product management problem solving framework

Framework for Problem-Solving: 5 Best Examples for Product Teams

What is a framework for problem-solving? And how can product managers use them to tackle the challenges they face?

If you are after the answers to these questions, we’ve got you covered! We also look at examples of different frameworks and the main steps in the problem-solving process.

Are you ready to dive in?

• A framework for problem-solving allows product teams to find the causes of the problems and generate solutions in an organized way.
• Root Cause Analysis enables problem solvers to get to the bottom of the problem and find the main reason why the problem occurs.
• Many companies like Google use the CIRCLES framework for problem-solving. The process consists of 7 steps and helps the product manager to take stock of the situation, identify user needs, prioritize them, and produce and assess solutions.
• The CIA created the Pheonix Checklist with a list of questions to help the problem solver dissect the issue and guide them through the process.
• Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ) allows remote teams to come up with solutions quickly and within the constraints of the online working environment.
• The acronym DMAIC stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Implement and Control. They are stages in Six Sigma, a popular quality improvement methodology.
• All the problem-solving frameworks share certain processes: identifying and understanding the problem or the needs of the customer, brainstorming solutions, choosing and implementing the solutions, and monitoring their effectiveness.
• Userpilot can help you to collect user feedback and track usage data to understand the problems your users are facing or set the baseline. Once you implement the solutions, you can use them to collect more data to evaluate their impact .

What is a problem-solving framework?

The problem-solving framework is a set of tools and techniques to identify the causes of the problem and find adequate solutions.

Problem-solving frameworks rely on both data analysis and heuristics.

What are heuristics?

We use them every day. In short, it’s mental shortcuts that allow us to apply what we already know in a new situation. They are particularly useful when detailed research is not practical. An educated guess or generalization may be good enough but the solutions won’t be perfect or cover all the eventualities.

Problem-solving framework example

Let’s look at some of the best-known problem-solving frameworks.

Root Cause Analysis

Managers usually use Root Cause Analysis to deal with problems that have already occurred. It consists of six main steps.

The process starts by defining the problem, followed by data collection .

Based on the data, the team generates a list of possible causes. Next, they can use techniques like 5 Why’s or the Fishbone diagram for more in-depth analysis to identify the actual problem – the root cause.

Once they know it, they can move on to recommend and implement relevant solutions.

CIRCLES method for problem-solving

The CIRCLES method is a problem-solving framework that was created by Lewis C. Lin, who is known for his best-selling book Decode and Conquer.

The framework is particularly suitable for product management. That’s because it allows managers to solve any kind of problem, no matter where it comes from. As a result, it’s a go-to framework for companies like Google.

CIRCLES stands for the 7 steps it takes to solve a problem:

• C omprehend the situation
• I dentify the Customer
• R eport the customer’s needs
• C ut, through prioritization
• L ist solutions
• E valuate tradeoffs
• S ummarize recommendation

Comprehend the situation

At this step, the team tries to understand the context of the problem.

The easiest way to do that is by asking Wh- questions, like ‘What is it?’, ‘Who is it for?’, ‘Why do they need it?’, ‘When is it available?’, ‘Where is it available?’ and ‘How does it work?’

Identify the customer

The who question is particularly important because you need to know who you are building the product for.

At this step, you focus on the user in more detail. You can do it by creating user personas and empathy maps which allow you to understand your users’ experiences, behaviors, and goals.

Report customer’s needs

Next, the focus shifts to specific user needs and requirements.

Teams often use user stories for this purpose. These look like this:

As a <type of user> , I want <output> so that <outcome>.

For example:

As a product manager, I want to be able to customize the dashboard so that I can easily track the performance of my KPIs.

Reporting user needs in this way forces you to look at the problem from a user perspective and express ideas in plain accessible language.

Cut through prioritization

Now that you have a list of use cases or user stories, it’s time to prioritize them.

This stage is very important as we never have enough resources to build all the possible features. As the Pareto rule states, users only use about 20 percent of the available functionality.

However, many teams fall into the build trap and create bloated products that have tons of features but are not particularly great at solving any of the customer problems.

There are a bunch of techniques that product managers or owners can use to prioritize the backlog items, like MoSCoW or Kano analysis.

List solutions

Now, that you have the most urgent user needs, it’s time to generate possible solutions.

There are different ways of solving each problem, so resist the temptation to jump at the first idea your team comes up with. Instead, try to brainstorm at least 3 solutions to a particular problem.

It’s extremely important to be non-judgemental at this stage and refrain from dismissing any ideas. Just list them all and don’t worry about evaluating their suitability. There will be time for it in the next stages.

Evaluate tradeoffs

At this step, you assess the pros and cons of each potential solution.

To aid the process, you may want to create a checklist with criteria like cost or ease of implementation, or riskiness.

Summarize your recommendation

The last step is to summarize the solutions and provide a recommendation, based on what you’ve found out by this stage.

Ideally, the customer should be involved at every stage of the process but if for some reason this hasn’t been the case this is the time to ask them for their opinion about the solutions you’ve chosen.

The Phoenix Checklist

The Phoenix Checklist is another solid framework.

It was developed by the CIA and it consists of sets of questions grouped into different categories.

Going through the checklist allows the agent… I mean the product manager to break down the problem and come up with the best solution.

Here are some of the questions:

• Why is it necessary to solve this particular problem?
• What benefits will you receive by solving it?
• What is the information you have?
• Is the information you have sufficient?
• What are the unknowns?
• Can you describe the problem in a chart?
• Where are the limits for the problem?
• Can you distinguish the different parts of the problem?
• What are the relationships between the different parts of the problem?
• Have you seen this problem before?
• Can you use solutions to similar problems to solve this problem?

Lightning Decision Jam – problem-solving framework for remote teams

Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ) is a very effective problem-solving framework for dispersed teams.

It consists of 9 steps that allow the team members to list and reframe the issues they face, choose the most pressing ones to address, generate, prioritize and select solutions, and turn them into actionable tasks.

Each of the steps is time-boxed so that the team moves through the process quickly and efficiently.

DMAIC – The Six Sigma’s Problem-Solving Method

Six Sigma was initially developed for the needs of the automotive industry in Japan to help it deal with high defect rates. It is now one of the best quality-improvement frameworks and it is used in different sectors.

There are 5 main stages of Six Sigma projects.

During the Definition stage, the team identifies the problem they would like to solve, prepares the project charter, brings the right people on board, and ensures there are adequate resources available.

One of the key tasks during this stage is capturing the Voice of the Customer . After all, the definition of good quality is very much dependent on the needs of the customers and what they are ready to pay for, so their input is essential.

During the Measure phase, the team describes the process and measures its current performance to establish the baseline.

At the Analyze stage, they use the data to identify the root causes and waste, or activities that don’t bring any value.

The Improve stage focuses on generating, evaluating, and optimizing solutions. This is also when the team tests the ideas. If they are successful, they plan how to implement them.

Finally, the project champion must ensure that people stick to the new ways of doing things. That’s what the Control phase is about. The team also uses this stage to assess the outcomes and benefits of the project.

Problem-solving process recurring steps

Now, that we have looked at a few of the most popular frameworks for solving problems, why don’t we look at the steps that they have in common?

Identify and understand the problem with user research

First, it’s necessary to identify and understand the problem.

To do that, your team should conduct solid user research and capture the Voice of the Customer (VoC) .

How to do that?

You can track user in-app behavior , run in-app surveys , conduct interviews and analyze user social media feedback and online reviews.

To get a complete picture, try to collect both quantitative and qualitative data.

Brainstorm solutions

There’s no problem-solving framework out there that wouldn’t include brainstorming of some sort. And there’s a good reason for that: it’s one of the most effective ways to generate a lot of different solutions in a short time.

To make the brainstorming sessions as effective as possible, make sure all your team members have a chance to contribute. Your software engineer may not be the most vocal team member but it doesn’t mean she has nothing to offer, and not recognizing it can be costly.

The Delphi method or silent brainstorming are good techniques that prevent groupthink and the less outspoken team members from being talked over.

No matter how ridiculous or outrageous some ideas may seem, don’t discard any unless they’re completely irrelevant. It’s not the time to evaluate ideas, just come up with as many of them as possible.

Decide on a solution and implement

Some of the solutions will be better than others, so it’s always necessary to assess them and choose the one solution that solves the problem better than others.

Even the best ideas are not worth much if you don’t manage to implement them, so pay attention to this stage.

Often big changes are necessary to solve difficult problems so you need to prepare your team or your customers. Take your time, and focus on explaining the rationale for change and the benefits that it brings.

Make sure to provide the right training to your staff and support your users with onboarding and product education to reduce friction once the new solution goes live.

Collect feedback and evaluate

Once you implement the solution, keep collecting feedback to assess its effectiveness.

Is it solving the problem? Does it help you achieve the objectives? If not, how can you modify it to improve its success? If yes, is there anything else that would provide even more value?

You can do this by actively asking your users for feedback, for example via a survey.

In addition to asking for feedback actively, give your users a chance to submit passive feedback whenever they feel like it.

In case of organizational changes, it’s important to monitor whether the new processes or tools are used in the first place, because as creatures of habit we tend to relapse to our old ways quite easily, often without realizing it.

There are a few useful frameworks for problem-solving. They can guide a product manager through the process of defining the problem, identifying causes, generating and implementing solutions, and assessing their impact.

If you’d like to learn how Userpilot can help you capture the voice of the customer, analyze the data to identify root causes, help design user-centered solutions and collect both active and passive feedback to test their effectiveness, book a demo !

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Problem-Solving Frameworks: Go Down to the Root

Problems of all shapes and sizes pop up on a daily basis. So the big question is: How to solve them? We bring you several frameworks that could help.

Do you consider yourself a problem-solver? Well, you certainly should. Because that's what you and your team do every day. 

First and foremost, you solve the problems that your prospective customers have, for which they want to find a solution (i.e. your product).

Then, there are unexpected errors and usability issues that your existing users face while using your product, or the bugs that your engineers encounter.

On a higher level, you need to find the right solution for the new features you want to develop, discover new opportunities for growth, and so much more. 

Now, the big question is: How to solve all those problems?  

We bring you several problem-solving frameworks that could help.

In this chapter

• Icons 300 The Phoenix Checklist
• Icons 300 Root Cause Analysis
• Icons 300 CIRCLES Method
• Icons 300 The mathematician’s “universal” way

The Phoenix Checklist #

Have you ever wondered how the CIA goes about solving problems ? Well, they’ve developed The Phoenix Checklist to “encourage agents to look at a challenge from many different angles”.

The Phoenix Checklist was popularized by Michael Michalko, a former CIA creative consultant, in his book Thinkertoys , as a blueprint for dissecting the problem into knowns and unknowns to find the best possible solution.     

Some of the questions of The Phoenix Checklist are:

Why is it necessary to solve this particular problem?

What benefits will you receive by solving it?

What is the information you have?

Is the information sufficient? 

What is the unknown?

What isn't a problem?

Should you draw a diagram of the problem? A figure?

Where are the boundaries of the problem?

What are the constants of the problem?

Have you seen this problem before?

If you find a similar problem that has already been solved, can you use its method?

Can you restate the problem? How many different ways can you restate it?

What are the best, worst, and most probable solutions you can imagine?

There’s no doubt that The Phoenix Checklist can be a complementary problem-solving technique for your product team, even though it wasn’t developed with product managers in mind. Use it to frame, deconstruct, and reframe the problems you encounter.

Root Cause Analysis #

Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a problem-solving method that aims at identifying the root cause of a problem by moving back to its origin, as opposed to techniques that only address and treat the symptoms.

The RCA is corrective in its nature with a final goal to prevent the same problem from happening again in the future. But that doesn’t mean that root cause investigation is simple or that it only needs to be done once. 

The starting questions are: 

What is currently the problem?

Why does this problem occur?

But don’t stop at the first why. Keep asking why that happened , until you get to the bottom and the real cause.

When you first start using the RCA method, it will be a reactive approach to solving problems. It is typically in use when something goes wrong. But once you perfect this technique, you can use it as a proactive action towards identifying problems before they happen and preventing them from happening. The end goal of the Root Cause Analysis is continuous improvement.

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CIRCLES Method #

The CIRCLES method is a problem-solving framework that helps product managers provide a meaningful response to any questions coming from design, marketing, customer success, or other teams. 

The creator of the CIRCLES method is Lewis C. Lin, author of the book Decode and Conquer . The way he explains it , you should always start by clarifying the goal, identifying the constraints up front, and understanding the context of the situation.

The seven steps of the CIRCLES method are:

Comprehend the situation: Understand the context of the problem you’re solving

Identify the customer: Know who you’re building the product for

Report customer’s needs: Rely on the customer research to uncover pain points 

Cut, through prioritization: Omit unnecessary ideas, tasks, and solutions

List solutions: Keep the focus on the most feasible solutions

Evaluate tradeoffs: Consider the impact, cost of delay, and other factors

Summarize your recommendation: Make a decision and explain your reasoning

The main goal of the CIRCLES method is to help you keep an open mind as you move through the steps, as well as to avoid jumping straight into the conclusions.

The mathematician’s “universal” way #

Although there isn’t exactly a universal way to solve problems that would perfectly fit every situation and scenario, mathematician Claude Shannon developed a strong problem-solving system that has given results across disciplines.

The essential part of his framework involves creative thinking to get out of standard mental loops, critical thinking to question every answer and every possible solution, and the process of restructuring a problem , whether it’s by maximizing it, minimizing it, contrasting it, inverting it, or anything else. 

As explained in the article from Quartz :

"Claude Shannon didn’t just formulate a question and then look for answers. He was methodological in developing a process to help him see beyond what was in sight."

Shannon’s problem-solving process includes:

Finding a problem

Understanding a problem

Going beyond obvious questions

Defining a shape and a form of a problem

Focusing on essential details, but always keeping a bigger picture in mind

Changing a reference point and reframing a point of view

Uncovering insights from the sea of information

That said, Claude Shannon certainly developed a methodology that is relevant for every problem-solving situation, not only math problems. 

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Innovation frameworks: where will you go next.

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CIRCLES Method

What is the circles method.

The CIRCLES method is a problem-solving framework that helps product managers (PMs) make a thorough and thoughtful response to any design question.

The seven linear steps of the process form the CIRCLES acronym: C omprehend the situation; i dentify the customer; r eport the customer’s needs; c ut, through prioritization; l ist solutions; e valuate tradeoffs, and s ummarize your recommendation.

Key Concepts of the CIRCLES Method

The sequential structure of the CIRCLES method enables PMs to move through essential questions to understand what needs to design and why fully. Some consider the CIRCLES method to be a checklist for asking the right questions when forming an exhaustive and organized response to a design question.

According to Lewis C. Lin, author of Decode and Conquer and creator of the CIRCLES method, the first critical step — comprehending the situation — is a three-fold process that involves:

• Clarifying the goal (e.g., increase revenue, market share, or engagement).
• Understanding the constraints you have for the problem upfront (e.g., how much time do you have, how many engineer resources are available, etc.).
• Understanding the context of the situation that gives you foundational knowledge (i.e., don’t guess or make assumptions–instead ask questions that help you understand, like “What is it?” and “Who is it for?”).

Hear Lewis C. Lin walk through the CIRCLES method .

Here are the seven steps to the CIRCLES method:

Alicia Newman at Learn Worthy writes:

“The CIRCLES framework is put together so that you can use mental cues to structure your response to a product design question. Knowing the backbone of the framework ensures that once you get that product design question, you will know which elements to include in your answer no matter what the product is.”

Why Is the CIRCLES Method Important to Product Management?

The CIRCLES method is useful in product management because it:

• Keeps the focus on users by distilling who PMs are building the product or feature for. Communicates why they are building it.
• Helps PMs prioritize things like product features, execution, user feedback, and the product roadmap
• Enables PMs to ask the right questions during the critical first step (comprehend the situation) to gather ample information before rushing to a solution
• Encourages PMs to keep an open mind as they move through the sequential steps of the framework instead of jumping to conclusions or a solution

Related terms: Customer Empathy /  User Experience /  Product Design /  Product Discovery /  Design Thinking

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Product Management

Product management frameworks: techniques for successful strategy.

Senior Content Marketing Manager

February 9, 2024

In terms of technology, we are living in exponential times. Meaning, every time we blink, there is a new invention making our lives easier. 

And we have product managers to thank for it. 👊

As a product manager , you serve as the liaison between engineers and consumers. It’s your job to gather intel on what customers want most—whether it be a new product or a new feature of an existing product—then communicate those wish lists to the product development teams. 

Sound complicated? It can be—but product management frameworks help simplify the process. Below, we explain what product management frameworks are, how they’re implemented, and the best framework for your business. 

• What Are Product Management Frameworks?

Double Diamond Design Process

The circles method, the aarrr pirate metrics framework, the heart framework, the kano model, 6. the rice scoring model, 7. the north star framework, 8. the moscow method, similarities and differences amongst the frameworks, integrating agile methodologies in product management, 1. determine your goals, 2. don’t start from scratch, 3. keep customers involved, 4. remember to stay flexible, making the right choice for your strategy, product roadmapping, visual collaboration, automated workflows, single-source documentation.

What Are Product Management Frameworks ?

Product management frameworks are standardized processes of improving a product. Essentially, a product management framework takes a product (or a feature of a product) from vision to post-launch, helping to keep all teams on the same page. 🙌

While each framework is unique, it typically follows five stages, which are all critical to the success of the product. These stages include discovery, definition, development, launch, and growth—taking a product from a far-off vision to a tangible product in the hands of consumers.

Overview of Specific Product Management Frameworks

The right product management framework can be the difference between a successful launch or a complete flop. And yet, according to a study by McKinsey , 75% of product managers state that product management best practices haven’t been adopted by their respective companies.

To set your team (and future product line) up for success, consider utilizing one of these tried-and-true frameworks. 📚

The Double Diamond model is often used in user experience (UX) design. The model features two diamonds: one representing the problem, and the other depicting the solution. In other words, product managers use the first diamond to map out core problems of a product, then use the second as a design brief—helping to formulate and test potential solutions.

The CIRCLES Method is a sequential framework allowing product managers to ask essential questions about new products and/or features. The method emphasizes seven critical steps (one for each letter in “CIRCLES”):

• Comprehend the situation
• Identify the customer
• Report customers’ needs
• Cut through prioritization
• List solutions
• Evaluate trade-offs
• Summarize your recommendation

The CIRCLES method is meant to serve as a checklist of sorts, allowing product managers to identify goals, constraints, and the context of new product launches.

Designed by Dave McClure, a Silicon Valley investor, the AARRR framework outlines five metrics every product manager should be tracking. The five metrics include: 

• Acquisition

The model contains two key benefits. One, it helps companies hone in on those metrics that directly impact the health and longevity of their business, and two, it ensures companies use the right data to measure the success of their product management efforts .

Developed by Google, the HEART Framework is an acronym for five user-centric themes: 

• Track success

Google developed the method to help product managers improve the user experience of each product feature.

To quantify each measure, product managers use the Goals-Signals-Metrics approach (also developed by Google). Team members define the goals of each feature, the signals that point toward progress, and metrics to calculate whether they’re hitting their objectives.

The Kano Model uses customer emotions to measure the success of each product. Built on the belief that customer satisfaction starts with an emotional response, the Kano Model measures five response types: 

• Must-be features
• Performance features
• Attractive features
• Indifferent features
• Reverse features

Using a scale of “delighted” to “frustrated,” product managers measure the type of response each product feature triggers in a user.

The RICE Scoring Model helps product managers prioritize which features to launch first. The model evaluates product ideas based on: 

A final score is given to each submission. The idea with the highest score shows the highest potential and is then placed on the product roadmap first.

Whereas other frameworks in this list measure products on a variety of features, the North Star Framework measures a product’s potential based on a single metric. Dubbed the “north star,” this crucial metric calculates the value the product delivers to customers. In essence, this one factor is meant to measure customer happiness and the success it could bring to your startup.

The MoSCoW Method helps product management teams prioritize tasks. The acronym stands for:

• Should-have

This framework helps to determine the nonnegotiables of each product. If key stakeholders disagree on which features carry the most weight on the product roadmap, they’ll use the MoSCoW Method to calculate how much internal resources should be dedicated toward each feature launch.

Just as each of the above frameworks is unique, there is a degree of overlap between them. Similarities between the above frameworks include:

• They’re used to measure which products and/or features will bring the highest customer happiness
• They’re used to calculate which features will result in the highest profit for the company
• Leveraging the above framework can simplify the workload for product managers, while preserving company resources

That said, these frameworks differ in when and how they’re used throughout the product life cycle. For example:

• Product strategy: Some frameworks are meant to be used in the product strategy or decision-making phase, helping to create a vision for the product team. For example, the AARRR framework and CIRCLES Method will be used early in the process, helping identify profitable opportunities for the company
• Product prioritization: Prioritization frameworks are explicitly built to help teams determine the importance of various tasks. For example, the RICE Scoring Model and MoSCow Method help a product team decide where features are placed within the product roadmap
• Product design : Once product planning is complete, many frameworks help teams carry out design and execution. For example, the Double Diamond and HEART frameworks help bring great products to life

The Agile Methodology framework is a project management framework that breaks down projects into distinct phases. These phases—known as sprints—give teams the time and space to reflect on what worked (and what didn’t), thereby making tweaks before they move into the next phase.

So, what do agile methodologies have to do with product management ? Launching a new product and/or feature is—by nature—a project. And using the right project management tools can help you launch that product on time, on budget, and with the right features to meet customer needs.

There are different types of agile methodologies, including:

• Kanban: Kanban is a visual approach to project management. Typically, teams use online Kanban boards to easily arrange tasks by priority, status, or assignee
• Scrum: A Scrum is a common methodology where a single person (the designated scrum master) clears obstacles for a project. A Scrum board serves as a visual to-do list, managing roadblocks and tasks for an ongoing sprint
• Extreme Programming (XP): Extreme programming is a software development methodology that helps teams produce a working model in very short sprints
• Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM): With a more rigorous foundation, the DSDM model focuses on the entire life cycle of a project. The DSDM model takes a project through four phases, including feasibility, prototyping, design, and implementation

How to Implement Product Management Frameworks Into Your Workflow

Each product management framework helps launch successful products, and one is not necessarily better or worse than the others. However, many teams find that one model is a better fit for their unique company. To help your product team successfully implement a new framework, follow these steps.

Are you looking to launch a brand new product, address a specific customer problem, or acquire a new target market? Before choosing a framework, gather all decision makers and determine your objectives. This will help decipher which frameworks are right for your organization.

Fortunately, with ClickUp Goals , you can achieve your objectives faster. ClickUp Goals allow you to set clear timelines, define measurable targets, and track your progress toward implementing your new framework.

Here’s the good news: The above frameworks have been tested by companies for decades, so you don’t need to start from scratch. With ClickUp’s Project Framework Template , you can create a structured set of procedures for implementing your product framework. From there, you can leverage dozens of ClickUp product management templates to get your team from ideation to launch.

The entire goal of product management is to increase your value proposition to customers. Therefore, after you implement a new framework, continue to collect customer feedback. Did the new framework help improve the customer journey, or do tweaks need to be made?

Fortunately, with the ClickUp Product Feedback Survey Template , you can easily collect product feedback from customers.

Just because a particular model works now, doesn’t mean it will always be the best fit.

The best framework will always depend on your goals as a company (revert back to step one). As customer pain points fluctuate, your team gets new product ideas, or the functionality of your product expands, you might need to find a new framework. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different models at different stages of your company.

There are a number of factors to consider when selecting a framework. Before you decide, take stock of the following:

• Company size: Are you a growing startup or an established company? If the former, you might look for a framework that takes you from ideation to launch (like the HEART framework), while the latter may be searching for a framework that helps them prioritize existing initiatives (like the RICE Scoring Method)
• Product type: What type of product are you launching? If you’re simply launching a new feature or iterating an existing product, the Double Diamond can help greatly improve the overall user experience. However, if you’re launching a brand new product, the Kano Model can help determine if the invention will be attractive to your target persona
• Team expertise: Are you staffing a team of experienced or junior product managers? If you have a VP of product management with years of experience launching effective products, you might implement the North Star Framework (as this individual might be capable of pinpointing the single factor leading to a product’s success)

ClickUp: The Future of Product Management

ClickUp is the all-in-one productivity platform that streamlines all jobs to be done in the product life cycle. With ClickUp Product features , product development teams can bring their vision to market with the following tools. 🤩

With ClickUp AI tools , product managers can easily generate documents, collect customer feedback, and ultimately launch products faster.

Product roadmaps are a tool of working backward from launch to planning—and every micro decision in between. With the ClickUp Product Roadmap Template , teams can move in sync by seeing which tasks come next.

With ClickUp Whiteboards , product management teams can create a visual of their best ideas. ClickUp Whiteboards allow you to brainstorm, strategize, and create a first draft of your product roadmap with the entire team.

Streamlining the product management process ensures you get your product to market on time. With automated workflows from ClickUp , you can automatically set priorities, leave comments, assign tasks, and get approvals from upper management.

With ClickUp Docs , your entire team can collaborate on roadmaps, requirements, and new feature ideas. With rich editing features and the ability to tag team members and assign comments, you don’t get caught up in “versionitis”—and instead move toward a successful product launch.

Move Toward a Successful Product Launch With ClickUp

Product management frameworks help determine which products and/or features will be most profitable for the company. While each model differs, all help measure customer happiness, simplify the product management process, and take new products to market.

To implement a new product management framework, choose ClickUp. ClickUp helps product management teams operate more efficiently through must-have tools like AI, collaborative Docs and Whiteboards, and automated workflows. Plus, ClickUp comes complete with thousands of templates, hundreds of integrations, and multiple views to help launch new products. 👏👏

Ready to see how ClickUp can lead to a successful product launch? Try ClickUp for free today .

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• Product Management

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An Introduction to Product Management Frameworks

• Written by Contributing Writer
• Updated on February 10, 2023

Most new products entering the market struggle to survive. However, successful firms — from giants like Google and Amazon to startups like Airbnb and Spotify — are known for consistently rolling out great products. That doesn’t happen by accident. Product management makes the difference. 

Effective product management frameworks offer companies the foundation for building successful products or services on repeat. If you’re an aspiring product manager , the knowledge of frameworks is essential to your career. 

In this guide, we will dive into the basics of the product management framework, top frameworks that billion-dollar companies use, and round off with some quick tips on how to select the right framework. 

What is the Product Management Framework?

Product management is one of the most critical parts of a successful product development process. Deciding what to build, identifying customer needs, managing a product’s lifecycle, from development to execution, and delivering excellence — are all parts of product management. Effective product management is essential for a successful product development process. It helps to ensure that your product matches customers’ needs, all resources are optimally used, and your business benefits the utmost. 

A product management strategy framework is a set of procedures that can help a company develop a product following its timelines, budgets, and business objectives. Product management prioritization frameworks help product managers determine whether an initiative is worth pursuing and provide guidelines on opportunity evaluation, prioritization, and requirements determination. 

Why Do Companies Adopt Product Management Frameworks?

Product management works at the junction of business, technology, and user experience (UX) design. It is an essential function in an organization. A company’s prospects look bleak without an effective product development team delivering a great product that customers are prepared to buy and use.

Take a look at the main reasons why companies adopt product management frameworks:

Build a Potentially Successful Product

A product management process framework provides precise guidelines for creating a great product or service offering. Using the framework, product managers gain a good understanding of the market and customer requirements. This significantly boosts the chances of success and reduces the risks of failure. 

Organize Every Step of Product Management Smoothly

The duties of a product manager are extensive — not only turning a product idea into reality but also managing crucial business indicators, establishing strategic goals, communicating with users, etc. A good product management framework will take through every phase of the product lifecycle and unify these duties. 

Profitability

Product Management is an important driver of strategy and revenue in an organization. So, improving product management by integrating a practical product management strategy framework can be hugely profitable.

Top 20 Product Management Frameworks Used by Leading Companies

Here’s our list of the top 20 product management frameworks. We have researched product management prioritization frameworks of some of the most successful companies to compile this list. 

1. Minimum Viable Product

This framework emphasizes that you can develop a high-quality product by studying customer feedback. At first, a basic product is developed for testing, introduced to the users, and customer feedback reviewed. Future improvements to the product are decided based on the feedback received. 

2. Working Backward

Amazon uses the Working Backward product management framework, which involves the reverse approach to the product development process. The product management team starts by imagining the finished product is already built to identify whether it meets customer requirements. A press release announces the product and the solutions it offers. If the leadership team approves the product’s viability, the press release is used as a roadmap for product development. 

3. Storytelling

This is one of the primary product management frameworks where the product is like a story with a beginning, body, and end. The beginning involves finding target users and ensuring that the product is viable. The body is the acceptance of the product concept and its introduction into the market. The end is the result you get in terms of profits or customer growth.

4. Squads (Think It, Build It, Ship It, Tweak It)

Spotify uses the Squads framework, which consists of small, cross-functional teams empowered to work on projects of their choice. The teams are autonomous, yet aligned, and follow a model of — Think It, Build It, Ship It, Tweak It — to deliver a great product at minimal risk and operation cost.   

5. Two-Part

Typeform’s Two Equal Parts product management strategy framework consists of an initial part focusing on product discovery, including identifying problems, finding solutions, and validating solutions with the testable product. The latter part focuses on delivery which consists of scope, execution, measurement, and iteration. 

6. Product Growth

Growth is one of Shopify’s product management prioritization frameworks. Its aim is not only building a product but also growing the adoption of the product. The product growth framework is easy to adapt and involves multiple steps to develop product growth competency. 

7. North Star Framework

Amplitude introduced this framework, which is based on the North Star Metric, which is a measurement that captures the core value delivered by your product to your customers. It is a crucial measure of the product team’s success in an organization and is driven by several key inputs that help drive the metric. 

8. Business Model Canvas

Business Model Canvas is one of the product management frameworks that pinpoints how the product team will create value and reduces the product development cycle. Businesses of every size adopt this framework to describe and understand their business models more efficiently. 

The Kano product management strategy framework helps product teams to prioritize their work according to those features that are most likely to fascinate customers. Each idea is ranked according to its chances of delighting customers and its implementation cost.  

10. Weighted Scoring

The Weighted Scoring prioritization framework provides guidelines to rank product initiatives according to the basic cost-vs.-benefit criteria. Scores are created for every criterion, like ‘increase revenue’ categorized under benefits and ‘implementation effort’ under costs.  

11. Job To Be Done

The Job To Be Done (JTBD) framework focuses on identifying user requirements depending on scenarios instead of personas. JTBD focuses on the customers rather than the product and helps to understand customer thought processes clearly, including the ‘job’ they would require your product to do. 

12. Buy-a-feature

This framework offers organizations a fun way to prioritize tasks on product initiatives. Each competing action is assigned a price. A group of participants is given a hypothetical amount, asking them to spend the money on purchasing features they’d like most to see in the product. 

13. Opportunity Scoring

Using this model, product teams can assess which features, according to customers, are essential to the product and also which feature they find unacceptable. Customers rank the features according to their preference, and features that score high in importance represent the opportunity to realize a strong return on investment.  

14. RICE Prioritization

Developed by Intercom, the simple RICE Prioritization framework evaluates product ideas based on four factors – Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort. For each initiative, a final score is generated based on these factors. The initiatives are then ranked based on final scores, which indicate their relative values to the product and organization. 

15. MoSCoW Analysis

The MoSCoW prioritization framework is usually used to help stakeholders understand each initiative’s importance. Initiatives are grouped into categories: 

a) M represents the “must-have” items – these are non-negotiable needs that are essential for the team.

b) S for “should-haves – these are important initiatives that add significant value although they are not critical.” 

c) C is the “could-have initiatives” (or nice-to-have initiatives that will have a slight impact if left out)

d) W represents the “will not have” items rated low priority for this specific time frame. 

DIGS is a product management interview framework that helps understand behavioral questions and emphasizes building ‘higher stakes.’ The abbreviation stands for:

a) Dramatize the problem

b) Indicate alternatives

c) Go through the solutions

d) Summarize your product concept

17. CIRCLES

A popular framework method by Lewis Lin, CIRCLES is a set of procedures needed to make a complete, careful response to a product design. The abbreviation serves as a checklist to:

a) Comprehend the situation

b) Identify the customer

c) Report customer needs

d) Cut through prioritization

e) List solutions

f) Evaluate tradeoffs

g) Summarize recommendation

18. Design Sprint

This 5-step product management process framework is based on design thinking. The method aims to reduce risks associated with any product launch. The product team comes together to understand, design, prototype, and validate ideas before launching a product or feature. The framework is excellent for quickly identifying critical problems and developing and testing the solutions. 

19. GIST Planning

This product management framework is named after factors required to guide agile planning and execution. The GIST factors are Goals, Ideas, Step-Projects, and Tasks. The method aims to create products and solutions that are laser-focused on organizational goals. The goal is to reduce management overhead, improve team autonomy, and expedite development. 

a) Goal setting in GIST is the top-level objectives for the organization that provide the reason and justification for any action taken.

b) Ideas are possible ways of reaching the desired goals.

c) Step-project concept involves breaking down an idea into several smaller experiments that are assessed multiple times to determine merits for further investment of time and effort into the idea.

d) Tasks comprise the most granular level of the GIST framework. When product features and enhancements are broken down into smaller pieces, the product team can finish them at the earliest.  

20. The 5 Es

The 5 Es framework is a customer journey map that shows the step-by-step process of a customer’s experience. Product managers, designers, and engineers can use this framework to assess how customers interact with your product and create a successful development strategy for improvement. 

The 5 Es are:

a) Entice – to understand customer needs. What event triggers customers to enter into the UX funnel?

b) Enter – to determine how the customer reaches the product. This includes the first few steps in the UX funnel.

c) Engage – what job is the customer trying to accomplish? How user-friendly your product is. 

d) Exit – this stage determines how easily the user completes the task. Were there any obstacles the user faced while solving the problem with your product?

e) Extend – What follow-up actions to take after the user performs the task? At this stage, you should consider how to retain users once they have satisfied their requirements with your product. 

Selecting the Right Product Management Framework

Product management frameworks will help you consistently create and deliver great products. With numerous options available, selecting the right product management framework may seem overwhelming. 

However, it mostly boils down to the nature of the product and the company developing it. Every organization has different product management needs, based on its size, product development, and culture. The right framework should meet those needs. 

The first step to deciding on the right product management framework for your business is identifying your needs, goals, and vision. With that in mind, factor in the product’s maturity and your preference. Try a few frameworks to see what ticks all your boxes. 

Upskill For a Rewarding Career in Product Management  

Product management frameworks play a big role in the creation of successful products. They streamline the product development process by bringing the strategy, roadmap, and features together so the team can prioritize and make faster decisions. Therefore, for a product manager, the understanding of the most widely-used frameworks (like the ones we discussed above) is a part of their repertoire. 

Whether you want to break into a product management role or advance into senior roles, upskilling is your key to growth. Consider a program such as the online product manager bootcamp from University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. 

Master top product management skills in six months and get professionally certified in Product Management from the University of Minnesota. Other benefits include capstone projects and excellent networking opportunities with product leaders from top companies. Enroll now!

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21 Product Management Frameworks

Effective product management is critical to the success of any product development process. It helps to ensure that everything to be done matches the needs or pain points of customers and that resources are optimally used. This means that product managers must be methodical in their approach.

Frameworks can help with this methodology, providing both a comprehensive and objective process for things such as opportunity evaluation, prioritization, and requirements definition.  Below are 21 must-know frameworks for anyone practicing the craft of Product:

1. Minimum Viable Product

Credited to Lean Startup author Eric Reis, this framework emphasizes the importance of learning when developing new products. The strategy, which is also called Lean Software Development, calls for the development of a minimal (or bare-bone) product for testing at first. The team builds a solution with minimal functionalities that are enough to solve a problem. This enables the gathering of customer feedback and validation of assumptions to know what can be done better.

Read more about the Minimal Viable Product (MVP) →

2. Working Backwards

This framework literally reverses the product development process, starting with what usually comes later. It was created and popularized by Amazon and, so, is sometimes called the Amazon method. Your product team begins by imagining that the product has been built to identify whether the customer’s problem has been solved.

At the start, you write a press release announcing the product’s availability. The document describes the problem and what value the product delivers above existing alternatives. This helps to be really sure the product is worth building. 

Read more about the Working Backwards →

3. North Star Framework

Introduced by Amplitude, this framework centers on a single, most important metric – the North Star Metric. Startup advisor Sean Ellis describes this metric as one that “best captures the core value that your product delivers to customers.” The North Star Metric is complemented by a number of key inputs that help to drive it. Your team works to impact these key inputs with everything it does every day.

Read more about the Northstar Framework →

4. Business Model Canvas

This model aims to help make clearer how the product team will create value and to shorten the product development cycle. The business model canvas provides a complete, high-level view of the different strategic points crucial for bringing the product to market.

Businesses of various sizes use this model to understand and describe their business models more efficiently. It comprises elements that may vary from one business to another and is typically used together with the Value Proposition Canvas and other strategic management tools.

Read more about the Business Model Canvas →

5. Job To Be Done

Also known simply as JTBD, this framework for focuses on identifying customers’ needs, based on scenarios rather than personas. Championed by Clayton Christiansen, it calls for a deeper understanding of the customers, including their goal or “job” that they would need your product to do. Job To Be Done shifts the center of attention from the product to customers. It helps to grasp the customers’ thought processes when purchasing so that product teams can know what to focus on.

Read more about the Jobs To Be Done →

6. Opportunity Solution Tree

Developed by Teresa Torres, this framework is a visual representation of how you aim to attain your desired outcome. The diagrammatic tool was designed to make simpler the discovery process and to enable the proper prioritization of opportunities. Torres designed the framework to help product teams know and focus on “the big picture” in their work. It assists in properly thinking through any decisions to be taken.

Read more about the Opportunity Solution Tree →

7. Weighted Impact Scoring

This is a popular prioritization framework among top product managers. The weighted impact scoring model involves ranking initiatives or features using a simple scoring model. You start by identifying some key criteria and then assign a weight (in percentage) to each one showing how important they are. Initiatives are scored based on these criteria and ranked accordingly.

Read more about the Weighted Impact Scoring →

8. RICE Prioritization

This framework developed by the team at Intercom is a very simple one. It calls for the evaluation of product ideas based on four factors, which the name derives from: Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort. A final score is generated for each initiative using these criteria. All initiatives are ranked using their final scores that indicate relative values to the product and company. 

Read more about RICE Prioritization →

9. Design Sprint

Created by Jake Knapp at Google Ventures, Design Sprint is a five-step or five-day process that draws inspiration from design thinking. It aims at reducing the risk that could come with launching a product.

This design framework involves the team coming together to understand, design, prototype, and validate ideas before introducing a product or feature. It helps to quickly identify key problems as well as design and test their solutions.

Read more about the Design Thinking →

10. Customer Journey Map

This is a visual representation of all the steps a typical prospect or customer takes when interacting with your product or service. The framework, sometimes called the 5 Es, helps to have a good grasp of the customer’s experience. It makes it easier for product managers to gain insights into customer behavior so that they can develop a strategy most fitting for the observed behavior.

Read more about the Customer Journey Map →

11. Kano Model

Based on the ideas of Japanese professor Noriaki Kano, this framework is useful for identifying the attributes of a product that users will find most valuable. It features two axes: one showing how well a need is met and the other depicting how satisfied customers are as a result. The Kano Model helps to identify those features that are more likely to delight customers. Prioritize features that deliver the most delight relative to the cost of implementation.

Read more about the Kano Model →

12. Spotify Squads

This model shows what the culture that has helped Spotify to success is like. It involves product squads – small, cross-functional teams – that are autonomous. The framework is about empowering squads to choose what to work on to achieve a desired outcome rather than having tasks assigned to them. A key requirement is that the chosen work must match an organization’s overall strategy.

Read more about Spotify Squads →

13. GIST Planning

The name of this framework comes from factors you need to guide true agile planning and execution, according to its creator. These are Goals, Ideas, Steps, and Tasks. Developed by Itamar Gilad, the GIST Planning framework is inspired by Lean Startup Growth Marketing and behavioral economics principles. Its goal is to lower management overhead, advance team autonomy, and expedite development. 

Read more about the GIST Planning →

14. 3 Pillars of Product

This 3-part framework created by product strategist Neal Cabage defines the most important elements or aspects of product management. These three key parts are product or opportunity discovery, product planning, and product development. Product managers and teams can use the model as a good guide for developing winning solutions.

Read more about the 3 Pillars of Product Management →

15. Double Diamond

Developed by the British Design Council, the Double Diamond framework is a design process model involving four phases or elements. These are Discovery, Definition, Development, and Delivery. The four stages apply to all approaches for creating something new, according to its creators. This process is iterative and involves two types of thinking: divergent and convergent.

Read more about the Double Diamond →

DACI is an acronym standing for Driver, Approved, Contributor, Informed. It is a roles and responsibilities framework that helps drive team alignment by clarifying who is responsible for what within a team or project. It is similar to the more well-known RACI framework, but DACI is particular relevant to Product Management because it emphasis an ownership model rather than a delivery model, which better aligns to the Agile Product ethos. Use this framework when setting out on a new initiative or configuring a new team, to clearly articulate the PM’s responsibilities and how to interact with leadership, stakeholders, and other contributors. The below framework exemplifies how one might articulate ownership within the product development team more probably.

Read more about the DACI framework →

17. Product Team Competencies

This is yet another of the frameworks created by Cabage. Product Team Competencies was designed to make the clear vital skills that are needed for project management, especially when it comes to digital products. The model is a 2-dimensional spectrum of skills or capabilities. It places product leaders on one of two sides: strategic or tactical and external or internal. The Product Team Competencies framework is useful for assessing, conveying, and enhancing overall team capabilities.

Read more about the Product Team Competencies →

18. CIRCLES Method

A design framework by Lewis Lin, the CIRCLES Method provides a guide on how to provide thoughtful, detailed responses to design questions. It is useful for deeply understanding what to design and why it is needed. The framework’s name comes from the steps to follow when answering design questions:

Read more about the Circles Method →

19. Product-Market Matrix

This framework is also known as the Ansoff Matrix after the mathematician Igor Ansoff who developed it in 1957. The Product-Market Matrix, or the Product-Market Expansion Grid, is a 2×2 matrix showing four possibilities: market development, product development, market penetration, and diversification. Businesses typically use it to analyze and devise their growth strategies.

Read more about the Product-Market Matrix →

20. Innovation Adoption Curve

The Innovation Adoption Curve is a model of how and why a new product or innovation is adopted. Its creator, Everett Rogers, classified adopters into five categories: Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, and Laggards. The framework highlights the need to approach each group differently when marketing.

Read more about the Innovation Adoption Curve →

21. Hooked Method

Coming from Nir Eyal’s 2014 book “Hooked,” this model describes a user’s interactions with a product through four stages. It is a guide on how to build habit-forming products. The four steps or phases identified as being key for such products are trigger, action, reward, and investment.

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A guide to product strategy: Frameworks and examples

Are you a product leader looking for a way to guide and inspire your team? Or perhaps you’re a product manager looking for a way to evangelize your plan effectively. You may even be a founder or entrepreneur who wants to establish a foundation for many critical decisions to come.

No matter where you’re at, you’re not alone. For many, product strategy feels like a mystery, and there’s no standard definition or method.

In this guide, I’ll do my best to demystify product strategy and outline a product strategy framework to help you guide your team to success.

What is product strategy?

A product strategy is a lasting yet dynamic decision-making framework designed to guide the business model, teams, individuals, and entire organizational culture toward long-term success.

A good product strategy starts with a high-level purpose that rarely, if ever, changes and narrows down to the day-to-day agile execution of self-organizing teams , which will change often. A good strategy motivates and provides clarity for teams.

The traditional product strategy pyramid

The traditional way to picture product strategy is with a pyramid .

In my opinion, this model doesn’t effectively illustrate what a product strategy does or how to define it.

For one thing, pyramids start at the bottom, not the top. Presumably, vision and mission are situated at the top of the pyramid because they are the most important — but isn’t the foundation really the most important part of a pyramidal structure? Why would a tactical step such as roadmapping be pictured as a foundation or starting point of anything?

Regardless, the good news is that we’ve learned a great deal about digital product development over the years. Today, we know that roadmaps and tactics are not a good foundation for a product or company strategy.

The product strategy funnel

A sound product strategy resembles not a pyramid, which promotes constantly building more and more and more, but a funnel that guides the team step by step with increasing clarity at each stage.

That’s right — product strategy is not about doing things. It’s about knowing what not to do.

I’ve been greatly inspired by Martin Eriksson from Mind the Product, who talks about a model he calls the decision stack , where familiar elements such as product vision and objectives are simply decisions that help us narrow down our choices.

As Steve Jobs once said , “I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.”

A modern product strategy framework for agile teams

So what does a modern product strategy framework look like? This model consists of six levels: purpose, mission, vision, strategy, objectives, and tactics.

Be concise (1–3 sentences), bold, positive, and inspiring when developing these ideas. Especially for the higher-level statements, communicate how your product will aim to make the world a better place for the benefit of your team members, partners, and customers.

Let’s explore each level of this product strategy framework in detail with examples.

Purpose statement

The purpose statement is set at the company level. It is the highest-level “why” of the business: Why does the business or product exist? It should be broad enough to separate itself from specific “whats” (i.e., solutions) but narrow enough to accurately reflect how the company sees itself.

The purpose statement should be no longer than one sentence. Ideally, the purpose will never change.

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Purpose statement example

We are here to help people accomplish their dreams.

Despite the breadth of this purpose, we still have endless room to explore and evolve.

In this example, we’ve already narrowed down the things we will pursue. To stay true to the purpose statement, we’ll need to say no to many things.

Mission statement

If the purpose is the highest-level “why,” the mission is our highest-level “how”: How do we plan to pursue our purpose?

The mission may never change, but it could change with significant customer needs or technology changes.

Mission statement example

We will provide solutions that help all people progress, grow, and find satisfaction in their work.

In this example, we pledge to provide “solutions,” but the language is intentionally vague. These could be scaled technology solutions or more personalized solutions.

The term “work” is also deliberately vague. This statement suggests that we believe people want to find value in their activities, even if it isn’t a traditional career or paid service, regardless of their age, location, or economic status.

Vision statement

At this point, we’ve made a few decisions. We know why we exist (purpose) and, broadly, how we plan to take action (mission). Now, we’ll define what our product should look like if we live up to our purpose and mission statements.

Your product vision statement is the highest-level “what,” designed to give ongoing direction and motivation to the team. A vision may last several years and change slightly over time.

A good product vision statement is aspirational. A great vision would seem almost unattainable.

Vision statement example

We will build the most engaged, helpful, and diverse network of people in the world who support each other in reaching their goals and improving their skills.

Is this vision possible? Who knows, but we’re going to find out!

This example product vision statement is specific enough that it could be measured and proven. We’re avoiding generic language like “best” and “leading” because that doesn’t mean anything specific and, therefore, can’t provide our teams with any real direction. Each of these steps should narrow our options and help us focus.

Strategy statement

The strategy statement is a summation of the objectives, which we’ll touch on next. If there are three objectives (or goals or themes), the strategy should be one succinct statement describing them all.

The product strategy statement should be 1–3 sentences long. Although the strategy statement should live mostly in the “how” space, giving a nod to the “why” and a small hint at “what” can be helpful.

Your strategy should change more frequently than the vision (e.g., biannually, etc). For a single product, the strategy might change entirely once a year, or it might vary only slightly every few months. It’ll be more durable if it’s at a company level or for a large, complex product.

Consider objectives a placeholder for whatever goal-setting framework you choose. You may have some strategic themes, OKRs, BHAGs, workstreams, SMART, or something else.

No matter what product metrics you choose to focus on, they should be measurable and thoughtful. This set of strategic objectives is the heart of your strategy.

Objectives are critical to delivering value to your customers, but they mean absolutely nothing if they don’t connect to your product vision, mission, and purpose.

This is the work empowered product teams are delivering to move metrics and make progress toward their objectives.

For example, any scrum artifacts or ceremonies live here. Additional examples include squad operating procedures, daily standups , demos, iterations, roadmaps, discovery, experimentation, epics, user stories, user research, and brainstorming. These are the day-to-day agile activities product development teams undertake to deliver valuable software and features.

What does this mean for teams? Every project, epic, experiment, or customer problem a team pursues should be in support of a product or company objective. This informs prioritization and gives teams a basis to challenge requests that don’t help the company meet its goals.

What are the benefits of a product strategy framework?

The product strategy framework described above is designed to promote the following:

This framework is about cutting off options. Each layer narrows our choices and helps us focus on delivering value to customers without distractions.

Each piece of this strategy model is small and serves a specific purpose. The elements can be split up and used in different presentations, business cases, etc.

On the other hand, the statements can be combined and displayed together to provide a comprehensive view of the company’s strategy in just a few sentences.

The most important rules to adhere are those that dictate the length of each statement. If people on your teams and other stakeholders cannot recall or clearly recite what your vision is, then you have no vision. If people cannot remember the strategy, there is no strategy.

After all, what good is a purpose, mission, and vision white paper if no one actually reads it?

Definition of purpose

Most strategy frameworks don’t separate purpose from mission, and many companies don’t differentiate vision and mission. Defining purpose, mission, and vision as distinct decision-forcing statements is a key benefit of this model.

Go build things that matter!

My hope is that this structure can help one person get started on reframing their strategy and give at least one team a renewed sense of purpose.

If you’ve made it this far, here are some resources you may enjoy:

• Marty Cagan’s product strategy overview
• “ Product Strategy in Product-led Growth (PLG) companies “
• “ Expedia Group Has a Badass New Vision. It’s Almost Perfect… “

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5 product management frameworks used by billion dollar companies

Product management frameworks – creating repeatable success

Many of today’s most successful companies, like Amazon and Spotify, have reputations for consistently delivering great products. That doesn’t happen by accident. Those companies often have clear frameworks for how they manage and build products . Those product management frameworks give teams a repeatable way to improve upon and build their products consistently.

Without a product management framework, repeating the process that built the last great product would be really difficult. Think about baking a cake. If you follow a recipe, you’ll have a good chance of making a delicious cake. You may even have it memorized and can keep making great cakes on your own. But if you want to run a bakery with various workers (bakers, buyers, cashiers, etc.), you need that recipe to keep churning out wonderful cakes to have a great bakery.

If you want your company to build products like those you see from Spotify, Amazon, Shopify, and more, you need to use a product management framework.

We’ve researched the product management frameworks from five successful companies to find out how they consistently create great products. These frameworks give you repeatable guidelines on how you should do product discovery , prioritization, and execution.

1. Experimentation: Spotify tests and measures to deliver an exceptional experience

Spotify is perhaps well known for its autonomous “ squads .” Squads consist of six to twelve employees who have the freedom to work in whatever way suits them best. That allows different groups within the company to work on the projects that make the most sense for them.

Even though these squads are autonomous, they’re highly aligned. Each squad has a leader, whose goal is to align the squad behind one mission. Each mission focuses on one part of Spotify’s product.

Technically, this allows for small, frequent, and decoupled releases. Each team or squad can focus on their specific goal without disrupting the work of others.

This organizational structure also gives way to Spotify’s experimental approach of iterating and delivering a great product experience. Their focus is not only to deliver a great product but to do so at minimal risk and operational cost. Given the size of their user base, poorly designed features can lead to painfully negative consequences.

They follow a model of Think It, Build It, Ship It, Tweak It .

• Think It:  During discovery, teams research ideas, validate problems, and experiment with concepts. This is a “high risk” stage meaning that if they released something without this vetting, the probability of unhappy customers could be high.
• Build It:  During this stage, teams develop their MVP. They test this MVP on a small subset of users to capture feedback. They also spend time assessing the quality of their code and design.
• Ship It:  When shipping features, Spotify operates with a limited blast radius. They’ll release a new feature to a small set of Spotify users. Then, they monitor how those people use that feature. If the feature is a success, they’ll roll it out to the entire user base. If it’s a failure, they go back to the drawing board.
• Tweak It:  This is the longest stage of the cycle. Teams spend a lot of time evaluating the data and making tweaks and adjustments to the product or feature. They also fine tune the operation to reduce cost and optimize for performance.

2. Working backward: Why Amazon starts by focusing on the finished product

Amazon approaches product management by “working backward.” A former GM of Amazon, Ian McAllister, explained this approach in a Quora thread.   Amazon starts any new product by explaining precisely what they hope customers and the media will say when they get their hands on it.

Amazon doesn’t start by outlining a new product’s intended features or capabilities. At this point, they focus on the customer reaction they’re hoping to elicit.

When a product manager has an idea for a new product or product feature, they write an internal press release that announces the finished product. No one may have done any development on the idea at this stage.

The press release focuses on a customer problem and how the current solution doesn’t solve that problem. From there, they explain how the proposed new product will blow away existing solutions.

These press releases aren’t just a rough draft of an idea; product managers have to iterate on them until they clearly explain how the product will help a customer. Andy Jassy, Amazon’s head of AWS, has gone through as many as 31 drafts of a press release  before presenting it to anyone.

If a product manager can’t write a convincing press release, they scrap the idea. The general rule is that if the press release is hard to write or difficult to explain, the finished product likely won’t succeed. Amazon wants all of its products easy to understand and simple to use. With those goals, it should be easy to write a press release that makes sense even without the finished product.

Once the leadership team approves a press release, the product team uses it as a roadmap for development.

3. Two equal parts: Typeform’s two-part framework emphasizes product discovery

Typeform uses a  two-part product management framework . The first half focuses on product discovery, which Typeform considers to be crucially important. The second half of their framework focuses on delivery.

Discovery consists of identifying problems, brainstorming solutions, and validating solutions with a testable product.

Once a feature clears Discovery, it moves to delivery, which is made up of three more steps: scope, execution, and measurement, and iteration.

What sets Typeform’s framework apart is its unique approach to MVPs . They don’t have just one version. Instead, they break the MVP into three parts:

• Earliest testable product – The testable product is the fastest way to get data on an idea. So as not to spend too much time developing an MVP, the earliest testable product might be something as simple as a fake door test .
• Earliest usable product – A “usable” product is an actual product that early adopters will use without being incentivized. At this stage, the product has baseline functionality and may lack “delight,” but the purpose is to collect data and feedback. Typeform is trying to figure out whether it’s worth putting more hours into developing the full product.
• Earliest lovable product – This is the product that customers will love. They’ll tell their friends about it and are willing to pay a premium for it. It’s still not 100% finished, but it’s the closest thing to a finished product at this stage.

Breaking down your MVP into bite-sized pieces will help you get feedback and data during every step of the process. That way, you can use a much more measured and testable approach to delivering something your customers want.

4. Customer obsession: How GoGoVan’s fixation on customer problems is a big advantage

GoGoVan was Hong Kong’s  first unicorn . Their current approach to product management comes from their obsession with  finding customer problems .

GoGoVan structures its product teams into one of nine business objectives. Each team works on a single objective, which allows employees on each team to get a deep understanding of their goals.

They structure product discovery based on three pillars: user interviews, sales interviews, and usage data. Product managers spend a lot of time talking to users and listening in on sales calls. Their goal is to get the most in-depth understanding of their users as possible. They also mine usage data to see where inefficiencies exist. They use all this information to develop the best solution to address each problem area .

Once they’ve identified problems and potential solutions , GoGoVan prioritizes which features will have the highest impact on their users.

Before they start building anything, GoGoVan puts themselves back into the customer’s shoes one more time. They review their potential solutions to try and understand if it’s the simplest solution possible. Once they’re satisfied that they’ve found a simple solution, they still don’t start building anything. There’s one more step to go, and it’s crucial.

Before GoGoVan spends any time building a product, they define success metrics, which must link back to the single objective for their team. Defining these metrics avoids any instant reflex reactions when the data starts pouring in.

At this point, GoGoVan pushes the solution into development. Once it’s finished and rolled out to users, they circle back and review the success metrics. If the product feature isn’t hitting them, it’s back to the drawing board.

5. Growth: Why Shopify’s growth framework takes products to new heights

Shopify uses multiple frameworks and different structures across many of its teams. The most interesting is the  product growth framework . Its goal is to grow the adoption of a product, not just build it. Shopify’s GM,  Sylvia Ng , developed this framework.

The product growth framework has eight steps:

• Stage your company  – First, you need to understand the stage of your company and your product. Are you trying to find product/market fit? Are you trying to launch an MVP? Whatever it is, define it. A lot of companies dive into product growth without identifying their stage.
• Know your strategic goal  – This is another one you have to define ahead of time. What’s your goal for your product? Are you going after profitability, new users, or something else? Articulating this ahead of time will help you identify what your product needs to do to drive growth.
• Model the funnel  – What’s the process that users will take to start using your product? Are they going to be existing or new users? These are questions that a model will help you answer. Modeling your funnel will also help you understand what areas you need to improve on to really grow your product.
• Define your north star metric  – You need a metric to help you understand whether you’re headed in the right direction. Your north start measures progress immediately, or at least incrementally, and may differ slightly from your overall strategic goal.
• Create a prioritization grid  – Get input from everyone working on this project about what features they think will create the most significant impact for your users. Everyone on your team is going to have different ideas about prioritization, which is why it’s essential to hear from multiple people.
• Set targets  – Targets aren’t goals or deadlines as they’re simply milestones to complete in the near term. They help keep your team on track and working toward your north star metric and your strategic goal.
• Work on execution  – Efficient execution enables every step of product growth. You need to work with your team to create an efficient process for all phases of product development—from prioritization to delivery.
• Develop a multidisciplinary team  – Your team needs skills in product, engineering, design, data, and marketing. That doesn’t mean you need one person dedicated to each task, but your whole team should cover these fundamental skills.

Following this framework will give you a repeatable way to grow your product. Sylvia used this framework at several companies, which means it’s easy to adapt, and you can use it at your company.

Consistency is the key to great products

Consumers might notice if you create one great product. But if you never do it again, they’ll forget about you and move on to the next thing that comes along.

Consistently putting out great products builds your brand, which creates not only customers, but also advocates and evangelists. It’s one of the reasons Spotify, Shopify, Amazon, and the others are so well known. They consistently deliver great products. Product management frameworks will help you deliver products like many of today’s successful companies.

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Top 16 Product Management Frameworks

• Nov 27, 2020
• Communication , Competition , Growth , Product

I believe frameworks are not the silver bullet we hope they are, however, they do help to be structured and help to be sure you think about the major factors. 

Below is a collection of my top  16 Frameworks I found useful for Product Managers. 

1. Story Telling

Storytelling is actually the oldest way to deliver a message – or to explain the world. Ancient people used storytelling. The Bible uses storytelling. Your uncle uses storytelling. Product Managers use storytelling. You’re using storytelling for yourself and your business, even if you don’t call it exactly that. Its is the foundation for effective communication in general and a solid foundation for a couple of the frameworks listed below as well.

Storytelling at it’s most basic structure is about a Situation / Problem (Hero and Enemy), Needs (Conflict and Painpoints) and a Solution. Well, that’s right there 3 integral elements to be managed by Product Managers.

If we follow this structure it makes it easy for the listener to follow.  Story is “a thing that does” rather than “a thing that is”. It is a tool with measurable utility rather than an object for aesthetic admiration.

TEDx: Storytelling: The Secret Key To  Leadership

The Basics Of Leadership Storytelling

Why Leadership Storytelling Is Important

In its basic form these are the Steps:

Step 1: You — What, Who is this story about? 

Step 2: Need — Problems, painpoints, Needs, Issues, Challenges

Step 3: Go — Cross the threshold into ‘the upside down’

Step 4: Search and Alternatives — How can “you” achieve your goal?

Step 5: Find a Solution — The meeting with the Goddess

Step 6: Take / Apply

Step 7: Return  (How does this relate to the Goal)

Step 8: Wrapping up

more details  

2 Product Design: CIRCLES Method by Lewis Lin

In my mind the Circles Method is based on the above storytelling concept. Very similar to DIGS, just adapted for it’s purpose.

The CIRCLES Method™ is a framework on what makes a complete, thoughtful response to any product design. It’s an aid that prevents us from forgetting a step. You can also think of it as a checklist or guideline.

The  5W’s & H  also help product manager in asking a right question in the Comprehend Situation stage and gather information about the problem before jumping into solution or some conclusion.

• W hat is it?
• W ho is it for?
• W hy do they need it?
• W hen is it available?
• W here is it available?
• H ow does it work?”

Here is a walkthrough of  one example about: How would you design a feature for Amazon Echo? .

3: Metrics AARRR: Startup Metrics for Pirates

A very helpful framework by Dave McClure,  500 Startups  for product managers who need to define success metrics for any product or feature. 

• A cquisition — How users find you / where or what channels do users come from? E.G Tracking customer signups for a service.
• A ctivation — An initial experience great experience?
• R etention — Do they come back and re-visit over time?
• R evenue — Can you monetize any of this behavior?
• R eferral — Do they like it enough to tell their friends?

Lewis C. Lin   way to explain this framework is similar, just shorter without the Referral part.  AARM Method

4: Metrics for UX design:  HEART

The  HEART  framework designed by  Kerry Rodden , Hilary Hutchinson and  Xin Fu , from Google’s research team.

The details are here

5: 4 Quadrants Time Management: Matrix

by  Stephen Covey

We live in a time pressured world where it is common to have multiple overlapping commitments that all require immediate attention now. Urgency is no long reserved for special occasions, they are an everyday occurrences. Missing deadlines is not the path to advancement or even good job reviews. So how can one manage the flood of responsibilities, do excellent work and maintain a positive frame of mind? The Covey time management grid is a simple yet effective method of organizing your priorities. As you can see from the grid below, there are four quadrants organized by urgency and importance. 

Before responding to any request, filter them through the   Matrix.

• Quadrant I  –  impo rtant deadlines with high urgency The first quadrant contains tasks and responsibilities that need immediate attention.
• Quadrant II  –  long-term development and strategizing The second quadrant is for items that are important without requiring immediate action. Covey points out that this quadrant should be used for long-term strategizing.
• Quadrant III  –  distractions with high urgency The third quadrant is reserved for tasks that are urgent, without being important. Covey recommends minimizing or even eliminating these tasks as they do not contribute to your output. Delegation is also an option here.
• Quadrant IV  –  activities with little to no value The fourth and last quadrant focuses on tasks and responsibilities that do not yield any value—items that are unimportant and not urgent. These time wasters should be eliminated at any costs.

The Bottom Line: Do Important things first!

Using The Matrix

The matrix has many applications, two will be suggested here. The first and most obvious use of the matrix is to take your current ‘to-do’ list and sort all the activities into the appropriate grid. Then, assess the amount of time you have to accomplish the lists and, if necessary, reallocate activities.

The second approach is a one week assessment strategy. Make six copies of the matrix  and use one matrix for each day of the week, listing all activities and time spent. At the end of the week, Combine the five individual day data onto one summary matrix (number 6) and calculate the percent of time in each matrix. Then evaluate how well your time is spent and whether you work load needs to be reorganized.

6: 5 Why’s Framework

How to get requirement right? What is the exact problem? Are you solving the right problem? This  5 Why’s framework  helps product manager to get to the root cause easier.

7: Prioritization

Once you decide the list of features or request which you plan to work, but wondering which one to pick or test first, below prioritization frameworks help you in that:

• Weighted Scoring
• Impact vs Effort
• Weighted scoring

Your good product management skills will come into play during the process.  Suggestions regardless of the prioritization method you choose:

• Approach prioritization as a team activity; not only is does it create buy-in on the team, you get different perspectives. It’s also a lot more fun.
• Limit the number of items you are prioritizing – focus on the biggest items rather than the details.
• Categorize and group initiatives together into strategic themes (for example, “improving satisfaction” for a particular persona would be a good way to group).
• Before you begin prioritizing, it’s helpful if you understand the customer value for each initiative. The customer value should be rooted in evidence that you’ve gathered from customers rather than your opinions.
• Before you begin, have a rough estimate of cost. Even T-shirt sizing of “small” “medium” and “large” will be helpful during the process.

Read more  https://www.productplan.com/strategies-prioritize-product-features/

8: The Four Ps Model / 4P’s of Marketing 

4 P’s  framework helps in putting the right product at the right price in the right place at the right time.

• Product –  The first of the Four Ps of marketing is a product. A product can be either a tangible good or an intangible service that fulfills a need or want of consumers. Whether you sell custom pallets and wood products or provide luxury accommodations, it’s imperative that you have a clear grasp of exactly what your product is and what makes it unique before you can successfully market it.
• Price –  Once a concrete understanding of the product offering is established we can start making some pricing decisions. Price determinations will impact profit margins, supply, demand, and marketing strategy. Similar (in concept) products and brands may need to be positioned differently based on varying price points, while price elasticity considerations may influence our next two Ps.
• Promotion –  We’ve got a product and a price now it’s time to promote it. Promotion looks at the many ways marketing agencies disseminate relevant product information to consumers and differentiate a particular product or service. Promotion includes elements like advertising, public relations, social media marketing, email marketing, search engine marketing, video marketing and more. Each touch point must be supported by a well-positioned brand to truly maximize return on investment.
• Place –  Often you will hear marketers saying that marketing is about putting the right product, at the right price, at the right place, at the right time. It’s critical then, to evaluate what the ideal locations are to convert potential clients into actual clients. Today, even in situations where the actual transaction doesn’t happen on the web, the initial place potential clients are engaged and converted is online.

9: 5 C’s of Product Pricing

What is the  best  price for your products or services? This  5 C’s framework  helps to determine the optimum price tag for your product.

• This is the most obvious component of pricing decisions. You obviously cannot begin to price effectively until you know your cost 
• Is your pricing approach compatible with your marketing and sales objectives? 
• The ultimate judge of whether your price delivers a superior value is the customer. 
• Think about the buyers point of view
• Think about the “middlemen”, margins to motivate, value-add they bring.

more details here

10: REAN : Digital Marketing Strategy Model

The question behind this model:   “How am I going to reach/engage/activate/nurture my potential or current customers?

What should your digital strategy look like? How should you market your product? Are you using the right channels? The REAN model, popularised by Steve Jackson helps product manager or product marketers to answers those questions easier.

Download a free guide  on how to run the perfect REAN workshop.

11: AIDA(R) Framework

The AIDA framework is also popularly used to optimize marketing channel and communication. It describes the effect of advertising media and helps to explain how an advertisement or marketing communications message engages and involves consumers in brand choice.

• Awareness:  creating brand awareness or affiliation with your product or service.
• Interest:  generating interest in the benefits of your product or service, and sufficient interest to encourage the buyer to start to research further.
• Desire:  for your product or service through an ’emotional connection’, showing your brand personality. Move the consumer from ‘liking’ it to ‘wanting it’.
• Action: CTA –  Move the buyer to interact with your company and taking the next step ie. downloading a brochure, making the phone call, joining your newsletter, or engaging in live chat etc.
• Retention:  We all know that this is key to upsell, cross-sell, referrals, Advocacy, and the list goes on.. as companies are also focussing on LTV.

The additional “R” is sometimes added by some Marketers to show the importance of ongoing relationship building.

More details here

12: RFM : Customer Segmentation Model

The term  RFM stands for Recency, Frequency and Monetary Value  and it describes a marketing approach for analyzing customer value which is becoming increasingly popular in the e-commerce industry where businesses are starting to focus more on retention strategies. It’s a good customer segmentation technique based on user behavior. It groups customers based on their history how recently, how often and how much.

• M onetization

more detail here .

13: Porter 5 Forces

Porter’s Five Forces is a simple but powerful tool for understanding the competitiveness of your product, and for identifying your strategy’s potential profitability.  It helps you for product  strategy  &  roadmap  planning.

• Threat of New Entry.  Your position can be affected by people’s ability to enter your market. So, think about how easily this could be done.
• Threat of Substitution.  This refers to the likelihood of your customers finding a different way of doing what you do.
• Supplier Power.  This is determined by how easy it is for your suppliers to increase their prices. 
• Buyer Power.  How easy it is for buyers to drive your prices down.
• Competitive Rivalry:  This looks at the number and strength of your competitors.

By thinking about how each force affects you, and by identifying its strength and direction, you can quickly assess your product position in the market. You can then look at what strategic changes you need to make to deliver long-term profit.

more details on how to use it here .

14: Business Model Canvas

The business model canvas is a great tool to help you understand a business model in a straightforward, structured way. Using this canvas will lead to insights about the customers you serve, what value propositions are offered through what channels, and how your company makes money.  It can be applied perfectly well for a product where it provides a high-level, comprehensive view of the various strategic details required to successfully bring a product to market. The exact ingredients may vary, but these are some of the typical components included:

• Customer segments—Who is going to use this product?
• Product  value propositions —What is this going to do for the customer to make their life/job better?
• Revenue streams—How will the company make money from this product?
• Channels—How will the product be sold or distributed?
• Customer relationships—What is the success and support strategy for new customers?
• Key partners—What other companies or individuals are part of the development and go-to-market strategy?
• Key activities—What must happen internally to release this product?
• Key resources—What people, materials and budget are required to pull this off?
• Cost structure—How much will it cost to develop, manufacture, distribute, and support the product?

A detailed guide can be found here: https://www.businessmodelsinc.com/about-bmi/tools/business-model-canvas/

15: STAR / SOAR (Storytelling)

STAR or SOAR is a popular method to tell stories about accomplishments in general and of course also during interviews.

I do like the SOAR framework which is very similar, however, it follows the storytelling methodology better. It is more engaging.

Objective and Obstacles

This is where you set the scene. You’re telling a story and it also pays to know your audience. What are the relevant details that make the story pop and what does your audience care about? Consider similar situations your audience finds themselves in today. They’re listening to you because they need someone or something to be the solution to a challenge, so they’ll imagine you know the solution if you solved a similar problem in the past.

“Our 2020 was plagued with unsuccessful product launches. We were way off on the demand and our go-to-market strategy was too rigid, which made changes too costly, so our launches fell short of our goals.”

What was your objective and what was in the way? Again, you want this to align with your audience.

“Doing more of the same was a recipe for failure, but it’s not easy to make changes in a large organization. As a Product Director accountable for successful launches, I needed to convince my VP of what I knew we needed- more agile software and a different set of market indicators to guide the product.”

What action was taken? Dramatizing what it took to get this result is critical, make sure they understand what it took. For interviews elaborate on the combination of hard work and skill it took to make this happen, to convince your audience about past changes needed for a product elaborate on what tasks and resources were needed to overcome the obstacle.

“So I conducted market research and contracted with a data scientist to identify the most accurate market indicators of the last 5 years, then I demoed 5 different tools to see which software gave us the flexibility we needed. I pitched my VP and she gave me the go-ahead to retrain my team, then we got to work.”

For interviews, you can refer back to the result on your resume and expand on it. This is where you can talk about the impact of that result on the company, team members, etc. 

“The team was excited about the new challenge and I was right about the new market indicators. Our product ended up 8x more profitable than any other product that year. While I led the effort I can’t take all the credit- my VP went out on a limb for me and my team executed flawlessly. I’m really proud of what we accomplished.”

16:  DIGS

A slightly adapted version to STAR is the  DIGS  framework by  Lewis C. Lin  which also helps to answer the behavioral question in a structured and impactful way. It is closer to the storytelling methodology and emphasis on creating “higher” stakes.

• D ramatize the situation
• I ndicate the alternative
• G o through what you did
• S ummarize your project

17: 5Es Framework

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What is the CIRCLES method? Examples and Alternatives from Senior PM

Imagine stepping into the world of product management with a product vision, secret formula and one particular feature that the industry’s luminaries use to transform raw ideas into gold consistently.

That formula exists, and it’s called the CIRCLES method.

Ready to see your ideas soar? Let’s unravel the magic of CIRCLES together.

What is the CIRCLES framework (AKA CIRCLES method) in Product Management?

CIRCLES is a widely used framework for product managers , initially introduced by Lewis C. Lin in his book “Decode and Conquer” in 2013.

It serves as a valuable tool for tackling product design questions in PM and product interviews too, but its applications extend to enhancing product features.

Product managers are responsible for resolving user problem -> and user stories, making effective product design crucial.

The CIRCLES method provides a comprehensive checklist of stages for product managers to craft thorough solutions to product design problems . 

7 stages of the CIRCLES method

CIRCLES acronym is expanded into the following 7 steps :

• C → Comprehend the situation (What? Why? Who? How?)
• I → Identify the Customer
• R → Report the customer’s needs
• C → Cut, through prioritization
• L → List solutions
• E → Evaluate tradeoffs
• S → Summarize recommendation

Let’s decode these steps in detail in the following section. 

C – Comprehend the situation

This step enables the product managers to have a holistic view of the problem landscape with maximum context & thus address the problem with a more nuanced, detailed & comprehensive approach. PMs can leverage various techniques in this step to get a strong grip on the problem statement .

However, it is often recommended to ask yourself 5 W’s & H questions . They are:

• What is the situation?
• Who is it for?
• Why does that person need it?
• When is it available?
• Where is it available?
• How does it work?

Among the above 6 questions, the top 3 W’s & H are the critical ones to ask as they provide abundant clarity about the objective & limitations around the problem statement. Let’s understand this with the help of an example:

You are asked to “Design Netflix for senior citizens”.

The first step in addressing this problem statement is to ask clarifying questions:

• What is the goal of the product? – Increase engagement 
• Is there any specific geography to be targeted? – All geographies 
• What’s the definition of a senior citizen? – People with age >60 years 
• Should the solution be disabled-friendly? – Yes 
• Do we need to create a separate website/app or use an existing one?- Not necessary 

I – Identify the customer

Product managers begin by thoroughly studying their target audience and users to empathetically grasp their needs and preferences, a crucial step in addressing problem statements. They employ tools like user personas to encapsulate user characteristics, requirements, and aspirations, emphasizing demographics and distinctive behaviours . Additionally, user empathy maps offer a visual insight into user attitudes and behaviours, aiding product managers in gaining a profound understanding of their users.

Continuing with our example, based on the previous step, we know that we need to build disabled-friendly Netflix for Senior citizens who would be more comfortable experiencing Netflix on a bigger screen with the availability of voice commands. 

R – Report customer needs

To distil your user’s personality traits, characteristics, and desires into a single customer segment of needs, the product manager will create concise solution based on use cases or user requirements, aligning with their preferred format and length.

Some PMs may opt for detailed paragraphs, while others favour brevity with one or two sentences to capture user will.

The ultimate aim is to transform customer insights into succinct descriptions that precisely articulate user persona and their requirements, potentially employing the user story template for this purpose.

As a <type of user> I want to < perform some task > so that I can < achieve some goal >.

Let’s articulate the user needs in a user story template for our example: As a Senior citizen, I want to access Netflix to watch engaging content.

C – Cut, through prioritization

In real-world scenarios, the prioritization matrix optimizing resource utilization is crucial, with PMs relying on various prioritization frameworks like RICE, Impact vs Effort, and custom models with prioritization criteria tailored to their organization’s needs.

This approach enables PMs to identify and focus on high-impact user needs, considering factors like revenue potential, execution cost, tech debt, engineering resources, UX, and feasibility, ultimately delivering a solution works has significant value to their target users. For instance, in our Netflix problem statement, let’s assume sign up &  discovery of the content for the Senior citizen is the biggest pain point & we plan to address that in terms of priority.

L – List solutions

The 5th step of the CIRCLES method talks about finding probable best solutions for the prioritized user needs. The reversal method, SCAMPER  & Attribute method are a few popular brainstorming frameworks used by PMs in order to devise innovative solutions to user needs. It is recommended to have at least 3 possible solutions to cater to the user’s needs. For our scenario, the possible solutions could be :

• Voice search
• Senior recommendation engine

E – Evaluate trade-offs

In this final step, Product Managers conduct an objective analysis of previously discussed solutions.

They create pros and cons lists for each solution, critically evaluating them based on criteria such as revenue potential, user satisfaction, and ease of implementation.

This process ist solutions that showcases the PM’s analytical and objective assessment skills in the right solution for addressing the product design problem statement. In our example, we can categorize the solutions based on the below matrix:

S – Summarize recommendations

The penultimate step involves summarizing the final recommendation or product proposal and providing convincing reasons for its adoption, ensuring a coherent and persuasive presentation.

This reflection offers a comprehensive view of the problem and quantitative approach to its solution, addressing any potential gaps in the approach.

Let’s apply it to our example: Senior citizens can access Netflix on TV or tablet by seamless login using facial recognition & enhanced voice search to discover relevant content.

This will help them to engage with content on Netflix in a swift & flawless way. 

Seamless CIRCLES Integration: Daily Actionable Steps for Product Managers

It’s my favourite section. Let’s break down the CIRCLES method into more actionable, day-to-day tasks that PMs can seamlessly integrate into their routines:

1. Comprehend the situation

• Daily standups with cross-functional teams: Use these quick meetings to keep a pulse on what’s happening, what’s changed, and what’s challenging. 
• Customer Interactions: Regularly join customer service calls or discussions to get first-hand experience.

2. Identify the customer

• Customer Persona Board: Have a board (physical or digital) dedicated to your customer personas. Regularly update this with findings from customer interviews , surveys , etc.
• Regular “Customer Day” : Dedicate one day a month to deep-dive into the world of your customer. This could involve anything from visiting their work environments or having a virtual coffee chat with a customer.

3. Report customer’s needs

• Feedback Loop Integration : Make providing feedback as easy as possible within your product. Integrate quick surveys, use net promoter score (NPS) queries, or have direct lines of communication open. 
• Weekly “Voice of Customer” Meetings: Have a set time each week where the team gathers to discuss customer feedback.

4. Cut, through prioritization

• Interactive Roadmap Sessions: Hold regular sessions where team members can add, remove, or comment on product roadmap items. 
• “Three ‘Must-Wins’”: Each quarter, identify three ‘must-win’ areas based on the company’s strategic goals and what you’ve identified as key customer needs.

5. List solutions

• Brainstorming Hours: Utilize techniques like crazy eights, mind mapping, or even role-playing scenarios to encourage out-of-the-box thinking.
• Prototype Days: Regularly set aside days where the team focuses solely on creating prototypes of potential solutions.

6. Evaluate tradeoffs

• Solution Showdowns: When considering different solutions, have a fun, engaging “showdown” where each solution is pitched, and the team votes considering the tradeoffs of each.
• Customer Scorecards: Use a standardized scorecard that includes key criteria (cost, impact, effort, etc.) and have actual customers (if possible) or team members role-playing as customers to score potential solutions.

7. Summarize your recommendation

• Storytelling Wrap-ups: At the end of the week, have a session where key decisions and recommendations are shared through storytelling. 
• One-Pager Summaries: Create concise, visually appealing one-pagers that summarize recommendations and can be easily shared and referred back to. 

As we can notice that, the first 3 steps in the CIRCLES method involve understanding the customer issues in depth.

Remember, the key to managing day-to-day challenges is consistent communication and a strong connection with the customer, and to achieve this, it’s always recommended to deploy customer happiness surveys. 

Let’s dive deep into that in the next section.

How to effectively collect customer feedback to master the CIRCLES method and customer satisfaction?

I have been searching for an effective tool that help me to collect these customer feedbacks seamlessly, and I came across Usersnap’s Customer Satisfaction Survey .

Usersnap provides an impeccable list of survey templates that are a must for PMs to try. 

I have recently deployed this customer happiness survey to understand the early feedback about my new feature, which simplifies the user onboarding journey by removing friction across one key step. It’s simple and easy to use. 

Let’s understand with the help of the use case which I was solving a few months back. 

The problem statement involved building the onboarding journey for low end devices having poor RAM . 

We deployed the CIRCLES method to our problem statement and the most challenging part was to gather customer feedback once we deployed our MVP. 

We spoke to users about their pain points. However, to gather a substantial amount understand user feedback at scale, I relied on Usersnap’s Customer Satisfaction Survey .

I created the below survey, and I was able to capture some actional feedback from the users across different cohorts.

We realized that users are usually facing problems while uploading their documents.

This helped us to go back to our drawing board and build a more customized journey for such users where we can optimize the document upload flow for the users. 

Usersnap’s Customer Satisfaction Survey is a vital tool for product managers, enabling the seamless collection of user feedback.

This template allows for quantifying user behavior and experiences, a key element in ensuring customer satisfaction, which is crucial for successful product management

In a real-world example, it helped streamline the onboarding journey for low-end devices, demonstrating its effectiveness in pinpointing and resolving user pain points.

Semi-CIRCLES – an alternative approach to the CIRCLES method

All methods or frameworks come with their pros & cons and the CIRCLES method is not immune to this.

However, since it’s highly sequential in nature, it can result in robotic responses with ample emphasis on memory aid to remember the 7 steps. 

Alternatively, the CIRCLES method can be distilled and reduced to 3 simple stages which can help to crystalize & document the response in a much more engaging, flexible & innovative manner. 

The CIRCLES method can be refined into 3 major steps (a.k.a Semi-CIRCLES)

• C → A nalyze & understand the problem statement 
• IRCLE → E laborate & assess solutions 
• S → P ropose a solution 

This 3-step, method is a framework that provides a condensed, overarching edge for your solution approach.

Key Benefits of CIRCLES method in Product Management

Let’s understand the key benefits:

• Equip PMs with an organized & structured method for problem-solving.
• It motivates PMs to be observant & patient while working through the framework’s steps rather than focusing entirely on the solution approach. 
• Provides product managers with a standardized method of evaluating the context of product design, including limitations, goals, target users and requirements.
• The exhaustive nature of the method ensures that PMs don’t omit any critical aspect.
• It helps PMs train themselves to focus on user feedback,  product features, execution, prioritization, and the product roadmap.
• It contributes to the PM’s skillset of managing and understanding the diverse set of stakeholders & recommending a solution in a coherent & persuasive manner. 

Also Check: Product Roadmap Presentation: Examples and Templates

The CIRCLES method, favoured by product managers, prioritizes user-centred product design to bridge the organization-user gap.

It streamlines product development into manageable phases, enabling comprehensive exploration and risk reduction.

It ensures that you aren’t rushing into solutions & giving due justice to the approach as well.

Resolve issues faster with visual bug reporting.

And if you’re ready to try out a visual bug tracking and feedback solution, Usersnap offers a free trial. Sign up today or book a demo with our feedback specialists.

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CIRCLES Method- Product Management Framework: A Comprehensive Guide (2021)

Introduction

Consumerism has been fueled in today’s modern world by the constant development and creation of new products that are continuously evolving in order to satisfy human wants and needs. The process of designing these new and innovative projects requires a lot of cooperation and brainstorming that often occurs behind the scenes. Various methods and techniques are used in order to come up with effective product designs that can satisfy the needs sought to be fulfilled and one such method is the CIRCLES method. 

• What is the CIRCLES Method?
• Key Concepts in CIRCLES Method
• Steps To The CIRCLES Method
• Why the CIRCLES Method is Important

1. What is the CIRCLES Method?

The CIRCLES Method refers to a problem-solving product management framework that allows product managers and design teams to come up with thoughtful, comprehensive, and complete answers to various design questions. These design questions are similar across different types of products or services being designed, be it an automobile or a new mobile phone application. Some of these questions include what the product is, who is it designed for, why do they need it, when are where will it be made available, and how it works and the CIRCLES framework helps answer these questions.

CIRCLES method product management consists of seven linear steps that form a product framework covering all major aspects of product design. These seven steps can be found within the CIRCLES acronym and are comprehend the situation, identity the customer, report customer needs, cut, through prioritization, list solutions, evaluate trade-offs, and summarize your recommendations.

2. Key Concepts in CIRCLES Method

The CIRCLES Method in many ways serves as a checklist for product managers to answer the all-important questions of what, how and for whom to design a product or service. Lewis C. Lin, the creator of the CIRCLES product management method explained that there were three key concepts that the method addressed and helped a business or company understand. These are:

• Clarifying the goal: The company or business must establish what exactly it is trying to accomplish by launching and designing a specific product or service; for example, market share maximization or revenue maximization. 
• Understanding constraints: The product management team must be in a position to understand the constraints and limitations that they need to work with such as limited manpower, limited funds available, time constraints, or infrastructural inadequacies.
• Understanding context: The team must be able to fully understand the context in which the product is being designed and the answers to the questions why, for whom, and how the product is being designed among others, must be solid and founded on research and not mere guesswork or assumptions.

3. Steps To The CIRCLES Method

As mentioned already, there are seven distinct steps to the CIRCLES method and these are designed to be in an appropriate sequence to help product managers cover all their bases while designing a new product or service. These seven CIRCLES method steps are as follows. 

• Comprehend the situation: In this step, a clear understanding of all the contextual information surrounding the creation of a product or service is sought. This includes a thorough understanding of the product life cycle, how it is produced, and why it should be designed, and for whom. The value of the product must be accurately ascertained in this stage.
• Identify the customer: All the hours of work and dedication that go into the development, research, and design of a new product or service would mean nothing if there is no end-consumer. Therefore, before any product is designed, the product management team must be able to ascertain who are the potential customers based on their interests, needs, and preferences.
• Report customer’s needs: This stage is the continuation of the previous step wherein the customers are identified. Post identification, the design team must be in a position to explain exactly are the needs and wants of the customers and how exactly the product or service being designed can address those needs. Therefore, there must be a gap to fill in terms of fulfilling the needs of the customers and the product must offer a solution to this problem.
• Cut, through prioritization: There are different goals that a company may strive to achieve such as customer satisfaction, revenue maximization, or share maximization. But in order to achieve these goals, there are several external considerations such as time, labor, and capital available at the disposal of the company that may influence design strategy. This step, therefore, involves the prioritization of certain goals and targets over others based on such considerations.
• List solutions: An extension of the aforementioned steps, the product team must necessarily have a clear picture of not just the problem that is faced by the potential customers but also how the product or service offers solutions to that problem. A product designed without a solution could pose great challenges to a company in the future and is likely to fail.
• Evaluate trade-offs: There are three major criteria that every product manager must keep in mind while designing a product; ease of implementation, customer satisfaction, and revenue considerations. In this stage, the product team must be able to balance all the three criteria and evaluate the trade-offs required to achieve the objectives while keeping in mind limitations and constraints.
• Summarize your recommendation: This last step involves a basic recap of all the features and aspects of designing the product that has been covered and addressed in the first six steps of the CIRCLES method.

4. Why the CIRCLES Method is Important

The CIRCLES Method is extremely popular among product managers for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is able to ensure that the focus of product designing efforts is directed towards the users of the product and prevents a disconnect between the business or company and the customers. Secondly, it helps product managers to cover all the prerequisite areas of consideration while at the same time allowing them to break down the difficult task of product development and design into simple and comprehensive steps that allow for greater research and minimize risks.

The CIRCLES Method can therefore be used by any individual or company that is seeking to create or design a product or service to address what they believe is a problem. Be it a small company seeking to reinvent food delivery systems or a multinational company trying to come up with the latest range of mobile phones, the CIRCLES Method has a vast range of applications and use.

Interested to learn all about Product Management from the best minds in the industry? Check out our  Product Management Course . This 6-month-long program takes place online through live instructor-led sessions. It is the only program in India that offers the ‘Bring Your Own Product (BYOP)’ feature so that learners can build their product idea into a full-blown product, and go through an entire Product Development lifecycle. Not only this, but this is the only program in India with a curriculum that conforms to the 5i Framework. Post completion, learners receive a joint certification from the Indian Institute of Management, Indore, and Jigsaw Academy.

• Product Life Cycle: A Simple Guide in 6 Important Points

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Product Management Framework: 24 Best Options To Use In 2023

A product management framework is a pivotal asset within a product manager’s toolkit. They’re responsible for building successful and profitable products addressing customer pain points. Because of this, they’ll need to be methodical with how they approach their workflows. Thankfully, several product management frameworks are available today to assist product managers in this effort.

We understand that employing the right product management framework is critical to consistently creating products that sell and provide value. Because of this, our team at Mambo.io compiled some of the best product management framework options you can use in 2023. Below are some essential product management frameworks to help you develop successful products and make better decisions.

Table of Contents

#1. RICE framework

#2. kano model, #3. moscow method, #4. story mapping, #5. north star framework, #6. weighted impact scoring , #7. design sprints, #8. customer journey map, #9. heart framework, #10. the double diamond design process, #11. circles method, #12. jobs to be done (jtbd), #13. working backward (the amazon method), #14. spotify model, #15. opportunity solution tree, #16. crystal agile framework, #17. disciplined agile, #18. dual-track agile, #19. aarrr framework, #20. gist planning, #21. product strategy canvas, #22. daci framework, #23. swot analysis, #24. spade framework, how gamified websites are engaging their audience, 19 awesome gamification ideas – ted talk edition, 12 ways to use gamification in banking for better engagement, product management framework options for prioritization.

The RICE framework is a tool that helps teams decide which projects or features to prioritize based on their impact. It originated at Intercom to help product managers make better decisions and solve some problems they face. Each factor this framework uses is assigned a numerical value to calculate a prioritization score for different projects or initiatives.

This framework lets you assign a numerical value to features or initiatives based on reach, impact, confidence, and effort. Afterwards, they can use these values to generate a so-called RICE score using a formula.

When to use the RICE framework

This is one of the best product management frameworks for prioritization and resource allocation. Additionally, it comes in handy when measuring and comparing the value and costs of various products and features.

The Kano model can help identify customer preferences by categorising them into Must-Haves, Performance Features, and Delighters. The product team can use this framework to assess each initiative based on two main factors. First is their potential to delight customers, and second is the implementation costs of each of them. Ultimately, the priority should be the features that are highly delightful and cheap.

Since it revolves around customer feedback and satisfaction, this framework can identify the most valuable features for your users.

When to use the Kano model

You can use the Kano model to prioritize features and initiatives effectively by determining customer preferences and categorising feature importance.

The MoSCow method is a prioritization framework that categorizes initiatives according to their importance and feasibility. By doing so, product managers can address the initiatives’ essential elements while accommodating potential tradeoffs. More importantly, this framework can make communicating the importance of each initiative to the stakeholders much easier.

While the name may sound quirky, it’s a clever acronym for Must-Haves, Should-Haves, Could-Haves, and Won’t-Haves.  These terms are the category buckets that help teams strategise and build their roadmaps accordingly.

When to use the MoSCoW method

This prioritization framework lets everyone involved in a project know what work to complete first. These priorities help increase revenue, decrease operational costs, improve productivity, and boost customer satisfaction. Therefore, you can use the MoSCoW method if you want to involve the stakeholders in your operational structure. It also proves valuable for assessing the effort required for each category.

Story mapping is a visual technique that helps product managers prioritize and organise user stories. This framework can be instrumental in building a cohesive product roadmap and allows teams to understand their customer’s user journey better.

This practical tool places users at the heart of the development process. Through this approach, you can visually represent the user journey, highlighting each step they take. Ultimately, you can minimise the friction they experience while using your app with this effective product management framework.

When to use story mapping

When starting a new project, product managers can use story mapping to establish a clear roadmap of features and user interactions. Moreover, it’s also useful for feature prioritization focusing on user experience.

The North Star framework is a strategic tool product managers use to define their “north star”. This guiding star represents a high-level metric that is the primary compass directing the entire product team. Moreover, it embodies the ultimate goal or outcome the product strives to realise for its users. This is one of the best product management frameworks that best captures the core values your product delivers to its customers.

Here are the north star metrics of some of the most prominent companies today.

An excellent North Star that is worth following has the following qualities:

• Clearly articulates the value it offers
• Can present both past achievements and future forecasts
• Leaves behind a trail of actionable steps that the team can follow.
• Easily understandable, even for non-technical people
• Is measurable

When to use the North Star Framework

You can use this framework to establish a clear, overarching goal to guide your team’s efforts and decisions. Some situations where the framework’s usefulness arises include strategic alignment, new product or feature launch, and prioritization.

It’s common for top product managers to use the Weighted Impact Scoring because of its effectiveness. This is possible because it scores features, product ideas, and initiatives based on their impact and significance.

You’ll start by assigning weights to different criteria, then score each item to calculate their overall weighted score. Then, you can rank each of these items accordingly. The higher their overall weighted scores are, the better candidate they are for prioritization. Below is an excellent example of how a company uses the Weighted Impact Scoring for their product development process.

When to use the weighted impact scoring

This framework comes in handy when product managers need to make data-driven decisions involving prioritization, resource allocation, and strategic planning. You can also use this product management framework to make complex decisions and choose initiatives with the highest ROIs.

Product management framework options for design thinking

Design sprints are time-bound workshops created by Google Ventures that aim to solve design problems quickly. It gained traction for its effectiveness in generating creative solutions and validating ideas quickly. They typically take five steps or five days, aiming to bring together cross-functional teams to ideate, prototype, and validate solutions. Ultimately, its objective is to reduce the risks of launching a product.

This framework draws inspiration from design thinking, a high-level framework that encourages product managers to do the following:

When to use design sprints

Tackling complex problems that require fresh perspectives and innovative solutions can be much easier with Design Sprints. Product managers can also use this framework to quickly validate a concept or idea before investing significant resources.

With the help of the Customer Journey Map, product managers can visualise users’ end-to-end experience with a product. This framework offers a visual representation covering the user’s pleasure and pain points. More importantly, it helps organisations identify viable opportunities to improve their product’s user experience . Doing so can increase the chances of turning potential users into repeat customers.

Here’s what you need to create a winning customer journey map:

• Buyer personas
• Map of your customer’s pain points and pleasure points
• An optimised user experience

KPIs and metrics to measure the framework’s success

The main goal of this framework is to help the entire organisation empathise with their users. The company can create a satisfying product if everyone understands customers’ wants and needs.

When to use the Customer journey map

This framework is precious during the initial research stage during the development of a new product. It can also guide product managers when navigating shifts whenever the product is undergoing changes or adjustments.

Google developed the HEART framework to quantify and improve user experience (UX). It is a framework that empowers any product team to assess the UX of their products and gain insight into user satisfaction.

The HEART framework breaks down into five key metrics:

• Happiness. This metric gauges user satisfaction and sentiment.
• Engagement. Measures the level of user involvement and interaction with the product.
• Adoption. Focuses on how quickly users embrace the product. 
• Retention. Reflects how well the product retains its user base over time. 
• Task Success. Evaluates how effectively users can achieve their intended tasks within the product.

These metrics collectively provide a comprehensive understanding of the user’s interaction and satisfaction with your product.

When to use the HEART framework

The HEART framework applies to situations where product managers must evaluate conflicting projects and identify the most important ones. It can be helpful for UX improvements, new feature rollouts, and monitoring long-term product success.

If you want to simplify problem-solving and innovation, consider using the Double-diamond design process model. It is a structured approach made by the British Design Council that involves four phases:

• Discover. Understanding the problem space and gathering insights.
• Define. Synthesizing the information gathered to define problem statements and user personas clearly. 
• Develop. Generating and iterating on potential solutions.
• Deliver. Transitioning from idea development to execution.

This template allows product managers to understand their user’s needs deeply, ideate creative solutions, and execute initiatives efficiently. The updated version of the Double Diamond framework lets teams jump around each part of the product development process. This is far better than the original approach, where they can only work linearly.

When to use the double diamond design process

Use the Double Diamond design process to start new product development processes. You can also utilise it when you need to enhance existing features on a product.

The CIRCLES method is a framework designed to provide a thoughtful yet critical response to product design questions. This framework is designed by the product management expert Lewis C. Lin and is featured in his book Decode and Conquer. It is usually used by professionals who want to ace product manager interviews and enter prestigious companies like the MAANG. 

The term CIRCLES stands for:

• Clarify the situation (who, what, where, when, why, how?).
• Identify the customer (through user personas).
• Report the customer’s needs (what value the customer wants to get from your product).
• Cut through prioritization (identify priorities).
• List solutions (create possible solutions to the design problem).
• Evaluate tradeoffs (determine the underlying tradeoffs for each solution).
• Summarise recommendations (compile all final recommendations).

When to use the CIRCLES method

The CIRCLES method proves to be extremely useful for product manager interview preparations. However, it can also be used as a guide when formulating product strategies and roadmaps.

Product management framework options for discovery

The Jobs to be Done framework revolves around identifying your customer’s needs. But instead of using personas, this framework utilises scenarios, redirecting the focus from the product to the customers. It highlights the fundamental reasons users “hire” a product to fulfil a particular task. Ultimately, this framework enables product managers to design products that address real user needs and create meaningful solutions.

When to use the Jobs to be Done (JBTD)

You can use this framework to uncover why your customers seek solutions by “hiring” products. Some tasks that involve this framework include market research, product definition, feature prioritization, and more.

The Working Backward framework is one of the reasons why Amazon became the e-commerce titan it is today. Commonly referred to as the Amazon method, this framework reverse-engineers the product development process.

By defining the end goal of the product development process first and then working backwards to create a product strategy.

When to use the working backwards (Amazon method)

Product managers should consider using “working backwards” when they want to develop a clear and customer-focused product strategy. Some instances where this framework works include defining product visions and launching a new product, to name a few.

Spotify, the most prominent digital music service provider today, can teach us a thing or two about effective product management. One standout approach they’ve pioneered is the Spotify model, often called Spotify squads. It involves utilising autonomous squads with the freedom to focus on projects that align closely with their expertise.

The core concept of the Spotify model revolves around delivering exceptional products while minimising risks and operational expenses. But despite their independence, these squads maintain a high level of alignment, ensuring these expectations are met. This is one of the reasons why Spotify’s scaling agile methodology proved to be a huge success.

This framework follows the model below to deliver quality products and features:

• Think it. This initial stage involves teams researching product ideas, validating problems, and experimenting with potential solutions.
• Build it. In the second stage, teams develop and test their minimum viable product (MVP).
• Ship it. Following development, the feature is released to the public. Initially, a selected user group gains access to the feature for testing purposes. Upon its success, the feature is rolled out to the entire user base.
• Tweak it. Teams will work on necessary refinements to enhance the product or feature performance over time.

When to use the Spotify model

You can use the Spotify model to enhance collaboration, agility, and innovation within your product development team. Remember that this model is inherently tricky and may not be suitable for some organisations.

Visual frameworks like the Opportunity Solution Tree can help your team makes conclusive solutions when solving product management problems. This framework involves breaking down a desired outcome into smaller and actionable opportunities. Your team can then analyse and leverage these opportunities until they reach a conclusive solution.

Breaking down desired outcomes into opportunities can be a complex endeavour. It’s one of the reasons why many product managers often turn to pre-designed templates to streamline their tasks. One of the best Opportunity Solution Tree templates we can recommend is the one offered by Miro. With this template, you can monitor the experiments that will pave the way toward your goals.

When to use the Opportunity Solution Tree

This product management framework is handy for making ideation and prioritization much more manageable. Additionally, it can help you avoid getting stuck in the discovery phase by letting you retrace your steps whenever needed.

Agile product management framework options

Crystal is an agile framework centred around people, prioritizing teams over tools and processes. If you’re familiar with the Agile Manifesto , you’ll recognize that this framework directly extends one of its fundamental principles.

The Crystal agile framework operates on the following philosophies:

• Teams can discover and refine their methods for enhancing and streamlining their workflow.
• Given the distinct nature of each product, product teams are responsible for determining the optimal approach for addressing their specific tasks.

When to use the Crystal Agile framework

Use the Crystal Agile framework if you want an agile methodology that can adapt to different needs, characteristics, and constraints. This framework comes in handy when products have resource limitations and variable requirements. Additionally, it works best when collaborating and communicating with small product teams.

The Disciplined Agile framework is another people-centric agile methodology that empowers teams to embrace the best workflow for them. But unlike the Crystal, it combines diverse methodologies such as Kanban and Scrum to forge a hybrid approach. The toolkit offered by this framework provides a range of options for tailoring processes to suit your organisation’s specific needs.

Check out the video below to learn more about what the Disciplined Agile framework is all about.

When to use Disciplined Agile

This is recommended for seasoned agile teams searching for a comprehensive and adaptable approach to steer their product development journey. It’s beneficial for scenarios where complex environments, regulated industries, and enterprise-level alignments are involved.

The Dual-Track Agile is an agile framework centred around the idea that product development should be iterative and cyclical, not linear. It is a framework that divides the daily development work of product teams into two tracks: discovery and delivery. Discovery focuses on quickly generating validated products, while delivery centres on turning those ideas into market-ready products.

Product managers typically use this framework to ensure a balance between exploring new ideas and executing established features. By doing so, they foster innovation amongst the cross-functional teams involved while simultaneously maintaining a stable product.

When to use the Dual-Track Agile

The Dual-Track Agile is ideal when dealing with complex projects or uncertain market conditions. This approach can help you balance understanding user needs and delivering the features they want and need.

Strategy frameworks

The AARRR framework (Pirate metrics) is a guiding model for product managers when gathering customer feedback post-launch. It is a framework that allows them to focus on the critical stages of the customer journey and monitor user behaviour. This enables them to track and optimise each stage’s metrics to drive growth and user engagement.

This framework outlines five essential stages in assessing a product’s success acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, and referral.

When to use the AARRR framework

Thanks to its remarkable versatility, the AARRR framework is indispensable for steering your product decision-making process. Additionally, you can utilise it to optimise the various stages of your product’s customer lifecycle. This framework applies to product launches, feature adoption, iterative product development, and more.

The GIST Planning framework simplifies how product managers connect their goals with practical tasks. It’s a refreshingly straightforward approach often chosen as an alternative to traditional product roadmaps.

At its core, GIST planning focuses on achieving goals instead of solutions. These goals set the compass for the team’s strategy, and every subsequent move can be linked back to these goals. It’s like following a trail of breadcrumbs, ensuring every action has its purpose.

The acronym GIST stands for the following:

• Goals . What objectives are you planning to accomplish?
• Ideas. What ideas are you considering to accomplish these objectives?
• Steps. What are the steps or phases needed to be set?
• Tasks. What are the specific tasks needed to accomplish your goals?

When to use GIST planning

GIST Planning is particularly useful for complex projects that involve multiple stakeholders and intricate requirements. Additionally, you can use this framework if you’re looking to reduce overhead management and improve your teams’ autonomy.

The Product Strategy Canvas is a visual tool many product managers use to craft a comprehensive and coherent product strategy. This canvas provides a structured framework for capturing and organising critical elements of a product’s strategy in a single view. In this perspective, product teams can determine their first objectives related to their vision and challenge.

Melissa Perri, the product consultant behind this framework, claims that a robust product strategy has the following elements:

• Vision. The vision articulates the ultimate destination or long-term aspiration that the product aims to achieve. 
• Challenge. The challenge defines the specific problem or opportunity the product intends to address.
• Target condition. The target condition represents the desired state that the product seeks to reach.
• Current state. The current state portrays the present status of the product, including its features, capabilities, user base, and performance metrics.

It’s crucial to understand that the product strategy and business model canvas share similarities in two different frameworks. As the name suggests, the product strategy canvas centres around an individual product. The business model canvas, on the other hand, is geared towards the broader business perspective.

When to use the Product Strategy Canvas

This tool serves as a template for devising and seeing a plan to fruition. You can employ the Product Strategy Canvas once you’ve figured out your approach to attaining your product objectives.

Decision-making frameworks

DACI is a decision-making framework that can clarify the roles and responsibilities present whenever important decisions are made. This framework clarifies responsibilities, streamlining decision-making and greatly reduces the ambiguity and potential conflicts amongst teams and stakeholders. Ultimately, it promotes accountability, ensuring decisions are made efficiently and with the right level of commitment from the stakeholders.

The term DACI stands for Driver, Approver, Contributor , and Informed. These are roles people involved in the product development process occupy to ensure the decisions made lead to the product’s success.

When to use the DACI framework

The DACI framework is instrumental when collaborating with cross-functional teams where complicated projects require swift and efficient completion. It can also clarify ownership when multiple stakeholders hold diverse opinions about the desired outcomes of particular initiatives.

If you’re confused about whether or not to start an initiative, you can rely on the SWOT analysis for clarity.

The SWOT analysis framework offers a comprehensive view of internal and external factors affecting product success. It evaluates the Strengths , Weaknesses , Opportunities , and Threats associated with a feature or initiative. Most importantly, it’s a relatively simple tool that helps product teams decide whether a feature or initiative should be implemented.

When to use SWOT analysis

SWOT analysis proves especially valuable for gaining insights into the performance of an existing product. Product managers can also use this framework to assess the viability of developing new products. Moreover, it lets product managers assess the feasibility of entering a new market.

Gokul Rajam and his colleague Jeff Kolovson mastered and evolved the SPADE framework with two thoughts in mind. First, consensus doesn’t work, and second, hard decisions require sharp tools. With this in mind, the SPADE framework flourished, a decision-making framework intended to make difficult product management decisions.

The SPADE framework encompasses five elements, including:

• Alternatives

Ultimately, this framework can help synchronise and speed up collaboration to make difficult product management choices. Here’s an interview with Gokul Rajam, where he emphasises how the SPADE framework can help you improve your decision-making process.

When to use the SPADE framework

The SPADE framework is your go-to tool whenever your team faces challenging decisions that have real consequences for your organisation. Some notable examples of these scenarios include finalising a product plan or restructuring the product development team.

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Product Management Frameworks – Ultimate Guide with Examples, Templates, and PDF

As a product manager, you will find yourself taking a lot of critical and not-so-critical decisions at your job. The product management frameworks help you make these decisions and think in a structured way.

No matter whether we talk about their application during the job, or during the product management interview, these frameworks are battle tested and even the most seasoned product folks came back to them often to make better decisions.

Go ahead and supercharge your product management abilities with these top product management frameworks.

Great product managers start every initiative with a strong Why.

5 Whys is an important problem-solving tool, that helps product managers get to the root of the problem at hand. In this approach, we determine the root cause of the problem by repeatedly asking “Why” until the underlying cause is revealed.

An absolutely essential framework for every product manager. Can be practically used for fixing bugs, customer interviews, solving stakeholder conflicts, and root cause analysis.

Understand use cases, how to apply them, and examples in our complete guide for the 5 why’s framework here.

Jobs to be done

People use products to accomplish different jobs in their life.

Jobs to be done is a powerful framework, which helps uncover the underlying motivation of the user behind using any product. The jobs are the goals that the user is trying to achieve in a given context, the job could be functional, social, or even emotional.

To implement jobs to be done, we need to understand the user journey, identify the needs at various steps and articulate them in the form of job statements.

Learn how to use jobs to be done, with practical examples and use cases here.

AARRR – Pirate Framework

Given by Dave Mclure, the AARRR framework breaks down the user journey into 5 important steps namely:

• Acquisition

A super helpful framework to understand the user journey, find the right metrics for each stage and understand how different teams (marketing, product, sales) contribute to a unified customer experience.

OKRs, or Objectives and Key Results, is a goal-setting framework that helps product teams, individuals, and organizations to set clear, measurable goals and track their progress toward them. The OKR framework was popularized by Intel and later adopted by many successful companies, including Google, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

OKRs consist of two main components: Objectives and Key Results. Objectives are specific, measurable goals that an individual or organization wants to achieve. Key Results are the specific, measurable outcomes that define success for each objective.

You can learn about the actionable implementation details here [To be updated soon], and if you want to deep dive really into OKRs, you can consider reading the popular book Measure What Matters .

MOM’s Test

Every product manager needs to know how to ask the right questions to their users. The MOM’s test gives a solid set of principles to follow while gathering feedback or validation around your product.

The key takeaways are:

• Talk about your user’s life rather than your product idea
• Be wary of opinions, and appreciation.
• It’s better to fail during the validation rather than after creating the whole product.

BJ Foggs Model

When so many best-selling books are based on a framework, you know it works.

BJ Fogg’s model helps us understand the reasons behind people’s behavior and can be used to create habits around your products and increase their usage.

The model gives an important equation of B = MAT, which means:

In order for us to do any behavior (B): We need Motivation (M), the Ability to do that action (A), and a timely trigger (T).

Popular books like Getting things done , Atomic Habits , Hooked, etc, are based on this fundamental model.

This analytical framework was put forward by the team at Google.

It helps us improve the user experience and determine the success of a product/feature by diving the experience into 5 parts.

• Task Success

We then determine the Goals, Signals, and Metrics across these 5 dimensions to improve user experience.

Eisenhower Matrix

Time is the most important resource that any product manager has. However, it’s easy to get bugged down by meetings, unnecessary tasks, and ad-hoc work across your day.

Eisenhower matrix gives you control back and helps you manage your time logically and effectively.

It helps you divide all the work that you have on the scale of IMPORTANCE v/s URGENCY.

This is what it looks like 👇🏽

Prioritization

Prioritization is one of the most important skills for product managers. No product team has all the resources and time available in the world. Hence choosing what to do it an important skill.

While there are a plethora of product prioritization frameworks, most product managers rely on these three time-tested frameworks Impact v/s Efforts (Simple to use), RICE (a more elaborated version of the former), and the KANO model.

First Principles

The mental model helps you solve problems by breaking them into fundamental insights.

Most of the greatest thinkers tend to think from first principles to avoid bias and think from the ground up.

Many frameworks in product management like 5 Whys, Jobs to be done, and Customer centricity are actually applications of first principles.

Read our exhaustive guide on first principles for product managers here.

A Note for Product Managers

People who are reading this guide should finally keep in mind that these frameworks need to be applied with context. Not every framework that you know can be applied to every situation, and most of the time you might have to combine two or more frameworks and your own problem-solving abilities to take decisions.

Use these frameworks as catalysts to your decision-making and not as crutches for your mind.

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