Explain the “C” in “C”ircles Method
“Comprehend the Situation
You’re entitled to ask the interviewer clarifying questions. What can or should you ask the interviewer? Here’s a list:
- What is it?
- Who is it for?
- Why do they need it?
- When is it available?
- Where is it available?
- How does it work?
Open the app or website so that we have the visual in common when discussing it
Understand goals and constraints such as
- Revenue
- Engagement
- Number of total sessions
- Number of sessions per user
- Session length
- Daily active
- Weekly actives
- Monthly actives (number of users active in a given month)
- Growtg
- Performance
Practice answering these questions for a handful of products I’m familiar with to get comfortable with using this series of questions. “
Explain the “C” in Cir”c”les Method
“Cut, Through Prioritization
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Pragmatic Marketing’s approach:
Assign impact score
- 9999 - Contractual obligation
- 5 - Minimum purchase criteria (evaluator)
- 4 - Potentials lose time or money due to problem
- 3 - Difficult for customers to achieve their primary goal
- 2 - Customers have difficulty with non-primary goal
- 1 - Not in target market segment
Impact X Market Evidence (% of the persona who experience the issue) = Priority
Priority/difficulty of implementation = Value for effort
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Assign a grade of A through F for each of the criteria for each user story
User Story - Revenue - Customer Satisfaction - Ease of Implementation - Overall
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User Story | Customer Wow | Reasonable Alternatives | Implementation Difficulty | Overall
Quality indicator | Not impressed | Yes | Low | Lower priority
Time-to-eat indicator | Impressed | No | Med | Top priority
Price indicator | Not impressed | Yes | Low | Lower priority
**
ROI Estimate:
User Story | Revenue | Customer Satisfaction | Ease of Implementation | Overall
Write a book | $500,000 | 8 | $62,500 | 1
Book discovery | $20,000 | 2 | $10,000 | 2”
Explain the “E” in Circles Method
“Evaluate Trade-offs
define your trade-off criteria such as:
- customer satisfaction
- implementation difficulty
- revenue potential
Analyze the solutions according to their pros and cons based on trade-off criteria”
Explain the “I” in Circles Method
“Identify the Customer
List potential personas and give the interviewer the chance to choose which one I focus on if that seems like a good idea.
If it seems useful I can flesh out the chosen persona by listing:
- Demographics: Age, gender, family status. Where they live (urban, rural, part of country). Income.
- Behaviors that are relevant to the product or service
- Needs & Goals
Examples:
- ““Kate, the traveling reader”” “
Explain the “L” in Circles Method
“List solutions - try to list at least three to give you and the interviewer the option to choose a favorite
Brainstorming frameworks:
Reversal method. Reversing the situation helps uncover new possibilities.
- Example: Create a new car buying experience.
- Need: Buyers don’t have time to travel to the car dealership.
- Solution based on reversal: Dealership should deliver test drives to the buyer’s home.
Attribute method. List all the product attributes. Mix and match to get interesting new combinations.
Why? Method. Challenge the status quo.
- Example: Design a new coffee cup.
- Start by challenging the status quo: Why should coffee cups have handles? Cups are too hot to hold directly.
- Solution based on Why? Method: Create a coffee mug with an insulation layer
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Me too ideas. For example, “As the Google+ product manager, I would create a new feature that’s similar to Facebook’s groups feature.”
Integration ideas. For instance, “As the Google product manager, I would integrate YouTube with Android.””
Explain the “R” in Circles Method
“Report the Customer’s Needs
user needs, user requirements, use case, user stories, user problems
"”As a , I want so that .””
“” has with “””
Explain the “S” in Circles Method
“Summarize Your Recommendation
Summarize with this three-step approach:
- Tell the interviewer which product or feature you’d recommend.
- Recap on what it is and why it’s beneficial to the user and/or company.
- Explain why you preferred this solution vs. others.”
How do you like ABC feature?
”- Choose a product
- Choose a feature
- Open it up and walk through the basic functionality
- Revealing your design criteria. Cap it to three principles.
- Innovative
- Useful
- Easy to understand
- Honest
- Explaining how the product may or may not meet your criteria. List pros and cons for each criteria
- Being specific, offering evidence, and contrasting with similar products.
See 1st sample question in Decode and Conquer book
“
Tell me about a product you like and use frequently. Why do you like it?
- Choose a product
- Choose a feature
- Open it up and walk through the basic functionality
- Revealing your design criteria. Cap it to three principles.
- Innovative
- Useful
- Easy to understand
- Honest
- Explaining how the product may or may not meet your criteria. List pros and cons for each criteria
- Being specific, offering evidence, and contrasting with similar products.
- “To recap, I like ABC because it meets my three criteria for great products. It’s useful, innovative and easy to understand.”
See 2nd sample question in Decode and Conquer book
“
What is your favorite product and why?
Secret Party
The product
- What is your favorite?
- What does it do?
- Who is the user and what do they want to do with the product?
- If you are the user, why do you use it?
How does the product delight the user?
- Mention three things the product does that delight the user.
- Is there something about the business model that is essential for the user?
- If users are emotionally attached to the product, why do you think that is?
How do competitors or alternatives compare?
- What are the alternatives?
- Why are those products not preferred?
How would you improve the product? (optional)
- Which metrics can be improved (e.g. customer base, retention, conversion, and engagement)?
- Describe use case scenarios.
- What would you change or add to the product to support these use cases and improve the metric?
