Best of 2021: Thinking Through Assumptions and Managing the Risks

In this episode of the How to Succeed in Product Management Podcast, marketing professor Jeff Shulman and The Product Management Center advisory board members Red Russak and Soumeya Benghanem welcome Dontae Delgado (Compass) and Siddhartha Rabindran (Microsoft) to discuss managing assumptions and start ranking them from the top most important to the least important, and build a framework around it to help develop the product. Assumptions, when correctly utilized and tested in the right environment exponentially helps product leaders find success.    Support for How to Succeed in Product Management is brought to you by Apptentive, which enables product managers to measure shifts in customer emotion and gather actionable feedback across the mobile customer journey. To learn more, go to Apptentive.com/UW.   What to Listen For: 00:00 Intro 01:42 The importance of managing assumptions and risk management 03:46 It’s easy to become comfortable with the flows of the product 05:11 Clarity plays an important role in managing assumptions 08:44 The different classifications of assumptions 10:45 Approach is the most important part of addressing assumptions 13:55 Assumption prompts to make assumptions explicit 15:52 The build versus buy evaluation 19:53 After generating assumptions, start ranking them 23:36 Critical path is about the solution and the framing 24:25 Proper documentation is key to effective communication 27:17 Situations that could happen when assumptions aren’t made 29:45 Reference books and resources for assumption management 37:04 How do you go about validating assumptions? 40:31 The product team considers four important things: product, market, channels, and business model 43:42 Producer and consumer framework in critical in managing expectations 47:31 Building a culture of domain empathy 50:28 Assumptions are an integral part of everything we do 54:13 Assumptions are linchpin to product success 55:29 Some assumptions, when utilized correctly or incorrectly, either hurt or help the products