

Ken Norton, executive coach to product leaders, former director of product management at Google

Canny’s founders entered the product management market when there were already existing players. Andrew and Sarah had to capitalize on product differentiation. Canny had to be 10 times better than the competition.

“To create a successful business in software, to convince people to use your software instead of what’s already out there, it needs to be way better in some aspect. Ideally, 10x better. Otherwise, why would people switch?

This ties well with our product-led growth strategy. If we want to be a “dominant” solution, our product needs to be much better and offer a lower price point.”

Andrew Rasmussen, co-founder of Canny

How to implement it

Here’s how Ken Norton recommends applying the 10x rule.

1. Set ambitious goals. To drive significant innovation, focus on making products or processes 10 times better rather than just 10% better.
2. Encourage risk-taking. Create a culture where experimentation and failure become opportunities to learn and improve.

“If you aren’t experiencing failure, then you are making a far worse mistake: you are being driven by the desire to avoid it.”

Ed Catmull, former president of Pixar

3. Use data to drive decisions. Base strategies on data and evidence rather than opinions to validate bold ideas and guide decision-making.
4. Promote a learning culture. Emphasize continuous learning and rapid iteration to foster innovation.
5. Bet on big trends. Align innovation efforts with emerging trends to maximize impact.

Example: Amazon

1. Set ambitious goals. Amazon aimed to be “the everything store.” They were successful at selling books, but they had a bigger product vision. Amazon set out to revolutionize the shopping experience. They achieved it by providing unparalleled selection, convenience, and competitive pricing.

2. Encourage risk-taking. They could’ve just focused on expanding their book selection. But this would be 10%-thinking. 10x-thinking pushed them to add completely different categories. In addition, they focused on ecommerce, introduced Amazon Prime, and more.

3. Use data to drive decisions. Amazon analyzes customer behavior, optimizes their supply chain, and personalizes the shopping experience.

4. Promote a learning culture. Amazon encourages their product team to test new concepts, iterate, and learn from failures. This is evident in their product development process.

5. Bet on big trends. Amazon identified and invested in major trends like cloud computing (AWS), digital media, and ecommerce.

Conclusion: explore these innovative strategies

The product management process, especially in SaaS, is bound to evolve. Try some of these tactics if you’re ready for something new. You never know where your next breakthrough will come from. If your current product strategy isn’t working, try these ideas. They could be just what you need.

Note: take each method with a grain of salt. Just because it worked for someone else doesn’t mean it will drive the same results for you. Adjust each technique for your unique company and customers. Effective product management is about adapting existing approaches to your specific situation.

You can also combine some of these product management strategies. Who knows – maybe you’ll develop the next revolutionary framework for managing products. Or, at the very least, you’ll build a successful product.

Maria Vasserman

Maria loves all things creative – writing, photography, movies and beyond 🎥 When she's not creating content to tell the world about Canny, she's either photographing a wedding, jumping at a rock concert, camping, travelling, snowboarding, or walking her dog 🐕‍🦺

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The post 7 fresh product management tactics from 18 product experts first appeared on Canny Blog.

The post 7 fresh product management tactics from 18 product experts appeared first on Canny Blog.

This is where Canny comes in. Canny helps you collect, manage, and act on user feedback easily. It centralizes all feedback, organizes suggestions, and helps you prioritize what matters most.

In other words, Canny is your home for all feedback. But it’ll only be useful if you invite feedback and encourage discussions.

Here’s how you can promote your Canny board, encourage feedback, and take full advantage of Canny.

First steps with Canny

Getting started with Canny is simple. Follow these steps to set up your feedback portal. You’ll get valuable insights faster than you think!

1. Set up a board. Boards are the foundation of your feedback system. Create boards for different topics or areas of your product. Each board will house related feedback posts.
2. Create new posts. You can create them yourself using the feedback you’ve already received. Users can create posts to give feedback or suggest new features. You can also let Canny automatically create posts from your customer chats (more on that in the Autopilot section). Each post can have upvotes and comments.
3. Upvote. Users vote on the posts they care about. This helps you see which ideas are the most popular and important to your users. Your team members can upvote posts on behalf of other users too.
4. Add comments. Users can start a discussion and help clarify feedback. Both users and team members can participate in the conversation.

Let’s talk about different types of boards. Canny offers public or private boards.

• Public boards are visible to everyone. Use these to collect actionable feedback from all users. They are great for gathering diverse input and fostering a sense of community.
• Private boards are only visible to the people listed in the Admins page in your Canny settings. Use these for internal discussions
• Custom access boards are restricted to specific users or groups. Use these for sensitive topics, internal feedback, or feedback from a select group of customers.

Your Canny portal will become even more valuable if your whole team gets involved. So, invite your team members to join Canny. This helps everyone involved in product development view and manage feedback. Together, you can reply to users faster, dig deeper into insights, and prioritize the right feedback.

Once your collaborators are all set up, try the following:

• Invite users to join. You can send a direct invitation to all your users.
• Add links to your feedback board in your product.
• Promote the board through your communication channels. The more users contribute feedback, the more valuable insight you’ll gain.

We’ll cover each of these in more detail later in the article.

Or, automate feedback collection

Managing feedback can take considerable time. That’s why we built Canny Autopilot – to automate your routine tasks.

Autopilot automatically finds feedback in your customer conversations (in HelpScout, Zendesk, Intercom, Gong, and beyond). Then, it pushes that feedback into Canny and creates posts and upvotes to existing posts. It can also merge duplicates, auto-reply to your users, and summarize comment threads.

You can monitor Autopilot every step of the way and moderate its actions. Or you can let it run and just review its actions later – your choice.

Now that we’ve covered your first steps with Canny, let’s dive into promoting your board.

Promoting your Canny board

It’s time to maximize user engagement and get as much feedback as possible. You’ll make smarter product decisions when you have it all in one place. Here are some effective strategies that our clients use to promote their Canny boards.

Reach out via email

Send emails to your users with a call-to-action (CTA) to visit your Canny board. Highlight the importance of their honest feedback in shaping future product features.

Include links to your Canny board in regular emails too (newsletters, updates, etc). You can even add it to your email signature.

Engage users inside your app

Strategically place links to Canny inside your app. Encourage users to leave feedback after taking a certain action. Make sure those links are easy to find.

“Our customers often mentioned how prominently we feature Canny in our product. We believe that our users perceive us as open, close to the customer, and receptive to feedback because of it.”

Raphael Allstadt, co-founder of tl;dv

Try social media

Invite your social followers to leave you feedback and submit ideas. Use engaging visuals and direct links to your Canny board.

Your social media manager can respond to people sharing feedback and link to your Canny board. Direct all your feedback to one central location.

Add links in customer communications and support channels

If a customer is looking for support, they often have feedback or ideas for your product. Make it easy for them to share. 

• Customer emails and newsletters. Include links to your Canny board in regular customer communications. Always remind users to share their feedback – in monthly newsletters or product update emails.
• Support channels. Ensure your customer support team includes links to the feedback board in their communications. This can be in email signatures, chat conversations, or support articles. You can also set up your chatbot to automatically prompt users to leave feedback. Bonus: automatically funnel feedback from support chats into Canny with Autopilot.
• CRMs. Scan notes from your sales calls for feedback. Often, feature ideas come up. Stress to your sales reps how important it is to pass on that feedback. Also, try Autopilot – it can automatically extract feedback from Gong recordings (more sources coming soon!)

Embed the feedback widget on your website

Embed Canny’s feedback widget on your website to make it easy for visitors to leave feedback without navigating away.

Place this widget on high-engagement pages like the help center or product pages.

Publish changelog entries with CTAs

Whenever you publish a changelog entry, include a CTA inviting users to visit your Canny board. This keeps users engaged and encourages them to provide ongoing feedback.

Share your roadmap publicly

Sharing your product roadmap publicly lets users see what you’re working on and understand your backlog. Make sure to highlight that your roadmap includes feedback and ideas from your users. 

This transparency can motivate users to provide more feedback. They’ll know their input influences future developments. This can help improve your customer experience too.

Check out our recent live session for more ideas and examples.

There’s one more critical thing to remember. Gathering customer feedback is great. But acting on it is essential. Always keep your users in the loop. Here’s how.

Keeping users informed and engaged

Don’t keep your users in the dark. They took their time to send you a feature request. Even if you don’t choose their idea, follow up.

It’s like going through a job application process. Sometimes, you apply and never hear back. Other times, you apply, interview, and also get ghosted. This definitely leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

In contrast, some companies send personalized emails and manage your expectations. They explain their decision and make you feel valued. Even if you don’t get hired, you still feel like the company cared enough to follow up.

It’s similar with customer feedback – follow up, manage users’ expectations, and they’ll appreciate it. Here’s how you can do that.

Regularly update users on feedback status

Regularly update the status of feedback posts to close the feedback loop. Keep users informed about the progress of their suggestions. When you change the status of a post (e.g., from “Under Review” to “In Progress”), Canny sends automatic notifications to users who voted or commented on that post. This shows users you take customer feedback seriously and take action.

Build a community

Canny isn’t just a place for all your feedback. It’s a community portal where your users become more involved and engaged.

Serve your community well – host events, webinars, roadmap presentations, or Q&A sessions. Let users interact with your team, learn more about the product, and provide live feedback. 

Encourage users to discuss their feedback by commenting on posts. You can start conversations by asking follow-up questions or inviting other users to share their thoughts. This will gather more helpful feedback and build a sense of community around your product.

You can also automate part of this. Canny Autopilot includes Smart Replies that reply to users on your behalf. They automatically find posts that lack context and create human-like, relevant responses. They prompt the user to share more details.

Ensure your team members actively participate in these discussions. Their engagement can provide additional insights. It also demonstrates that your team values user input.

Having a more engaged community can help you collect more feedback and ideas.

Why should you invite feedback?

Feedback is essential for successful product development. Promote your Canny board, and you’ll get valuable insight straight from your users. In the meantime, you’ll also create a community. 

Close the feedback loop with regular updates. Encourage discussions and use AI to efficiently manage customer feedback.

Try some or all of these tips to drive more feedback. Your users will thank you 😉

Maria Vasserman

Maria loves all things creative – writing, photography, movies and beyond 🎥 When she's not creating content to tell the world about Canny, she's either photographing a wedding, jumping at a rock concert, camping, travelling, snowboarding, or walking her dog 🐕‍🦺

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The post Ten tips for promoting your Canny board to gather valuable feedback first appeared on Canny Blog.

The post Ten tips for promoting your Canny board to gather valuable feedback appeared first on Canny Blog.

What if you could know exactly what your customers think and need? That’s what the voice of the customer (VoC) methodology helps you do.

VoC is about collecting and understanding what customers say about your product. It means listening to their feedback and using it to improve.

“Understanding the voice of the customer directly influences how well we can meet and exceed our customer expectations.”

Julia Valade, customer success manager at Canny

When you truly listen to your customers, you can create products they love. VoC helps you build better products and make informed decisions.

“It’s shocking how many product managers don’t talk to their customers. That should be your first conversation.”

Mike Marriage, head of product at Bloomerang

Talking to your customers helps you understand their needs and solve their problems. This makes them happier and more loyal.

So, nothing really new here, right? You’ve know how important feedback management is. So, we’ve decided to explore this framework from a mindset perspective.

What if you didn’t just use the voice of the customer methodology? What if you became the voice of the customer?

The mindset of being the voice of the customer

Imagine if every product decision you made came from your customers’ thoughts. You’d only build products that people love.

Until someone invents a mind-reading tool, we need a workaround. Many experts suggest using the voice of the customer framework to shape your mindset.

“It is very critical that you look at every feature and problem you’re trying to solve from the customer’s perspective. Ultimately, you are the voice of the customer in the organization.”

Mike Marriage, head of product at Bloomerang

Start with active listening. 

“It’s important to actively listen and truly understand the deeper reasons behind their comments. This means not just hearing their words, but considering the context and what they’re trying to tell us.”

Julia Valade, customer success manager at Canny

This means not just hearing the words but grasping the underlying concerns.

Next, practice empathy. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes to better understand their needs and pain points. User feedback is instrumental here.

“By analyzing user feedback, we identified that students felt overwhelmed integrating new information with their existing knowledge. This led us to develop specific features like mind mapping and spaced repetition systems (SRS). This resulted in a 30% increase in user engagement and customer retention within three months.”

Dominic Zijlstra, founder of Traverse

Dominic’s story perfectly illustrates how listening to customers improves products. Being the voice of the customer means:

• Providing space for feedback, comments, suggestions, and ideas
• Having a dialogue with your users (through interviews and discussions)
• Collecting and organizing them all
• Prioritizing the most impactful ideas
• Continuously updating the users on the progress
• Actually building features they care about
• Telling them about it (closing the feedback loop)
• Doing all this continuously

This is where a tool like Canny comes in handy. It can help you do all that, automate parts of this process, and help you become a real feedback champion.

“I try to imagine a meeting. How can the client have a seat at that table? At the end of the day, they’re the primary stakeholder in product decisions. Canny gives the users a seat at that table alongside product, sales, support, marketing, etc. If I see a clear value-add to the product for just one user, I’ll put it on the Canny feedback board so other users can weigh in. From there, it’s up to the product team what they prioritize, of course, but my job is to ensure that the user’s voice is at least heard. And Canny does that.

Jacques Reulet, customer support at Canny

Advocating means pushing for changes that benefit your customers, even if it takes work.

“Give customers easy and clear ways to submit their feedback. Share user feedback with your product teams regularly and advocate for their needs. Clearly explain the value customers get from your products and any gaps or challenges they might be experiencing.”

Julia Valade, customer success manager at Canny

Lastly, commit to continuous learning. Regularly check in with your customers – set up ongoing feedback loops. Constant feedback helps you stay aligned with what your customers want.

How can you do that without overwhelming your customers, though? Getting a check-in email every week will likely end up in the trash very quickly. That’s why many product managers choose a tool like Canny.

“Canny has provided an interactive space where the users feel like they have a voice and are being listened to. It creates that long term relationship and loyalty we’re striving for.”

Chelsea Darby, customer success lead at Aryeo

Adopt this mindset, and you won’t just use the VoC methodology. You’ll become the voice of the customer – a real champion of feedback and an advocate for your customers.

Let’s break down this methodology further.

Voice of the customer program objectives

You need clear objectives to get the best results from the Voice of the Customer (VoC) program. Typically, there are three main goals with this program: 

• Improve your product and features
• Enhance customer service
• Increase customer satisfaction and loyalty

Improve your product and features

Improving your product can mean lots of different things. You might think you’re improving, but you might end up building a feature no one uses.

That’s why it’s imperative to collect and prioritize user feedback. Focusing on the most impactful suggestions can lead to meaningful changes.

“We rely on app ratings, feedback from our regular users, and issues we receive via email or support tickets. Then, we share and discuss these requests with our development and support teams. Based on this input, we prioritize bug fixes, feature requests, and other similar improvements.” 

Stefan Chekanov, co-founder and CEO of Brosix 

Enhance customer service

When you follow through on customer feedback, this happens naturally. Your users will feel heard and valued. 

“I hold regular check-ins and review sessions with customers to discuss their experiences and gather direct feedback. I then share customer insights with our product and engineering team to inform adjustments or new features. I also use feedback to refine customer calls and processes.” 

Julia Valade, customer success manager at Canny

This may all sound great, but how can you know you’re improving customer service? Once again, ask your customers. Chances are, they want to tell you how you’re doing. For example, you can add a quick customer survey at the end of every live chat.

Increase customer satisfaction and loyalty

When customers see that their feedback leads to real changes, they feel valued and heard. This builds long-term relationships.

“When we listen to what [our users] want, we can make changes that meet their specific needs. This makes them feel valued and keeps them coming back.”

Derek Pankaew, founder of Listening.com

By staying in tune with your customers’ needs, you create a loyal customer base that trusts your brand.

When you consistently gather and act on user feedback, you’ll achieve all three objectives simultaneously. Let’s discuss how you can measure the impact of your actions now.

Common VoC metrics

You need to track key metrics to see how well your Voice of the Customer (VoC) program works. These metrics show customer happiness and loyalty.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

This metric shows customer loyalty. You ask customers, “How likely are you to recommend our product to a friend?” on a scale of 0 to 10. Then, you group customers into the following buckets:

• Promoters: 9-10 
• Passives: 7-8
• Detractors: 0-6 are detractors.

Subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters to get your NPS. A higher NPS means more loyal customers.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

This metric measures how satisfied customers are with a specific interaction. After a customer interaction, like a support call, ask customers to rate their experience on a scale from 1 to 5. A higher customer satisfaction score means happy and loyal customers. CSAT helps you understand customer feelings about specific parts of your service.

Customer Effort Score (CES)

CES measures how easy it is for customers to achieve their goals with your product. You ask customers if they agree with the statement:

Lower effort scores mean a smoother customer experience. CES helps you find and fix points of friction in the customer journey.

Track these metrics to see where you can improve your product and services.

Now that we are absolutely certain that we need to gather feedback, let’s discuss the “how.”

How to gather customer feedback

To better understand your customers, you need to gather their feedback in different ways. Using only one method might leave you blindsided.

Different customers prefer to give you feedback in different ways. Let’s go back to empathy for a second – put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Maybe you always fill out that post-call survey. Or perhaps you delete it right away. What would make you leave feedback?

The key is this: give your users options.

“To incorporate VoC into day-to-day operations, I recommend setting up multiple feedback channels such as surveys, email feedback, and forums. Analyze the data to identify recurring themes and actionable insights.”

Dominic Zijlstra, founder of Traverse

Here are a few feedback channels you can try.

Feedback portal

Use a dedicated feedback portal like Canny. This lets customers to submit their ideas, comments, and suggestions. They can also upvote existing ideas and follow your product development journey.

Then, you get to the bottom of each feature request, can have a dialogue with your users, and keep them engaged.

Customer interviews

Talk directly to your customers to get deep insights.

“We reach out, we interview, find out what [our users] are doing, what they are up to, what they are hearing, and what trends are.” These chats can reveal valuable details.”

Amanda Laferriere of C2FO

Focus groups

Bring together a small group of customers to discuss your product. This can help you understand their thoughts and feelings in a more dynamic setting.

Customer support chats

Use interactions with support teams to get real-time feedback. These chats help identify common issues and areas for improvement.

Bonus: you can extract feedback from those chats automatically. A tool like Canny Autopilot can find feedback, extract it, add it to your Canny board, and then even deduplicate it.

Online reviews

Read reviews on platforms like the App Store or Google Play. Reviews give you a sense of how customers see your product and highlight both positives and areas that need work.

“For me, the “voice of the customer” is all about understanding what your users really think. For us, it’s like diving into app user reviews and finding out what our users love (or don’t love). These reviews give us a peek into their experiences, helping us see things from their perspective.”

Derek Pankaew, founder of Listening.com

Coming soon: Canny Autopilot will soon be able to extract feedback from online reviews, too. Stay tuned!

Surveys

Send out customer surveys to collect structured feedback. You can ask specific questions to gather customer data on satisfaction and preferences.

Surveys can appear in-app after a user takes a specific action. You can also add them at the end of your customer support chat.

Social media

Monitor social media channels to see what customers are saying about your product. This is a great way to gather unsolicited feedback and engage with users.

On social, users aren’t always expecting to hear back. If you engage, you might pleasantly surprise them and stand out.

Website behavior

Analyze how customers navigate your website to understand their journey and find any friction points. This customer behavior can guide user experience improvements.

For example, your customers might be using a feature in a way you didn’t intend. This may lead to confusion and frustration. If you can detect it, you can then reach out, provide helpful tutorials, and improve your tool.

Sales, support, and success calls

Feedback from these calls can reveal valuable insights about customer needs and challenges. Gather and analyze this feedback to improve your service.

Bonus: once again, Canny Autopilot can automatically find feedback in these channels. You won’t need to spend time adding that feedback to your portal anymore. Now, all feedback will automatically appear in one central place. Plus, it’ll be deduplicated and ready to use!

Emails

Encourage customers to share their thoughts and suggestions via email. This can provide detailed insights. Whenever you can, add a line about feedback to your emails. Your users will feel like you’re open to their suggestions.

Analyzing and prioritizing feedback

It’s one thing to gather your customers’ feedback. It’s another thing to analyze it and really understand it. Analyzing your feedback lets you get to the root of your customers’ challenges. 

How to analyze qualitative and quantitative feedback

Start by categorizing feedback into qualitative and quantitative types. Qualitative feedback includes comments and suggestions that provide detailed insights into customer experiences. Quantitative feedback includes metrics and ratings that you can measure and track.

For qualitative feedback, look for common themes and patterns. This helps you understand the underlying issues and customer needs. Tools like text analysis software can help identify recurring words and phrases.

You can analyze quantitative feedback through statistical methods. Look at average ratings, NPS scores, and other metrics to identify trends. This data can show you how widespread certain issues are and how your customers feel overall.

Prioritize feedback based on impact and feasibility

Not all feedback is equally important. To prioritize, consider both the impact and feasibility of each suggestion.

When you really understand your customers’ needs, you can make the case to prioritize their feature requests. Make sure your prioritization formula factors in the impact feedback has on key customers.

High-impact changes will make a big difference to many users. Feasible changes are improvements you can make with the resources you have.

Create a matrix to map out feedback based on these two criteria. Focus on changes that are both high-impact and feasible. These are the ones that will provide the most value with the least effort.

Using a tool like Canny can streamline this process. Canny helps you collect, organize, and prioritize feedback in one place. It also makes it easy to track progress and keep users informed about the status of their suggestions.

“If it weren’t for Canny, we’d have to hire a product manager way sooner. The whole team and I save so much time by cataloging and triaging feedback so easily. I never want to go back to pre-Canny days.”

Evan Kirkham, co-founder of Outlier

Integrating VoC into product development

We’re doing all this to improve our products. That’s the real goal here. So use all the feedback you get to inform your product decisions.

Here’s how you can integrate customer feedback into your product roadmap.

Make it a habit to include customer insights in your product planning meetings. Remember – you are the voice of the customer!

Your team can’t address every piece of feedback at once. Use a system to prioritize changes based on impact and feasibility. Tackle high-impact, easy-to-implement changes first – the low-hanging fruit. You can‌ make significant improvements without overloading your team.

“VoC gives us real insights that help us create an even better customer experience. Without a nuanced understanding of our users, we’d be shooting in the dark, developing features without any real direction.”

Stefan Chekanov, co-founder and CEO of Brosix

Always close the loop with your customers. Let them know how their feedback has influenced your product decisions. This builds trust and encourages more feedback in the future.

“Lastly, close the feedback loop. Always let customers know how you used their feedback. This strengthens their trust, promotes engagement, and improves your relationship.”

Julia Valade, customer success manager at Canny

Use tools like Canny to document feedback and track progress. This helps keep everyone on the same page and ensures no customer insight gets lost.

Don’t just use VoC; be VoC

Many articles talk about using the voice of the customer framework. We encourage you to become the voice of the customer.

This means making every product decision with your customers’ needs in mind. By truly listening and acting on feedback, you create products that your users love.

Canny can help make this process easier. It organizes feedback, helps you prioritize changes, and keeps customers in the loop. You can save time and make sure every piece of feedback counts.

You no longer have to dream about reading your customers’ minds. You can find out exactly what they’re thinking and tailor-make your product just for them.

Try Canny today to streamline your VoC efforts and become a true advocate for your customers.

Maria Vasserman

Maria loves all things creative – writing, photography, movies and beyond 🎥 When she's not creating content to tell the world about Canny, she's either photographing a wedding, jumping at a rock concert, camping, travelling, snowboarding, or walking her dog 🐕‍🦺

All Posts - Website · Twitter - Facebook - LinkedIn

The post How to use the voice of the customer methodology to build products customers love first appeared on Canny Blog.

The post How to use the voice of the customer methodology to build products customers love appeared first on Canny Blog.

Without their feedback, you make decisions based on guesswork.

Feedback comes from many channels – surveys, customer conversations, social media, reviews, and emails. This can be overwhelming and it’s easy to miss important insights.

Organizing this feedback can be tricky. That’s what we’ll talk about in this article – how to organize customer feedback. Effective customer feedback management starts with organized feedback.

Methods of collecting feedback

Collecting customer feedback is the first step to understanding your users. It’s important to gather feedback from different sources to get a complete picture. Here are some key methods.

Surveys

Surveys are a great way to collect detailed feedback. They let you ask specific questions and get useful answers. You can use online tools like Google Forms, Typeform, or SurveyMonkey to create and share surveys. Distribute them through email, your website, or on social media.

Social media

Social media platforms are full of customer feedback. People often share their thoughts and experiences on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Watching these channels helps you gather real-time feedback. Social listening tools like Hootsuite and SproutSocial can help you track and analyze this feedback.

Customer reviews

Reviews on websites like Capterra, G2, and Google provide valuable insights. Encourage your customers to leave reviews and make it easy for them. Don’t forget to respond to reviews – it shows that you value their opinions and want to improve.

Feedback forms and portals

Direct feedback forms on your website or app are another effective method. You can create a custom feedback form and strategically place it across your website and in-app. For example, it can appear after a user takes a certain action in your app.

Canny lets you create a feedback form and link it to an organized feedback portal. Form submissions appear in one central place – your feedback portal.

You can also direct customers directly to your feedback portal. They can easily leave feedback and see what your other customers are asking for.

These forms can collect specific feedback about user experiences or general suggestions. Make your feedback forms easy to find and fill out.

Customer communications

Your customers won’t always leave you feedback where you want them to. You might have a dedicated feedback form. You can send out a survey, but your users will leave feedback where it’s convenient for them. For example, they might share something during a call with your customer success rep. Or they might message your support chat and mention they’re missing a certain feature. You can direct them to your feedback board at that moment, but there are no guarantees they’ll follow through.

Collecting feedback from those conversations is critical, though. Make sure your team understands how important this is and captures that feedback in a way you can access it.

The key to organizing: combining feedback sources

You get feedback from lots of different sources already. Maybe you’re already tracking some of this feedback. The goal is to get a full view of customer opinions. Each source offers unique insights.

First, make sure you’re checking all these sources. Then, find a place to store and consolidate all your feedback. This is how you’ll get a complete understanding of your customers’ needs and preferences. 

Once you have a combined, deduplicated list of all your feedback, you’ll have something to work with. 

Only then can you make informed product decisions based on feedback.

Product managers use a variety of tools for this:

• Spreadsheets/Google Sheets/Air Table
• Boards like Trello
• Project management tools like Asana, Monday, ClickUp

These tools are a great start, but they’re not dedicated to feedback. As a result, you might run into issues down the line. For example, you’ll likely run into duplicate feedback. Manually combining it is time-consuming.

We recommend a dedicated feedback portal.

Featured tool: Canny

Canny can be your dedicated feedback portal. Instead of copy-pasting feedback from various sources, you’ll have all of it neatly organized in one place. Canny integrates with most feedback sources, so you can easily capture it.

You can also:

• Invite users to submit feedback, feature requests, ideas, and bug reports
• Add feedback on users’ behalf
• Let users upvote existing ideas
• Upvote ideas on their behalf
• Invite users to comment on existing posts and have conversations
• And more

Canny Autopilot is the newest AI addition to Canny. It automatically extracts feedback from communication channels like Intercom, Zendesk, HelpScout, Gong, and more. Then, Autopilot:

• Centralizes and automates feedback management: collect and manage feedback from multiple sources in one platform.
• Deduplicates feedback: don’t waste time removing and merging duplicates manually.

You can prioritize your ideas and quickly find the most impactful projects.

Deduplicating & merging feedback

When you have lots of feedback, you’ll eventually run into duplicated requests. Set aside some time to comb through everything and find those duplicates. Your feedback portal will get much cleaner when those duplicates are merged together. 

Finding and combining them manually takes a lot of time and effort. It can easily take all day. That’s why Canny Autopilot has a built-in deduplication feature. It can suggest what to merge or merge duplicates automatically.

Canny Autopilot suggesting to create new posts or merge duplicated posts

If two posts are almost identical, you can add someone’s upvote to an existing post. That way, your board will be even more clean and organized.

It’s easy to get lost in a sea of ideas. Deduplication helps you see the most important feature requests.

Categorizing feedback

It’s time to make all that feedback actionable. And that’s when we get to categorization. This helps you see patterns, prioritize issues, and effectively address customer needs. Here are some methods to categorize feedback.

Thematic organization

Start by grouping feedback based on common themes. These might include product quality, bugs, customer service, user experience, or feature requests. For example:

• Product quality: comments about the durability, functionality, and reliability of your product. This can include bugs and feature requests.
• Customer service: feedback about the support and assistance customers received (including customer support, success, and sales).
• Customer experience: insights into how easy or difficult it is to use your product.

Take it further with Canny – create a separate feedback board for each theme.

Tagging and labeling

Another effective method is to tag and label feedback. You can mark each piece of feedback with specific tags to make it easier to sort and analyze. Try the following tags:

• Sentiment-based tags: positive or negative
• Suggestions for improvement: ideas from customers on how to enhance your product or service.
• Key performance indicators: retention, upsells, or NPS.
• Sprints: Q1 sprint, bug bash, up next.
• Urgency: urgent, high priority, or customer promise.
• Effort: low, medium, or high.
• Platform: desktop, mobile, etc.

Use tags to categorize, quickly filter, and prioritize your feedback.

We add a tag to each post in Canny and set up automation to speed this up. For example, we can ask Canny to tag each post containing the keywords “billing” and “account” as “Billing.”

Then, we can easily filter our boards by certain tags to only see certain posts. We can quickly find what we need. Our roadmap has a separate column for tags, so we always know what we’re looking at.

Segmenting

Segmenting your users helps you see what different customers are requesting. For example, you can create the following segments:

• Free users
• Paying accounts
• Churned users
• B2B clients
• People who signed up in the last 6 months
• Individuals based on their role

Not all clients are created equal. Sometimes there’s a specific user group you want to focus on.

Let’s say your number one concern is churn. You can focus on the feedback churned or churning customers shared. Then, you can fix those issues and try to win them back.

Segmentation helps you see who sends what kind of feedback. This visibility makes product decisions easier. You’ll instantly know what the most important groups of customers care about the most.

Analyzing feedback

The next step is to analyze your feedback. You want to understand the underlying trends and sentiments. Here are some methods you can try.

Quantitative data analysis

Quantitative data analysis involves looking at measurable data. Here are key aspects to focus on:

• Frequency of mentions: track how often certain topics or issues are mentioned. This helps identify the most common concerns or praises among your users. In Canny, you can quantify this with the number of votes each post gets.
• Revenue: tie feedback to MRR or ARR. This will show you what ideas are associated with the most revenue.

Qualitative insights

Qualitative analysis focuses on the content of the feedback. This involves interpreting the meaning behind users’ comments. Key methods include:

• Sentiment analysis: determine whether feedback is positive, negative, or neutral. This helps you gauge the overall mood of your customers.
• Feedback themes and patterns: look for recurring themes or patterns in the feedback. This can reveal common issues or areas where users see the most value.
• Contextual details: consider the context in which feedback is given, such as customer personas and scenarios. This helps you understand the specific needs and experiences of different user groups. Consider asking customers for additional context if their feedback is vague. 

Automating feedback analysis with Canny

Canny can simplify the process of analyzing feedback. Here’s how:

• Automated tagging and categorization. Canny can automatically tag and categorize feedback based on themes like product quality, customer service, and user experience. This saves time and ensures consistency.
• Customer segmentation. Segment feedback based on different customer groups. This will help you better understand the needs and experiences of various user personas. For example, you’ll quickly see what the highest-paying customers are requesting. This will help you make ROI-based product decisions.
• Vote tracking. Quickly see which features are in high demand. You can merge duplicated requests by having one original post and adding votes to it. Then, you’ll get a real sense of how popular each request is.
• Comment Summaries. Sometimes you’ll have a long thread of comments under a post. Now you can get an instant summary of the key points in one click.  

Prioritizing feedback

Even with your feedback organized by tag, segment, and theme, it can still be challenging to know what to do with all the feedback. Which piece of feedback is the most important?

Prioritizing helps you pay attention to the most important issues first. Here’s how to prioritize feedback effectively.

Impact and urgency

Consider both the impact and urgency of the issues. Evaluate how significant the feedback is and how quickly it needs to be addressed. Here are some key factors to consider:

• Impact on user experience. Prioritize feedback that significantly affects the user experience. For example, if a bug prevents users from accessing a key feature, it needs immediate attention.
• Business impact. Assess how ‌feedback impacts your business goals. Feedback that can lead to increased revenue, customer retention, or market competitiveness should be a top priority.
• Cost. Consider the cost of acting on each piece of feedback – money, time, and other resources. 
• Frequency of feedback. Issues that multiple users mention frequently indicate a widespread problem.
• Urgency. How critical is each piece of feedback? Will customers churn if you don’t fix this soon?

There are lots of prioritization frameworks and models that can help assess all of these factors. For example, you can try the Impact-Effort matrix. It encourages you to think about how easy or difficult it’ll be to build each feature. 

Check out more prioritization frameworks here.

Before you jump into fixing mode, try to identify the root cause of each issue.

Root cause analysis

Root cause analysis is a method to identify the underlying causes of an issue. By understanding the root cause, you can implement more effective and lasting solutions. Here’s how to perform root cause analysis.

1. Identify the problem. Clearly define the problem based on the feedback you received.
2. Gather data. Collect all relevant data related to the problem. This includes feedback details, user reports, and any related metrics.
3. Analyze the data. Look for patterns and commonalities in the data to identify potential root causes.
4. Identify root causes. Use techniques like the “5 Whys” (asking “why” repeatedly until the root cause is found) to drill down to the underlying issue.
5. Implement solutions. Develop and implement solutions. Test and monitor the solution.

How we prioritize at Canny

Canny can help you effectively prioritize your feedback.

No two businesses are the same, so a custom prioritization formula will help serve your unique needs. Here’s how it works in Canny.

1. Define prioritization factors. Common factors include:
   • Impact factors
     • Customer impact
     • Revenue potential
     • User engagement
     • Votes
     • Churn impact
   • Effort factors
     • Development effort
2. Assign weights to factors. For example, you might decide that customer impact is twice as important as development effort. Weights help ensure that the most critical factors have the greatest influence on the final score.
3. Scoring system. Canny’s prioritization feature is flexible and supports any prioritization model you want to use. No matter which model you choose, it boils down to the Impact / Effort formula. Team Canny uses a weighted scoring method.
4. Instantly get the final score. Canny automatically gives you the final score for each piece of feedback. It calculates it by combining the weighted impact and effort scores. Canny normalizes these scores to ensure a balanced comparison. The formula is Score = Impact / Effort.

5. Adjust and refine. You can adjust the weights and factors as your business priorities change. This way your prioritization never goes stale and always aligns with your business goals.

Example of a custom prioritization formula

Suppose your business decides the following factors are important:

• Potential revenue (weight: 2)
• User votes (weight: 1.5)
• Churn impact (weight: 3)

If a piece of feedback scores:

• Potential revenue: 50
• User votes: 40
• Churn impact: 60

The calculation would be:

• Potential revenue: 50 * 2 = 100
• User votes: 40 * 1.5 = 60
• Churn impact: 60 * 3 = 180

Total impact score = 100 + 60 + 180 = 340

If the effort required is scored at 4: final score = (340 / 4) * 1000 = 85,000

Use this formula to compare scores for various feedback items and prioritize those with the highest scores. This way you’ll work on the most impactful features first.

If you don’t want to get into the weeds of calculating this, you can let Canny do this for you. Just decide what weight each factor holds, and Canny will do the rest.

Prioritizing by segment

You can also view feedback specifically from your target segments. Canny helps segment feedback by different criteria, such as customer type or product area. This makes it easier to identify and prioritize critical feedback from key segments.

For example, you might create a segment for your enterprise customers. You can check out what feedback they voted on and quickly understand what features they care most about. You can see the highest-scored items for just that segment. That lets you cater to this key segment by acting on their feedback.

Use feedback to build a roadmap

Now that you’ve collected, organized, and prioritized feedback, you can add it to your roadmap. The roadmap further organizes your feedback. It gives you a clear path of what you’ll build and when.

Link user feedback directly to planned features and improvements. Find high-impact features that address common pain points or add significant value to the user experience. Those should make it to your roadmap.

Here are a few roadmap templates to help you get started.

Closing the feedback loop

We’ve talked a lot about gathering, organizing, and actioning user feedback. Closing the feedback loop is often just as important. If you build a feature but don’t tell your customers about it, how will they find out? Keeping track of who left what feedback is an organizational challenge in itself. Having a tool that automatically does this solves that challenge. 

Consider these two main ways of closing the feedback loop.

1. Work-in-progress updates

When you select an idea, start working on it, or have updates, let your users know. In Canny, you can automatically email everyone who created, upvoted, or commented on a feature request.

Don’t keep your users wondering if you’re listening to their feedback. If they don’t see updates, they typically stop sending requests or hoping to see any changes. In contrast, when they see progress, they know their opinion matters. They are more likely to keep sending you ideas and getting engaged with your product. And when they’re engaged, they become loyal customers.

2. Product announcements

Without a feedback portal, you’ll need to manually collect emails from each person and connect them to every feature request.

If you use a dedicated feedback tool (like Canny), you’ll always know who wanted which feature. Then, you can automatically message each person and notify them about your new feature.

If you want to really boost customer loyalty, always follow up with the users who submitted feedback.

“It’s easy to forget how bad the feedback loop could be sometimes in many SaaS companies. That’s evident from the customer reaction we get. When a user submits feedback, and we respond almost right away, they’re really taken aback. “Wait, someone actually gets and reads this? I was expecting it to go into a black hole and never hear back,” – is a typical client response.”

Joey Muething, product manager at Appcues

Keep your feedback organized to inform product decisions

Collecting feedback is awesome, but it’s only the first step. That feedback becomes valuable only when you organize it well. To organize it, you should first put it all in one place. Then, you can sort, prioritize, and analyze it. Many people segment user feedback based on who submits it. This helps to build an actionable product roadmap.

Don’t forget to close that feedback loop to create trusting and loyal customers. If you follow all these steps, you’ll create winning products in no time!

Maria Vasserman

Maria loves all things creative – writing, photography, movies and beyond 🎥 When she's not creating content to tell the world about Canny, she's either photographing a wedding, jumping at a rock concert, camping, travelling, snowboarding, or walking her dog 🐕‍🦺

All Posts - Website · Twitter - Facebook - LinkedIn

The post How to organize customer feedback easily and effectively first appeared on Canny Blog.

The post How to organize customer feedback easily and effectively appeared first on Canny Blog.

This article will show you the essential hard and soft skills you need. These skills help you balance user needs, business goals, and your product’s capabilities. Let’s look at how you can build a solid base for a great career in product management.

Understanding the product manager role

Product management is about more than just overseeing product development. It’s about vision and strategy.

Product managers handle many tasks. They define what to build, and why. They also guide how to build it. Their responsibilities include:

• Identifying user needs through research and feedback
• Setting product goals that align with business objectives
• Working with engineers and designers to create effective products
• Launching products and tracking their success in the market

Successful product managers ensure that products meet user expectations. They also need to contribute to the company’s success. To achieve this, they need a strong knowledge of the market, the users, and the available technology.

Let’s explore the skills that can help achieve all that.

Hard skills

Certain technical skills are indispensable to excel in product management. These skills help you:

• Make informed decisions
• Understand product design
• Manage the development process effectively

Let’s discuss those skills.

Technical fluency

Product managers don’t need to be expert coders. Still, technical fluency helps you communicate effectively with the engineering team. You will also understand the possibilities and limitations of technology. And you can assess what engineers can build within given timelines and budgets.

Project management falls under this category, too. Some companies have dedicated project managers. In other places, a product manager assumes this role. Make sure you know how these two roles interact in your team. Then, learn what a good project manager does and do your best to become one, too. Every technical skill will help you stand out.

Analytical skills

Analytical skills are vital for making data-driven decisions. Product managers use data analysis to:

• Measure product performance
• Interpret user behavior
• Make adjustments to product strategies

You need to back your decisions with solid evidence. Analytical skills can really come in handy with this.

Research and market analysis

Understanding the market is key to building a product that stands out. This involves competitive analysis, trend identification, and user research. Analyze the market and identify user needs first. Then, it’ll become easier to pinpoint opportunities for innovation and improvement.

Roadmapping

Roadmapping involves planning a product’s future development. You need to set goals and milestones that align with the business’s objectives and user needs. You also need to figure out which features to prioritize and how to pick the most impactful ones.

Effective roadmaps help here. They provide a clear path for development teams and help manage stakeholder expectations. Once you have a set plan, you can determine the order in which you’ll build features.

Not sure where to start with a product roadmap? Check out our free templates here.

AI tools

Familiarity with AI tools is becoming increasingly important in product management. These tools can:

• Detect trends in customer feedback
• Analyze user feedback
• Brainstorm and prioritizing ideas
• Write support documentation
• Create project plans
• Tailor user experience
• Automate reporting
• Analyze competitors
• Detect bias

Check out Canny’s Autopilot – a brand new suite of AI tools that save you time.

Product marketing

Similar to project management, sometimes companies have a dedicated person to handle product marketing. Other times, it’s on you. If you assume the role of a product marketing manager, learn about the basics:

• How do you promote your updates?
• What is your target market?
• How can market research help you here?

Remember: great product managers can do many things well. Understanding product marketing will only help you on your career path.

Soft skills

Let’s talk about the soft skills that every product manager needs to succeed. These are just as important as hard skills, if not more, because they help you navigate the human aspects of the job.

Product sense

Product sense is an intuitive understanding of what makes a product great. It involves knowing what users value and how to enhance their experience.

How can you develop it? It goes hand in hand with one of the core hard skills – user experience. Master user experience (UX) principles, and you can design functional and fun-to-use products. This includes understanding user flows, interface design, and usability testing.

“Product sense is not something you need to be born with. It’s a learned skill, just like any other PM skill.”

Jules Walter, product lead at Google Gemini

A few activities can help develop your product sense:

• Observing people interacting with products
• Deconstructing everyday products
• Learning from great product thinkers
• Being curious about changes in technology and your domain

Strategic vision

Having a strategic vision means seeing the bigger picture. It’s about knowing where you want your product to go and planning the steps to get there. A good product manager:

• Thinks ahead
• Anticipates trends
• Aligns product goals with the company’s long-term objectives

You need to think through your product strategy before you start anything else. That’s called strategic thinking.

Leadership and team management

Product managers are the champions of products and the lead motivators. They need to inspire and keep everyone moving in the right direction. Effective leadership involves:

• Motivating the team
• Managing diverse personalities
• Making sure everyone feels valued and understood

Product managers need to work with and bring together members from different functions. You are the glue between engineering, sales, design, customer success and support, marketing, and more.

Critical thinking and problem-solving

Problems are just puzzles to solve. Product managers use critical thinking to find the root causes of issues. Then, they devise smart solutions based on that. This skill is crucial for quick and efficient decisions.

Communication skills

Clear communication is essential. It helps when speaking to your team, presenting to stakeholders, or writing an email. Remember – it’s not just about talking; it’s about listening too.

User empathy and customer research

Put yourself in your users’ shoes. User empathy allows you to understand their experiences and needs deeply. Combine it with solid customer research, and you can create a product that resonates with its audience.

Adaptability and resilience

Things change fast in product management. Being adaptable and resilient helps you manage the ups and downs. It’s about bouncing back from setbacks and being flexible enough to shift gears when needed. Use any change as an opportunity to improve.

Example: Netflix’s shift to streaming

Netflix originally started as a DVD rental service by mail. As digital media grew, they had to adapt. They anticipated the shift towards on-demand content and transitioned from DVDs to streaming. This pivot required significant investment in technology and new content licensing deals. They also had to educate their customers about the new service.

Despite these challenges, Netflix’s adaptability paid off. They maintained their relevance and became a leader in the entertainment industry. This bold move transformed Netflix into a global streaming giant​.

Diplomacy and emotional intelligence

Sometimes, you have to be a diplomat. Emotional intelligence (EI) helps you handle conflicts, manage sensitive situations, and negotiate effectively. It’s about understanding emotions and using that insight to guide your actions.

You need to work with many people to build great products. You can’t do it all alone. Having a strong EI can help you collaborate effectively.

Prioritization

We mentioned prioritization in the roadmapping section. There’s also personal prioritization – how do you decide what to work on first? You have the most crucial task, but how do you break it down and get started?

There’s always a lot to do, but not everything can be a top priority. That’s a prioritization skill. Try the following:

• Check how you or your team completed similar tasks in the past
  • Assess what worked and what didn’t
• Research how others do it
• Write it out, especially when you have big tasks
• Delegate – don’t try to do it all yourself
• Set deadlines to stay accountable

Managing your time well helps you meet deadlines without burning out.

Delegation

You can’t do everything yourself. Delegation involves trusting your team with tasks. You need to give them the chance to grow while you focus on other areas. It’s about knowing what to delegate, to whom, and ensuring they have the resources to succeed.

Our co-founder Sarah talks about team management and delegation in her latest blog post – check it out here.

Persuasion

Got a great idea? You’ll need to persuade others that it’s worth pursuing. Persuasion is all about:

• Getting buy-in from stakeholders and your team
• Using logic, charisma, and enthusiasm to sway them to your side

These soft skills blend together to create a well-rounded product manager. 

How to acquire and build these product management skills

We’ve covered many essential skills for product managers. Now, let’s dive into how you can acquire and build these skills effectively.

Courses

There are tons of courses out there tailored to budding product managers. Look for courses that cover both the fundamentals and advanced aspects of product management. Platforms like Coursera, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning offer comprehensive programs from industry experts. There are also specialized product management training programs and bootcamps. They can provide intensive learning experiences.

We’ve put together a list of the best product management certifications here. This list features preparation courses you can take, so check it out!

Books

Books are your best friends when it comes to deep dives into specific topics. Here are a few must-reads:

• “Inspired” by Marty Cagan offers insights into how to create products customers love
• “Lean Product and Lean Analytics” by Ben Yoskovitz and Alistair Croll dives into using data to perfect your product
• “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries teaches you how to innovate more effectively

Communities

Joining product management communities can significantly accelerate your learning. Platforms like ProductHunt, ProductSchool, and industry-specific groups on LinkedIn and Slack are great. They provide a space to:

• Exchange ideas
• Ask questions
• Get feedback from peers and seasoned pros

Resources

There are endless online resources to tap into. Websites like ProductCoalition and Pragmatic Institute offer articles, whitepapers, and case studies. Also, use templates and tools these sites provide to practice what you learn.

We publish educational materials on our blog weekly. Subscribe here so you don’t miss our new content!

Podcasts

Podcasts are a great way to absorb information on the go. Check out podcasts like “Product Love” and “Masters of Scale.” You can hear stories and advice from top product leaders and entrepreneurs. They often talk about common product management problems you might relate to. Knowing that someone else went through the exact same thing is comforting.

We’ve checked out a bunch of podcasts and created this list of the best ones. Enjoy!

Blogs

Blogs are an excellent source of cutting-edge insights and tips. Regularly reading blogs like Silicon Valley Product Group can keep you updated on industry trends and best practices.

We have a list of the best product management blogs right here. Check it out.

Events

Lastly, attend product management events and workshops. These not only provide learning opportunities but are also great for networking. Conferences like ProductCon offer workshops, talks, and panels with industry leaders.

Start exploring and keep learning. The more you know, the better you’ll be at your job.

Where to focus on first

 We’ve just thrown a lot of information and resources at you. It can all get overwhelming quickly. So, where do you even start?

Start with your interests and weaknesses

Identify which aspects of product management:

• Excite you the most
• Challenge you the most
• Starting with these areas will keep you motivated.

Master the fundamentals of product management

Before diving into more specialized skills, make sure you have a solid understanding of the basics. This includes understanding:

• Product life cycles
• User needs
• How to align your work with business objectives

Do you feel like you know all this by heart? Great, you can move on.

Need a quick refresher? Pause here. Scroll up and check out some fundamental courses and books we mentioned.

Develop strong communication and leadership skills

Product managers constantly interact with different teams and stakeholders. That’s why effective communication and leadership skills are crucial. Work on these early in your career to establish strong relationships.

Engage with a community

Join a product management community as soon as you can. The insights, advice, and support from peers and mentors can accelerate your learning. You can also get practical, real-world perspectives.

Learn by doing

Whenever possible, apply what you’re learning in real-world scenarios. Try simulations in courses, side projects, or at your job. Practical application is one of the best ways to deepen your understanding and improve your skills.

Keep iterating on your skills

Like the products you’ll manage, your skill set should evolve continually. Regularly assess your skills, gather feedback, and adjust your learning plan. This iterative process will help you stay relevant and effective in your role.

Essential product manager skills and where to get them

To become a good product manager, you need to master many things. Essential hard skills include analytics, research, and roadmapping. When it comes to soft skills, focus on leadership, delegation, and communication. But don’t worry — there are plenty of resources to help you.

You can take a course, read a book, or listen to a podcast. There are many ways to learn, so pick what works best for you. Focus on your weak areas first.

We hope this guide has been helpful. Save it for later, and you’ll never feel stuck in your product management career!

Maria Vasserman

Maria loves all things creative – writing, photography, movies and beyond 🎥 When she's not creating content to tell the world about Canny, she's either photographing a wedding, jumping at a rock concert, camping, travelling, snowboarding, or walking her dog 🐕‍🦺

All Posts - Website · Twitter - Facebook - LinkedIn

The post 17 key product manager skills to help you get ahead first appeared on Canny Blog.

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Doing this without help is tough. It takes a lot of time, and it’s easy to make mistakes. A product manager may end up picking the features we want to build versus what users need.

That’s why prioritization tools are so important. They help us clearly see which product features deserve the most attention.

What’s feature prioritization? It’s the process of deciding which tasks or updates to work on first. Prioritization helps teams focus on what’s most important or what can make a big difference for users. This is crucial because there’s always more we could do than we have time or resources for. 

Let’s take a look at how prioritization and dedicated product prioritization tools make choosing what to work on more straightforward.

Why do you need to prioritize features?

How can you focus your product team? Agree on what to build next. That’s what prioritization does. When you use a proven prioritization method, you will:

1. Never wonder what to build next. Prioritizing helps your team understand which product feature will have the most significant impact. This clarity guides your product development efforts. You’ll know you’re working on the most valuable addition to your product.
2. Never build features no one uses. It’s easy to think every new product idea is good, but users won’t use or value every feature you build. Prioritizing helps you focus on the features that correspond with customer needs. This reduces the risk of wasting time and resources on unwanted functionalities.
3. Never get lost in the sea of ideas. Managing a backlog of feature requests and ideas can be overwhelming without prioritization. Prioritization helps you sift through these ideas. Then, you can highlight what’s urgent and essential to keep your team aligned.

4. Always allocate appropriate time & resources. Resources are always limited, whether it’s time, team members, or budget. Prioritizing ensures you allocate these precious resources effectively. You’ll end up focusing on developing features that offer the best return on investment.

Manual prioritization & its challenges

Doing things the old-fashioned way — manually prioritizing features — comes with some challenges. Many teams start here, and they often run into hurdles as their product and amount of feedback grow.

“We started getting too much feedback and didn’t have a good way to catalog and triage it. We now get hundreds of pieces of feedback a week. We tried everything from spreadsheets to long Slack threads.”

Evan Kirkham, co-founder of Outlier

Product teams often use well-known methods like the Kano Model, RICE, MoSCoW method, and Impact-effort matrix. We put together a comprehensive list of all the most popular prioritization frameworks here.

These frameworks are great, but applying them manually to every product decision can be a heavy lift. You’ll feel it even more as your product scales.

We also have this prioritization template you can start with. It’s a great solution if you’re just starting out with prioritization.

Here’s what makes manual prioritization tough.

Time-consuming

Manual prioritization requires a lot of discussions, meetings, and back-and-forth between team members. Sorting through feedback, comparing feature requests, and debating their merits can eat up valuable time. The time you could spend building the product.

Bias

We’re all human, and our preferences or experiences can influence our decisions. When prioritizing manually, it’s easy for personal bias to creep in. This might lead to choosing features based on what we like rather than what’s most valuable to the users.

Hard with a large volume of feedback

As your user base grows, so does the amount of feedback and feature requests. Manually sorting through this feedback becomes increasingly challenging. Furthermore, important customer insight might get lost in the noise.

“Keeping track of all of them was getting messy. Now, we use Canny as one source of truth. And it’s much easier to select which things we need to build and focus on them.”

Ida Ström, senior product designer at Mercury

Hard to scale

What works for a small startup won’t necessarily work for a larger organization. As your team and product grow, the manual processes that once served you well can become bottlenecks. They slow down decision-making and make it harder to stay agile.

Hard to close the feedback loop

One of the most essential parts of prioritization is letting users know you’re listening to their feedback. Manual methods make it challenging to track which feedback led to which feature decisions. This makes it harder to close the loop and communicate how their input has shaped the product to your users.

For all those reasons, we recommend using a dedicated prioritization tool. We’ll discuss those next.

Product prioritization tools

Product prioritization tools help determine which potential feature, enhancement, or task to focus on first. These tools often come with frameworks and features that streamline the prioritization process. It makes the process more structured and data-driven.

There are lots of benefits, including:

• Time-saving. Automating and streamlining the prioritization process saves a lot of time. Your teams can quickly assess their options and make informed decisions. No lengthy discussions and debates.
• Data-driven decisions. You can base decisions on data: user feedback, market trends, and product usage metrics. This minimizes bias and ensures that decisions align with what’s genuinely best for the product and its users.
• Team alignment. Prioritization tools help keep everyone on the same page. Make the criteria and reasons for prioritization transparent. This way, all team members will understand why certain features are prioritized over others. They can also see what’s happening and participate.
• Automation. The prioritization process involves many repetitive tasks. Sorting feedback, scoring features against specific criteria, and more. You can automate many of those to save time and reduce the chance of human error.
• Visualization of priorities. These tools often visually represent priorities: charts, graphs, and/or boards. These visualizations make it easier to understand the landscape of potential work. You can see which items are most critical and help your team effectively focus their efforts.
• Roadmaps. You can take that visualization a step further with a roadmap. It helps to visualize the work and plan better.

The best product prioritization tools

Now that you’re curious about prioritization tools, let’s explore the best ones.

Canny

Pros:

Canny is specifically designed to collect and organize user feedback. It’s ideal for teams that want to base their prioritization decisions on direct user input. Canny helps you capture, manage, and analyze feedback to identify the features most desired by your users.

It also connects to important data sources like your CRM and support channels. This lets you include important data in your prioritization calculation. For example, you could look at customers’ ARR or potential revenue when prioritizing. 

All feedback is important, but who is leaving feedback is more important.

Canny lets you easily create a prioritization formula that automatically scores all your feature requests. By looking at the items that score highest, you’ll know what to work on.

You can also separate your users by segments. This way, you’ll know which segment is requesting which features. It’ll be easier to understand what paying and/or high-value customers need.

After prioritizing, you’ll have a clear roadmap. Working on multiple projects? You can have multiple roadmaps to keep things clean and organized!

Canny also helps with closing the feedback loop. It helps to let users know their input is valued and considered in the development process.

Update: Canny introduced Autopilot – a suite of AI-powered time-saving features. Autopilot detects and extracts feedback from support and sales conversations. Then, it deduplicates that feedback, replies to users, and summarizes comment threads.

Cons: 

Canny is not a project management tool. It can still help you organize and delegate tasks. But other dedicated project management tools have more advanced functionality. That’s why Canny integrates with those tools – Asana, ClickUp, Jira, Linear, GitHub, and Azure DevOps. You can push tasks directly to those tools and continue working on them there.

Price: free; paid plains start at $79/month (includes 3 admins)

Jira

Pros:

Jira is a powerhouse in agile project management. But it’s not just for tracking bugs and issues. It’s also great for prioritizing product backlogs. You can create custom workflows, use various scoring methods for prioritization, and integrate with other tools. It’s especially suited for teams that follow Scrum or Kanban methodologies.

Cons: 

Jira is not a dedicated feedback tool. That’s why it’s not the best at handing feedback management. Importing customer data is a bit more complicated in Jira.

Price: free; paid plains start at $81.50/month per user

Trello

Pros:

Trello is known for its simplicity and visual appeal. It uses boards, lists, and cards to help teams organize and prioritize their work. It’s very flexible, allowing teams to set up their boards in whatever way works best for them.

Trello is great for smaller teams or projects that need a straightforward tool for managing tasks and priorities.

Cons:

Trello offers a limited ability for calculation prioritization. It requires more manual work overall.

Price: free; paid plains start at $6/user/month

Asana

Pros: 

Asana offers a blend of features for task management, project tracking, and collaboration. It provides multiple views (lists, boards, calendars, and timelines) for organizing work and priorities. Asana’s strength is its ability to break down big goals into manageable tasks. This makes it easier for teams to stay focused on their top priorities.

Cons:

​​Asana’s focused on task management and collaboration. This means it might not offer the depth of prioritization features that dedicated feedback or roadmap tools provide. So it’s less ideal for deep strategic planning.

Price: free; paid plains start at $11/user/month

Aha! Roadmaps

Pros: 

Aha! Roadmaps help product managers plan their strategies. You can also prioritize features that align with your product’s vision and business objectives. With Aha! you can set goals, define initiatives, and build a visual product roadmap. It’s best for teams that need a high-level overview of their product’s direction and priorities.

Cons:

Aha! Roadmaps offer an extensive feature set for detailed planning and roadmapping. As a result, it’s more complex and less intuitive for some teams.

The price point might also be an issue for teams with smaller budgets.

Price: start at $59/user/month

It’s always hard to choose the best tool for you. Here’s a comparison table of different tools to simplify this.

Please note: some tools (like Aha! Roadmaps) sell various features as separate products. For example, Aha! Ideas that focuses on feedback is a separate tool.

If you’re looking for a tool to help you manage the entire product lifecycle, try Canny.

Conclusion: why prioritize?

Prioritizing what to work on next isn’t just a routine task. It’s the cornerstone of effective product strategy.

If you want to to ensure every feature you develop is in demand, you should effectively prioritize. And there are great product prioritization tools out there that can help.

When choosing a tool, look for one that combines multiple product management functions. For example, feedback management, prioritization, roadmapping, and changelog. Then you’ll be able to manage it all in one place. No more disconnected tools, expensive solutions, and half-working methods.

Product feature prioritization is your key to product excellence. Try it today!

Maria Vasserman

Maria loves all things creative – writing, photography, movies and beyond 🎥 When she's not creating content to tell the world about Canny, she's either photographing a wedding, jumping at a rock concert, camping, travelling, snowboarding, or walking her dog 🐕‍🦺

All Posts - Website · Twitter - Facebook - LinkedIn

The post How product prioritization software elevates PM workflows (+ the best 5 product prioritization tools) first appeared on Canny Blog.

The post How product prioritization software elevates PM workflows (+ the best 5 product prioritization tools) appeared first on Canny Blog.

The big goal is to match what your product does (its features) with what your customers need and how they act. You need to really understand your customers. What do they like? What problems do they have? When you know this, you can start planning features they’ll love and use.

If your product’s features don’t match your customer’s needs, it’s like having puzzle pieces from different puzzles. They just won’t fit. To get it right, watch your customers closely, listen to what they tell you, and be ready to adjust your plan.

So, let’s dive in and learn how to do this step-by-step. By the end, you’ll see how getting this feature planning right can make a massive difference in creating a product that people really want.

Step 1: identify customer needs and behaviors

The first step in the product planning process is understanding what your customers need and how they behave. This insight helps to determine what features you should develop to effectively meet those needs.

Observe customer behavior

Start by watching how your customers interact with your product or similar products. Look for patterns in their behavior.

• What features do they use the most?
• Where do they seem to struggle or get frustrated?
• Which features are and aren’t intuitive?

Observing these behaviors gives you a clear picture of what’s working and what’s not. Focus on the core customer need.

Gather feedback

Feedback is gold in this process. Use every tool you have to collect it. This means:

• Reviewing feature requests
• Distributing surveys
• Conducting user interviews
• Performing usability tests
• Market research

Each method provides a different perspective on what your users want and need.

Provide a deep dive into individual experiences.

Uncover detailed insights into user needs

Usability tests reveal where users face difficulties and what might be causing those issues.

The main goal here is to identify pain points. Pain points are problems that your customers face regularly. They’re the obstacles that prevent them from achieving their goals smoothly. Focusing on these pain points lets you prioritize features that solve these problems. Solving real problems for your users will make your product valuable and indispensable.

Step 2: conceptualize product features

The next step is to turn those insights into a concrete product idea. This involves two fundamental processes:

1. Validating and prioritizing your ideas
2. Using the proper methods, frameworks, and tools to support your planning

Validate and prioritize feature ideas

Not all feature ideas will be worth pursuing. Product managers need to validate each idea to make sure it’s something your customers truly need and will use. Ask questions like:

• Does this feature solve a real problem?
• Is it something a lot of users have asked for?
  • Which users? Are they paying customers?
• How does it fit with the rest of the product?

After validating your ideas, prioritize them. Consider which features will significantly impact your users’ satisfaction and your product’s success. Think about factors like:

• Required effort to develop the feature
• Its potential to attract new users
• Its ability to retain existing ones
• How it aligns with your product’s overall goals

Methods, frameworks, and tools

Many methods and frameworks are out there to help you with feature prioritization.

For example, the RICE scoring model (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) is a popular method for prioritizing features. It’s based on their expected benefit and the effort required to build them.

The Kano model is another tool that helps you understand which features will satisfy and delight users.

Explore more prioritization frameworks in our guide. It will help you choose the best framework for your unique business.

In terms of tools, Canny is a powerful platform that can support you in this step. It allows you to collect and manage user feedback in one place. This makes it easier to see which features are most requested by your users.

Once you have all the feature requests in one place, Canny can help you prioritize them. After that, you can quickly build a roadmap and get to work.

Canny also helps you track the progress of feature requests and communicate updates to your users. You can keep everyone engaged and informed.

Valuing and prioritizing your feature ideas effectively lays a strong foundation for a successful product.

Connect product requirements to user stories and epics

Start by linking the product requirements you’ve developed to user stories and epics. This helps ensure the feature addresses specific user needs and fits into the larger product narrative.

A user story describes the feature from the user’s perspective, explaining what they need and why.

An epic is a larger body of work that you can break down into smaller user stories. This connection is crucial for aligning the feature with user expectations and overall product goals.

Create a product roadmap

Develop a roadmap that outlines how the feature fits into the broader product strategy. This should include how the feature will evolve and relate to other planned features or updates. A product development roadmap helps keep everyone aligned and focused on the long-term vision for the product.

Step 3: articulate product features

The next step is to clearly define the features from the previous step. This means describing:

• What each feature does
• Why it’s necessary
• How it fits into the overall product strategy

Everyone involved, from your team to stakeholders, needs to understand the product vision and purpose of each feature. This is a core function of product management.

Set strategic alignment

First, ensure that each feature aligns with your product goal. Ask yourself how the feature supports your product’s mission and long-term objectives. This alignment ensures that the feature contributes to the overall direction and success of the product. It’s not just a nice-to-have.

Address user challenges

Each feature should address a specific user challenge or need from step 1. Clearly articulate how the feature will solve this problem or improve the user experience. This connection should be evident to anyone who reads the product requirements.

Detail the functionality

Describe in detail what the feature will do and how it will work from the user’s perspective. This includes the user interface, user interactions, and any changes to existing functionalities. A detailed description helps your development team understand what to build.

Set budget

Determine the budget for developing each feature. This involves estimating the costs associated with:

• Design
• Development
• Testing
• Deployment

Set a budget early. It helps to prioritize features and efficiently allocate resources.

Allocate resources

Decide which resources (team members, technology, etc.) you’ll need to develop the feature. Assign tasks to specific team members based on their skills and expertise. Think of any external resources that you may need.

Write product requirements

Finally, write down the product requirements for each feature. This document should include all the information mentioned above:

• Strategic alignment
• User challenges
• Feature addresses
• Detailed functionality
• Budget
• Resource allocation

Product requirements are a blueprint for the development team and a reference point for stakeholders.

Step 4: build the feature

It’s time to start building! This phase turns your product plan and feature idea into real, usable features for your product. Here’s how to approach it.

Agile, Waterfall, Sprint Planning

First, decide on a development methodology. Agile and Waterfall are two common approaches, each with its own benefits.

Agile methodology focuses on flexibility and continuous improvement through short cycles or sprints. It allows for regular feedback and adjustments.

Waterfall is more linear. You’re moving from one stage to the next after each is completed. This can be useful for projects with well-defined requirements.

Sprint planning is part of the Agile method. You break up tasks into smaller, manageable chunks to be completed in short time frames. This helps keep product teams focused. It’s also easier to regularly assess progress and quickly adjust.

Design

The design phase is where the team creates visual and interaction design. It’s important to keep user experience in mind. Ensuring the feature is visually appealing, intuitive, and easy to use. Design should always align with the overall product strategy and user needs.

QA (quality assurance)

Quality assurance is critical to ensure the new feature works as intended and doesn’t introduce any new issues into the product. QA involves systematic testing of the feature under various conditions and scenarios. It helps identify bugs and issues that need to be fixed before the feature can be released to users.

Feedback

Gathering feedback is crucial throughout the building process. This can come from internal team members, beta testers, or a select group of users. Feedback provides insight into how real users interact with the feature, what they like, and what could be improved.

Technical documentation

Finally, remember to create or update technical documentation. This should include:

• Detailed information about the feature
• How it works
• Any changes made to the system or codebase

Documentation is essential for future development and maintenance. It helps new team members understand the product’s features and architecture.

Step 5: plan the release

It’s time to plan the feature’s release. This stage is about preparing to bring your new feature into the hands of users. It requires careful coordination and clear communication across your team. Here’s how to go about it.

Build a release plan

A release plan outlines the steps needed for product launch. It includes:

• Timelines
• Key milestones
• Specific tasks required to move the feature from development to release

Make your plan detailed yet flexible, allowing for adjustments as needed.

Set goals

Define clear, measurable goals for the feature release. What do you hope to achieve? It could be:

• Improving user satisfaction
• Increasing engagement
• Addressing a specific user pain point

Having clear goals helps you focus your efforts and measure success post-release.

Define team roles

Clearly define the roles and responsibilities of team members involved in the release.

• Who is responsible for final QA testing?
• Who will handle marketing and communication?

Assigning specific tasks ensures you cover all aspects of the release and helps prevent last-minute surprises.

Establish timelines

Set realistic timelines for each stage of the release process. Include buffer time for unexpected delays or issues that may arise. Clear timelines help manage expectations and keep the team on track.

Plan product marketing

Finally, develop a marketing plan for your feature. This includes:

• How you’ll communicate the release to users
• Promotional activities you’ll undertake
• How you’ll gather and respond to user feedback post-release

Canny can help you post product updates and notify your users. It can also assist with actioning customer feedback you receive.

Step 6: plan for the unexpected

Even with the most careful planning, unexpected challenges can arise. It’s crucial to anticipate potential issues and have strategies to quickly address them. Here’s how you can prepare for and mitigate unexpected outcomes.

Identify unexpected outcomes

Begin by identifying what could potentially go wrong. This might include:

• Technical issues
• Development delays
• Negative user feedback
• Lower than expected engagement with the new feature

Acknowledging these possibilities upfront allows you to prepare more effectively.

Delays

Delays are common in product development. They come from: 

• Underestimated task complexities
• Resource shortages
• Unforeseen technical challenges

To mitigate delays, build flexible timelines, and have contingency plans. Regularly review progress against your schedule and adjust as needed.

Unhappy customers

New features can sometimes disappoint or confuse users. To reduce the impact of unhappy customers, set clear expectations before the release. Once the feature is live, actively seek user feedback through surveys, forums, or direct outreach. Be ready to make quick adjustments based on this feedback to improve user experience.

Mistakes and bugs

New features can introduce bugs no matter how thorough your QA process is. To mitigate this:

1. Have a robust testing phase during development.
2. Consider a phased rollout to catch and fix issues before they affect all users.
3. Establish a clear process for users to report problems.
4. Ensure your product team can respond quickly to fix them.

How to mitigate

Here’s how you can combat most of these potential issues.

• Rapid response plans. Establish a plan for quickly addressing and fixing issues as they arise. Have a dedicated team ready to tackle critical bugs and communicate with users.
• Communication. Keep lines of communication open with your users. If something goes wrong, be transparent about the issue and what you’re doing to fix it. This can help maintain trust and reduce frustration.
• Feedback loops. Implement mechanisms to gather user feedback quickly after the release. This can help you identify and address issues before they become widespread.
• Iterate quickly. Be prepared to make fast iterations on your feature based on real user feedback. Quick iteration can turn a potentially negative user experience into a positive one.

Step 7: iterate on product features

After launching a new feature, the work isn’t over. You need to continuously refine and improve it based on user interactions. This ongoing iteration ensures your product remains relevant, helpful, and ahead of competitors. Here’s how to effectively iterate on your product features.

Use analytics

Start by diving into product analytics. This includes:

• Engagement metrics
• Feature usage patterns
• Time spent on new features
• Any other relevant statistics

Analytics can tell you how many people use the feature and how they use it. Look for trends, such as which aspects of the feature are most popular. Also, notice which are underused or causing users to drop off.

Gather user feedback

Yes, feedback again. User feedback is invaluable for understanding the real-world impact of your features. Collect feedback through:

• Surveys
• User interviews
• Support tickets
• Social media
• Feedback boards like Canny
• Sales calls
• Customer success interactions

Pay particular attention to what users say about what they like, what they don’t like, and what they wish the feature could do. This direct feedback can uncover insights not readily apparent from analytics alone.

When you make it easy for users to share feedback, they’ll be more likely to do so.

Analyze performance data

Performance data gives you insight into the technical aspects of your feature. This includes load times, error rates, and other performance metrics affecting user satisfaction. If a feature is technically underperforming, users are less likely to adopt it, regardless of its intended benefits.

Refine and iterate

Analytics, user feedback, and performance data can all help you make informed decisions about refining your feature. This might mean:

• Tweaking the user interface for better usability
• Adding new functionality based on user requests
• Improving the backend for better performance

The key is to prioritize changes that will have the most significant impact on user satisfaction and engagement.

Conclusion: how to do feature planning right

Effective feature planning involves several critical steps to a product’s success.

Start with in-depth knowledge of customer needs and behaviors through observation and feedback.

Prioritize feature ideas using tools and methods to ensure they’re innovative and aligned with user needs.

Select features that solve user challenges. Budget and allocate resources.

Implement features using a suitable development methodology.

Organize a detailed release plan. Anticipate and plan for potential issues like delays and bugs.

Post-launch, refine features based on analytics, feedback, and performance data.

Following these steps to ensure your product meets and exceeds user expectations. Happy building! 

Maria Vasserman

Maria loves all things creative – writing, photography, movies and beyond 🎥 When she's not creating content to tell the world about Canny, she's either photographing a wedding, jumping at a rock concert, camping, travelling, snowboarding, or walking her dog 🐕‍🦺

All Posts - Website · Twitter - Facebook - LinkedIn

The post How to succeed with product feature planning (with examples) first appeared on Canny Blog.

The post How to succeed with product feature planning (with examples) appeared first on Canny Blog.

• Read blogs
• Listen to podcasts
• Network
• Learn on the job
• Take courses

Or, you can save some time and learn from the experts. There are outstanding product management certifications out there that can help you level up.

Certifications are more than just a shiny badge for your LinkedIn profile; they’re a catalyst for growth. The best product management certification offers new perspectives, refines your skills, and connects you with like-minded pros.

Starting out? There’s a certification to lay your foundation.

Ready to climb higher? Pick one that polishes your strategic thinking.

Been in the game for years? Advanced certifications can still open new doors.

Let’s dive into the best product management certifications to help you stand out. It’s your ultimate guide to make an impact and truly move the needle in your career.

Note: some certifications require you to take a product management certification course. Others offer prep materials and require an exam to get certified. We’ll explore both kinds of certifications.

Foundational courses for new product managers

Starting a career in product management can seem overwhelming. However, there are foundational courses that can equip you with essential product management skills.

Digital product management from the University of Virginia (Coursera)

If you’re looking for a free option that doesn’t skimp on quality, check out the Digital Product Management on Coursera. This product management course covers modern digital product management techniques and teaches how to:

• Successfully manage a product 
• Focus your work using modern product management methods 
• Manage new products and explore new product ideas
• Manage and amplify existing products

Price: $39-$99/month (Coursera subscription)

Course duration: ~11 hours

Format: online, self-paced

Become a Product Manager | Learn the Skills & Get a Job

Who’s it for? People starting out in product management.

This Udemy course is a full guide for anyone new to product management. It teaches you:

• The basics of product management
• How to build and launch products
• Tips on getting a product manager job

It’s packed with lessons on everything a new PM needs to know – from planning to getting your first job in the field.

Price: $30/month (Udemy subscription)

Course duration: 13+ hours of video lessons + additional articles and resources

Format: online, self-paced

One Week PM

Who’s it for? Aspiring product managers looking for a quick start.

One Week PM from Product Manager HQ is an excellent starting point for aspiring product managers. This fast-paced course is designed to quickly immerse you in the key practices of product management. You’ll learn about:

• Conducting end-user research
• Creating a successful product roadmap
• Interviewing customers

It’s ideal if you’re eager to quickly apply your practical skills too.

Price: $350

Course duration: ~6 hours

Format: online, self-paced

Introduction to Product Management

Who’s it for? Complete beginners to product management.

Are you completely new to product management? Then Introduction to Product Management by Cognitir is your choice. It provides a thorough overview of the fundamentals. It’s structured to help beginners understand a product manager’s core concepts and responsibilities. And it sets a solid foundation for further learning and development.

Price: $33.25-$49/month

Course duration: 12 hours

Format: online, self-paced

Product Management Course by BrainStation

Who’s it for? Beginners wanting to start right in product management.

BrainStation offers an online product management course that covers all you need to kick off your PM career. It includes:

• Basics of product management
• How to work with teams to build products
• Learning to use data to make decisions
• Planning and launching products

Price: $3,250 or $290/month

Course duration: 10 weeks, part-time

Format: online; live

Product Management Certification from Product School

Who’s it for? Aspiring product managers.

This isn’t just any product management course. PMC from Product School is a deep dive with industry leaders from giants like Netflix and Google.

The goal of this program is to:

1. Teach you about how to execute the daily tasks of a product manager
2. Help you transition into your first formal product manager position

You’ll get your hands dirty with real-world case studies and interactive sessions that promise more than just theoretical knowledge. Picture yourself mastering product strategies and leadership skills that make hiring managers sit up and take notice.

The course culminates in a project where you’ll apply everything and craft a product from idea to launch. This project isn’t just homework. It’s a portfolio piece that shouts your readiness for the big leagues.

You get unlimited access to course materials and tools even after completion.

Join a community of over 15,000 alumni who are now at top firms like Google and Uber. This network is invaluable for landing your first PM job and beyond​​.

Price: $5,559 (interest-free installment plans or discounts available)

Course duration: ~1 week

Format: live online sessions; 2-month part-time course or 5-day full-time sprint

Core certifications for rising PMs

Ready to take your product management career to the next level? Check out these courses.

AIPMM Agile Certified Product Manager and Product Owner Credential

Who’s it for? Professionals at any level looking to excel in Agile product management roles.

This certification from Productside will arm you with:

• Comprehensive Agile methodologies and strategies
• Product leadership skills
• Nuances of being an effective product owner

Price: starting at $1500

Duration: ~4 days

Format: live online or self-paced

Note: AIPMM offers more certifications. Check out other options for product managers here.

Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)

Who’s it for? Product managers with some Agile experience looking to master Scrum.

The CSPO certification by Scrum Alliance is all about maximizing the value of your product. It’ll teach you effective backlog management with Scrum. This course covers project management topics as well.

There’s no exam at the end of this product management program.

Price: $299-369

Course duration: ~2-3 days

Format: live online

Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO)

Who’s it for? This product manager certification from scrum.org is for aspiring product owners who work within the Scrum framework.

This professional certificate deeply explores Scrum, emphasizing the product owner’s role. 

You’ll gain insights into:

• Value-driven product management
• Effective stakeholder communication
• Scrum mastery

Similar to the previous course, this will be useful for a project manager too.

To get certified, you need to pass a certification exam. You can either prepare on your own or take one of the courses from scrum.org.

Price: $200/exam attempt + $1000+ for a prep course

Course duration: ~2 days

Format: online or in-person

Pragmatic Institute Certification for Product Management

Who’s it for? Product managers looking to deepen their expertise.

The Pragmatic Institute offers this Product Management Certification. It’s designed for PMs who have a grasp of the basics and are looking to elevate their game. This program dives deep into the more advanced strategies and skills. There are various bundles that cover different topics, such as:

• Foundations (intro to product management)
• Focus (deep dive into strategies and roadmaps)
• Design (UX, UI, and more)
• Build (aligning product and development)

Check out different options here.

Price: $1,295+

Course duration: ~4-8 hours

Format: live online, self-paced, or in-person

New Product Development Certification

Who’s it for? PMs who want to get better at creating new products.

The PDMA offers a New Product Development Certification. It’s all about teaching you how to make new products from start to finish. This course is perfect if you want to learn:

• How to come up with new product ideas
• Ways to test and make your product better
• How to launch your product to the market

It’s great for PMs who already know the basics but want to get really good at making new products.

You need to pass an exam to get certified.

Price: $250 exam fee

Course duration: no dedicated course; study materials are available online

Format: online, self-paced

Product Management with Lean, Agile, and System Design Thinking

Who’s it for? PMs who want to use Lean and Agile methods better.

Boston University offers this course on edX. Students will learn:

• How to make products with less waste (Lean)
• How to manage projects that change often (Agile)
• Ways to design systems for better products

This course is good for PMs who know some basics and want to improve their product-making skills.

Price: $400 certificate fee

Course duration: 7 weeks, 4-8 hours a week

Format: online, seld-paced

Choosing this course means you’re looking to sharpen your skills with modern methods that many companies use. It’s for making your work as a PM more efficient and keeping up with new trends.

Advanced certifications for experienced product managers

Have you been in the product management game for a while? Then check out these advanced certifications. They can really help you up your game. They teach you about more complex product management topics.

Product strategy

Who’s it for? This course from Reforge targets product leaders managing a product work portfolio. This includes a senior product manager, group PM, director, and a head of product. It’s ideal for those shifting from execution to strategic roles.

Participants will:

• Evaluate product features
• Explore product-market fit (PMF) expansion
• Learn to scale products strategically
• Apply frameworks for building and executing product strategy
• Engage in live sessions for interactive learning and real-time feedback

The course emphasizes articulating and securing buy-in for your product strategy.

Price: $1,495

Duration: 4 weeks + live events scheduled over four sessions

Format: self-paced, online + live events + Slack channel

eCornell Product Management Certificate

Who’s it for? Experienced product managers who focus on leading tech and want to hone their skills.

Cornell University’s eCornell Product Management Certificate provides an Ivy League-level education. It’s tailored for product managers aiming to excel in the tech industry.

Participants will learn:

• Strategies for building tech products customers love
• Techniques for effective user research and data analysis to guide product decisions
• Leadership and communication skills

Price: $3,900 or $700/month

Course duration: 3 months (six 2-week courses)

Format: online, instructor-led

Product Strategy by Kellogg School of Management

Who’s it for? PMs ready for bigger strategy roles.

Kellogg’s Product Strategy course teaches you how to think big about your products. You’ll learn:

• How to plan long-term for your product
• Ways to understand and win over your market
• How to make decisions that guide your product to success

It’s perfect for PMs who have been in the game for a while and are looking to lead with big ideas.

Price: $2,850

Course duration: 2 months, ~4-6 hours each week

Format: online, mix of live and self-paced

How to choose a product management certification

Having too many options gets overwhelming. When picking a product management certificate program, consider these points for a perfect match.

1. Program structure. Choose between online, in-person, or hybrid formats based on what fits your lifestyle and learning preferences best.
2. Course Content. Look for courses that cover the skills you need or areas you’re passionate about. The content should help fill your knowledge gaps.
3. Specialization options. Some certifications offer specialized tracks. If you’re interested in a niche like digital products or AI, find a course that dives deep into these areas.
4. Duration. Courses can range from a few days to several months. Consider how much time you can commit to learning without overstretching yourself.
5. Alignment with career goals. Ensure the certification aligns with your career aspirations. Are you aiming for a promotion? Planning to switch industries? Want to refine your expertise? Choose a certification that propels you toward those goals.

Conclusion: why you need a product management certificate

If you’re still wondering why you need a certification, here’s a quick answer. It can help you get ahead faster. You can learn on your own, or you can fast-track your career. Lots of organizations recognize and value the certified product manager credential. Also, courses that prepare you for these certificates are valuable and contain unique insights. You’ll get to learn from top industry leaders and explore real-world examples.

There are lots of ways to learn and advance your career. We hope this guide to product management certifications will inspire you to keep learning.

Take a look at our guide to the top product management platforms for some more actionable tips on working in product. 

Subscribe to our blog to learn more about product management.

Maria Vasserman

Maria loves all things creative – writing, photography, movies and beyond 🎥 When she's not creating content to tell the world about Canny, she's either photographing a wedding, jumping at a rock concert, camping, travelling, snowboarding, or walking her dog 🐕‍🦺

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The post 15 best product management certifications to boost your career in 2024 first appeared on Canny Blog.

The post 15 best product management certifications to boost your career in 2024 appeared first on Canny Blog.