Snippet 7: 35 Product Roles, The RICE Framework, and Game Design
Roles from Paradox, Google, Amazon, Chegg, and more, A Product Prioritization Framework, and How We Can Use Game Design to Learn About Product Management
WAIT! BEFORE YOU JUMP TO THE PRODUCT ROLES!
I’m currently sharing out my product management interview cheat sheet to the first 50 people who subscribe to my newsletter from this post (if you’re an existing subscriber, just ping me. I have a list) FOR FREE. Just click the button below and you’ll be signed up and receive an email with the guide:
Product Roles
Here are some different product roles (i.e. Product Manager, Product Analyst, Product Marketing Manager, Program Manager, Product Design, etc.) I’ve found that were recently posted! You can find my last post with jobs here.
I’ve helped 80+ people learn and land interviews and roles at companies like Microsoft, Duolingo, Palo Alto Networks, PayPal, US News, and many more.
If you’re looking for guidance of any form in this process, please feel free to reach out to me at +1 (475) 221-1445 or nontechnicalpm@gmail.com after reviewing my product offerings in the link below:
Product Internships [16 Roles!]
Paradox - Product Management Intern - Summer 2024 - Talk to Andrew Brose about this if you want to learn more : )
Amazon
Adobe
Chegg
Samsung Research America - 2024 Summer Intern, Product Management
Juniper Networks (Also have a lot of SWE roles)
Product Jobs [19 Roles!]
Product Topic: The RICE Framework
Let’s say you’re a product manager at Uber. You’re tasked with defining a better experience for couriers in urban areas. Your work has lead you to a few different problem areas and solutions but you now have to sit down and prioritize which is the best solution for customers. How do you prioritize this solution?
One framework for prioritization (problem area, solution, etc.) is RICE. It stands for:
Reach - How many users will be impacted by this feature over some time period?
Impact - How much will this product impact the goal in mind/customer experience?
Scored in 5 rankings (.25, .5, 1, 2, 3) from lowest to highest impact
Confidence - Measure of how much data you have available and how confident you are in the measure of all other areas. (i.e. I have all data and confirmed through interviews customers want this = 100%; I have some data but haven’t really talked with customers and the space is overall unclear = 20%)
Effort - How much of the team’s resources are required (i.e. person months, etc.)
and uses the following formula:
Even if you don’t necessarily follow through on the data or are just trying to use this as a way to guide your response in an interview, it’s a great framework to see if you’ve asked and answered many of the important questions.
Going back to our Uber example, if I understand reach (Uber has X couriers in urban areas) but haven’t necessarily defined the impact well, I may need to go back to the drawing board to understand what an urban area is defined. Does urban area mean a city like Philadelphia, PA or a city like Boise, ID?
One of the downsides of RICE however, is that it doesn’t always allow you to prioritize against other initiatives and can be difficult to determine which is a better feature for the long term. For example, a larger feature with a larger impact may have an equal score to a small fix with limited scope and less effort required. If the two have the same score, the RICE framework doesn’t help us capture the broader impact or alignment we should be considering.
(If you’d like to see my example response to the question above, check out this post).
Content Recommendations
First off, two of my buddies are working on their YouTube Channels so please show them some love!
One of my boys is working on building out his music channel. He’s one of the best musicians I know and an absolute legend at pretty much anything he puts his mind to. Definitely check his stuff out!
Same can be said for my other buddy who’s a fellow Microsoft Product Manager. His channel is incredibly funny and I highly recommend checking it out if you’re looking for a quick chortle:
As for more career/product oriented recommendations:
[YouTube Video] Practical Advice for Creative Projects - Extra Credits Gaming
Extra Credits is hands down, one of the best YouTube channels I have found FULL STOP. Not only is their content entertaining but incredibly informative, well thought out, clear, and creative. Although I’ll only give a brief overview of this video, I highly encourage you to check out all of their content, from game design to history.
Coming up with a good game is similar for a good product/feature and honestly any other creative endeavor. Generally when we start, we often have a problem and many different ideas on how to solve it. Instead of just choosing the ideas you like, you should use a broader framework to make it make sense. The goal is the best experience not the most easily thought of.
Understanding how to validate and ensuring that execution of your idea goes well are the key to bringing these good ideas to life however. If you have a feature set that’s identical to your competitor, remember that parity does not equal perfection.
How can you make your product better or more well-fitted to the customer’s needs?
How can I outcompete everything else existing in the market? What are the needs that haven’t even been discussed?
Where can I go in a direction that all my competitors can’t or will try to follow?
Outside of understanding your customer and what they want, understanding your team is key as well. Is your feature something your team can do within the limitations (financial or time based) you have? For example, on a team full of networking engineers, adding on a powerful AI tool will likely be a greater effort compared to building out a new metric to measure bandwidth.
In general, the core of this video is to understand your audience and the other stakeholders involved and what blend of these constraints can leave your customers in awe of the experience. If you can answer why your feature is unique, who it’s for, what the limitations will be and how you’ll address them, you’ll have the core of a great pitch and likely a great feature/product.
That’s a wrap folks, thanks again and see ya soon!
Frank