Design Thinking &Product Management: A Medium Series
Design thinking is an important skill or principle that can be applied in almost any business, but for a startup, Design Thinking becomes exceptionally crucial because it helps startups mitigates a lot of risks that they face on a daily
A startup can be said to be a business that uses uncertain models or new technology to solve uncertain problems. The key thing that makes a startup a “startup” is the high risk that is involved as well as the limited number of resources to achieve that goal
It is therefore surprising that design thinking is not used in the early stage of product development of many startups. In Product development, a startup is still trying to create an offering and figure out its value proposition to its users.
This series is a way of correlating all my thoughts and findings as my path in design thinking and product management intersect. All of these touchpoints where these two unique subjects rub off or blend on each, I collate them to help us discover more in each of these fields.
There are several ways design thinking can help out in developing a product for startup, and some of them are:
- identify the right problems to solve
- extract insights from users
- promote team collaboration and bond teammates together
- Gain the buy-in of everyone, by showing that their voices matter
- Brainstorm and identify the right solutions worth solving
- and finally, designing solutions that matter while
Product managers tend to be called when there is a deadline to launch, and they are nothing more than conductors, running between engineering and marketing team to release features of products which may not even be right for the users.
Seeing all this, I will be sharing articles from time to time the interrelationship between design thinking and product management and how in many ways there is really no borders between the two of them.
I find myself, somehow thrown in between the two of these disciplines, not wanting to choose between one or the other, and I believe both are related. I simply want to show how one field affects the other in my life and how they both synchronize.
Some of the topics that will be covered here include
- The thinking and doing of product development
- Why design thinking should be used in product development
- How Product Managers can apply design thinking
- How startups can achieve more using design thinking
I started out seeking a career in product management but I found myself in a consulting firm as an Innovation Analyst. This is a role I am still trying to understand, but I am surprisingly enjoying it. I found myself feeling guilty for abandoning my first love “Product management” but looking at the other side of the coin, there are lots of similarities between this job role.
Innovation consultants may be to corporate organizations, what Product Manager are to startups and tech businesses. As I try to manage to be a product manager for my startup and an innovation Analyst for my job, I have decided to find all the places my interest in these two weird roles intersect and document it.
Sometimes life doesn’t work out the way you plan and sometimes there is not definite name for what you do, but everything, like a weaving thread comes together to prepare you for the place you are meant to be, and that’s what this series hopes to show.
I hope you enjoy it, and if you find yourself in a job role variability, kindly share with me. :)🤗
Fighting 💪🏾
#productmanagement #productdevelopment #designthinking #innovation #innovativedesign #innovationAnalyst
