Individual Reflection

When I began CS 177, I initially thought it would be a cohesive process in which I learned what product management was like while developing a product in a team. I certainly learned what product management looks like, but the adjoining project felt somewhat disconnected from the learning process at times. There were two timelines: the first being the overarching course timeline in which every week we learned something new about product management like Lean and Agile, participatory roadmapping, business models, etc. and the second being the underlying product development process (which didn’t seem any different from a 147/247 class).

I did participatory roadmapping with users, researched and settled on a business model, evaluated the risks behind our product, conducted usability and experience testing, mapped assumptions and tested them, story mapped and defined an MVP, etc. These were moments when the two timelines merged for a tangential moment, but when the assignments were case studies or didn’t directly contribute to the product, I was less sure of how what I was learning was assisting me. Funnily enough, I most enjoyed the work that had little to do with product management: finally designing the user flow after weeks of research around the problem domain and user needs, creating the brand and style tile, etc. Most of all, I enjoyed taking what we learned from users and figuring out how we could adapt to their feedback. After weeks of interviews, it feels like our product could withstand a real launch and further development.

I learned how to identify the riskiest assumptions behind a product and how to find strong signals to validate those assumptions. I finally learned what an OKR is and how to implement them in a startup. I also learned the meaning of other various acronyms like TAM, SOM, and SAM. I learned how story mapping can guide the development of a product and how participatory roadmapping can loop in users to help decide which features to prioritize in the MVP. I learned what metrics will give weak and strong signals. I also learned that I want to be a UX designer.

If we had more time, I would love to do more usability testing on our product, further develop some features, and flesh out the pitch to investors more.