Product Mindset - Elements of a Product
Exploring and establishing a solid understand of any product through product elements 🧬
It’s shocking when people who have been working as product managers or product owners for years, fail to identify, define, and explain their products in a structured, confident, and simple manner.
It indicates gaps in product mindset at the very foundational level. That leads to confusion between product and service, business and product, product and component, and many such critical defining aspects of product mindset and product management.
This is an effort to set some foundational product mindset elements right:
What is a Product?
What are the elements of a Product?
Is it a Product or a Component?
Is it a good or a service or a product?
What is Product Management?
Are PLC, PDLC, and SDLC the same thing?
What is the relationship between Business, Portfolio, and Product?
How is the Product different from the Project and Product Manager from a Project Manager?
Who is a Product Manager and what does he/she do?
What is the confusion about the role of Product Manager and Product Owner?
More such topics to strengthen product mindset…
This is a part of a series of posts to come; so consider subscribing to receive these knowledge bytes directly in your inbox.
We have already defined the Product and identified it in the earlier post.
Read it ☝️, if you have not done so. It will enable you to get more value from this post. Now let’s explore and establish a product’s in-depth understanding through the 6 elements.
What are the elements of a product?
After the definition and 3 core aspects of any Product (Check the first post), let's go deeper and zoom in on the elements of a product. Whenever we look at any product, there are 6 associated elements with it. In a way, these are just an expansion of the 3 core aspects. To analyze any product at a deeper level we need to be able to understand these 6 elements of the product.
What
Who
Why
When
Where
How
Let’s look into each of these 6 elements:
What 🤷
It refers to the core nature of the product. Is it a good or a service or something else? What exactly is it? A solution to a problem? Is it just for entertainment? Is it just for regulatory requirements? Is it a consumable product or a lifestyle support product? e.g. A pocket calculator is a small handheld physical device that is programmed to assist in complex calculation needs in a portable manner.
Announcement 💬
I am planning to conduct AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions in the coming weeks. The Schedule will be shared shortly.
In the meantime, please help me understand what would you like to hear from me in the AMA the most.
Or do you have something else on your mind? Just DM me.
Now, let’s get back to the topic. 👇
Who 🧐
There are two aspects of Who. The creator side and the consumer side. They are just like the two sides of the same coin.
Who is the creator or owner of the product? When the Creator was creating the product who was it created for? This is often referred to as target audience/target segment/target market. Sometimes the creator creates the product with a particular target segment in mind and when the product captures the needs of the initial target segment, the Creator might expand the scope and objective of that product to capture a wider target segment. Is it for individual consumers, large households, or businesses? e.g. A pocket calculator is created by a subsidiary of a medium-sized semiconductor chip manufacturer for students, households, and small businesses where there is a need to run small and quick calculations in a very handy manner.
Why 😇
This is the most critical element of a product. Why was that product created by the Creator? Are they trying to solve some challenges that are crucial to mankind? Are they just trying to gain some strategic advantage by gaining the first movers’ advantage? Are they trying to establish themselves as a niche player in the market? Are they just trying to capture the unmet needs of the market? Are they trying to meet the regulatory or legal requirements? What is that purpose? Why does this product exist? e.g. The purpose of a handheld calculator is to enable small and quick calculations in a non-complicated manner. Although it has many competitors these days such as phones, smartwatches, iPads, etc. it still has a separate use case and hence a reason for existence.
When ⏳
This is the timing element of a product. This could be in two forms:
When does the target audience use that product?
When is that product introduced to the market?
Both the forms of ‘When’ are crucial for us to understand either the usage pattern or the strategic timing of the product. e.g. the calculator could be used by students during their class work in schools. Additionally, we might want to launch a more advanced version of it - A regionally customized scientific calculator in Arabic for the scientific community of Middle east countries that are more comfortable with the Arabic language.
Where 🌎
This holds the positioning aspect of a product. ‘Where’ has three key forms:
Where is the strategic positioning of the product in the product portfolio, or business? Where is the product in its Product Life Cycle (PLC, One of the future post topics)? That’s why subscribing is important.📧😍 e.g. a Calculator could be considered in the decline phase of its lifecycle.
Where is the application of this product in the lifespan or the user journey of the target segment? You will notice that there are some overlaps with the When element as well here. e.g. for a student, they typically start using it earlier in their school years through college. They use it mostly in subjects related to calculation such as maths, physics, etc.
Where is this product launched? What is the market that is trying to capture? Is it in the North American region or is it worldwide? Is it a custom Regional product or is it a standardised Global product? e.g. consider the regionally customized scientific calculator in Arabic example from above.
How ⚙️
It is the last element of understanding a product and mostly focuses on the implementation and application aspects. What are the exact clicks in the detailed customer Journey/experience? How does this product achieve its objective for the target audience? This will also refer to the steps involved in exact value delivery and how the customer or the target audience realizes that value. The more features and functionalities you add, the more is the possibility of increased product value. Note that the law of diminishing returns very well applies in this case. e.g. when a student is faced with a calculation situation that can’t be easily solved through direct mental calculation or manual calculation in a faster manner then the calculator comes in handy by giving them a faster and more accurate solution to their arithmetic calculation (as well as more complex calculation, with more advanced calculators) needs. However, there will be a limit when adding more functionalities to the calculator will not be attractive enough for the target user as compared to the investment needed to provide that feature. Finding the right product-market fit is another vast subject in itself, so skip it for some other day. ✊
Bringing it all together 🍨
We have explored all 6 elements of a Product and understood them through the calculator example. Now, it’s time to strengthen this knowledge by applying this approach in analyzing any product that we come across.
Take another example of “Uber“ to solidify the understanding. Uber is a technology product that provides the solution for on-demand taxi services. The taxi users were facing problems related to the limitation of pre-planning and booking; otherwise, they faced the risk of either not getting the taxi or getting it at exorbitant prices. The taxi drivers had a dependency on word of mouth for bookings, limited service areas, low demands, etc. challenges.
The creators of Uber sensed an opportunity and grabbed it through a technology solution. Uber is the #1 taxi service provider. Yet, it is not a cab company, it does not own any taxis. Its business model positions it as a technology product business. It launched with an MVP version, established product market fit, and then expanded its target audience, market coverage as well as feature/functionality. All of this leads to higher value delivery for commuters, taxi drivers, and definitely for the creators of Uber. You can expand further with publicly available data to better understand Uber as a product.
Conclusion 🖖
Hope this example further solidified the product elements understanding and now you are equipped to take on the analysis of any product, define it, uncover 3 core aspects, and drill down at 6 element level to build its holistic understanding. 😇
We have just started building the product mindset and a lot is about to be built in the coming weeks. The journey forward is exciting, enriching, and full of learning.🤓
The next edition is going to solve the Product vs. Component or Product vs. Feature confusion. 🙄
👋 Signing off. In the meantime, I invite you to connect with me on LinkedIn.