🚀 Using Your Present Product to Propel You Into the Future
From the Desk of Alex:
Before jumping into the newsletter, I want to take a moment to provide some personal updates in this new mini section - from the Desk of Alex (working title):
I went viral on TikTok. 📈
I was interviewed by CNBC about my viral TikTok 📰
I’m feeling scattered - lots of community growth and great opportunities, but it’s a lot to take on all at once on top of my full time job.
What is the As Is / To Be?
The As Is / To Be methodology is a framework to compare the present user journey and the ideal user journey.
As Is / To Be can be applied at any stage of a product’s maturity. Whether you are building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) or managing a mature enterprise product, As Is / To Be will help you highlight gaps in your user journey.
Ok, but why do I care?
Two reasons: Stakeholder Buy In and Problem Identification.
1. Stakeholder Buy In
‘Stakeholder Buy In’ is getting key people to support your idea.
To build any product (even a bootstrapped one), you need resources — whether that’s your own time investment or cold hard cash. you need to convince someone that you have identified a problem worth solving.
2. Problem Identification
Great, you have resources (free time, money, engineers, etc), but how do you find problems that will then turn into your features?
Everything goes back to the user and their journey - their wants, their needs, and their problems (or pain points). Good product managers know how to {blank} pain points. Great product managers know how to {blank} pain points.
How to Use the As Is Framework
You (reading this wonderful newsletter) are a product manager at a fast casual food company. You’ve identified your user - someone who only has 15 minutes to order, wait, and eat their lunch. How can we help them?
Start by Writing Your As Is Journey
We’re going to start with our As Is journey:
User Journey for As Is Scenario
Let’s Think About Our To Be Journey
Before we jump in the To Be Journey, we need to take a step back. What is the larger goal of our product or company? Here are three potential viewpoints that would change our To Be Journey:
We want to be seen as a third place and optimize for enjoyment within our establishment.
We want to serve as many customers as possible per hour.
We want to reduce operational costs by reducing the physical store footprint.
Our To Be journeys will look wildly different depending on which strategy our product or company is offering. For this newsletter, let’s create an ideal journey for #2.
To Be User Journey
Identifying Opportunities
We’ve got our As Is / To Be Mapping. Now let’s identify some gaps between our two scenarios.
Mapping Between As Is and To Be User Journeys
Below are questions that guide us into problems to be solved that limit us from reaching our ‘To Be’ scenario. Deciding on which questions need to be answered will depend on your product and organizational goals.
Pre Store / Ordering Experience:
Do we have a mobile app/website? How do we encourage more users to use the mobile app/website? How do we encourage people ordering early enough so we have time to prepare?
Restaurant Operations:
How do we estimate the amount of time it takes to put together a dish?
Where can we put a delivery rack in the restaurant? How will customers identify their order?
Customer Satisfaction:
How will a customer feel if there is no where to eat within the restaurant?
Have you used the As Is / To Be Framework? Has it worked for you? Let me know by replying to this email!
