People often ask me what to prepare if they want to be more senior. Here are 5 things I can think of:

1. Identifying the problem

When the company puts you on a higher-stake initiative, it usually means the initiative is critical for the company. But it also means your team needs to figure out what exactly to work on.

In our junior role, we might get a specific brief, and we can execute it right away because the problem is framed clearly (even though it might not always be the right one). We can make a wireframe and so on. But now, you have to identify what problem to solve.

2. Product Strategy

This is another half of identifying the problem. You’ll be a strategic thinking partner for the product manager. Thinking about this big fuzzy term: Strategy.

For example, your team might get a specific goal: Increase retention by x%. Now figure out the best way to do that (the strategy). Your team needs some make an internal assumption on what to work on and why it could win in the market. Product designers often struggle because they’re unfamiliar with the competition, value proposition, monetization, etc.

Thinking beyond the traditional design craft is critical. Because the user interface is the what, you must figure out why you should build this specific product or feature.

3. Product discovery

After thinking about the strategy, you need to validate it. You need to gain customer signals, but you have to move fast! So, I often tell product designers to learn how to talk to users (user interviews). Because if you can talk to users, you can speed up the process quickly and bring back the insights your team can use.

I’m opening a workshop to help individual contributors learn more about product strategy and how to validate it. Check it out: Product Discovery workshop.

4. Insecurity

Other than work, you need to be prepared mentality. Being senior doesn’t mean you already know everything. Many people get insecure because they feel they should have known everything. I guess this is what society expects.

Think about a CEO or a founder. You might think they’re on the top of the company’s chain of command. So you might assume they know a lot of things. But in reality, some CEOs are new, and some are experienced.

Expect not to know many things, but be willing to figure it out.

5. Understand the domain

Learn about the market. If you’re working in fintech, learn about the trend in the industry. Read some books and be curious about this domain. It can help you when thinking about concepts and making design decisions.

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I started my career by joining design contests.
In 2009, I majored in accounting at the university. I never work as an accountant, thankfully. While studying, I stumbled upon websites like 99designs, crowdspring.com, and designcrowd.com. On this website, you can join design contests, submit your work, and potentially get the money as a price.

Companies that need design work start the contests.
Imagine you want to open a restaurant, and you need a logo. You will go to those websites and explain what you need. People will submit their work, and you choose the best one.

A stepping stone.
I spend hours submitting 300+ works on those websites. There are three benefits: 1) Craft benefit—because there’s a real brief, I have a reason to start to learn the tools and the design principles. 2) Financial benefit—I get money if I win the price. 3) Experience benefit—I get to experience making something. Plus, I can use my work in my portfolio.

T-shirt, logo, website, and newsletter design,
On this platform, you can explore and practice different design work. If you want to design a website, join a website design contest. It’s a great way to practice. Too many beginners spend their time watching and reading but never practice it.

It’s a stepping stone, not a long-term career.
I spend hours designing and submitting work. In DesignCrowd alone, I had 274 submissions. I got $4238. Pretty decent money for a student back then. But this is not a long-term career. It’s not sustainable. Here’s the secret: Win the contest, then contact the client. Some clients reached out to work on the longer-term project.

Executor, not designer
You’ll be an executor. The client asks you to do the thing, and you do it. This is not a great way to learn how to build the product. This is not a great way to learn how to build a business. But it’s a good way to learn the basics. I spent my time around 2 years on this platform.

Better and better portfolio
Over time, I got to work on more complex and better projects. I charge more. I build a better portfolio. I get better projects. This cycle repeats.

Try it.
If you're a student. If you want to be a designer. Try it. Spend a few minutes browsing the contest you like, designing for 3-4 hours, and submitting it. Repeat. One day, you’ll be great at the crafts. For me, this system and platform trained me to produce a lot of design alternatives.

Here’s the link: 99designs.com, crowdspring.com, designcrowd.com

Each month, I answer a few questions from my readers. I leverage my experience as Head of Design and Principal Product Manager. Subscribe to my newsletter to get the latest post in your inbox.

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Question: "Hi, Budi. I am always interested in talking to users and identifying their user problems. However, my project usually only takes two weeks. So I have no time to talk to users before designing. I tried negotiating the timeline, but no luck. The team needs to deliver something in 1-2 sprints. We mostly build a feature based on what our VP of technology thinks is the right thing to build. But sometimes, I don't feel the solution necessarily solves any problem. Any tips?"

Thanks for the question! I hear you—not knowing the user's problems can be frustrating. The biggest problem with your condition is finding the time to research. Here’s my short answer: Find the next project in your roadmap and conduct the research beforehand. Talk to users and gain insights for that next project.

You don't want to be controversial.

First, let's talk about the culture. If talking to users is not part of your company's culture, you don't want to preach and demand people to do this. The reason is simple; not all research can yield insights quickly. You might need a few experiments. Imagine if you're being demanding, "Hey, we need to do this research properly." You'll feel tremendous pressure to return to the team with actionable insights. So here's the plan...

Find out what the next project is in the roadmap.

If negotiating about the timeline doesn't work. You better prepare research for the next project. Discuss with the product manager and ask about the next project in the roadmap. Identify the project your PM feels critical or unsure about the problem. The plan is to find a project you'll pick up in the next four weeks. Then, do the research for this project ahead of time.

Keep it lowkey

If you don't have much experience in interviewing users. Keep things low in the beginning. You don't have to announce to people that you're planning to talk to users. Keep it low, especially if the company doesn’t have a culture to talk to users.

Recruit participants. Find your way to get the customer's data if you can. Reach out to them. You might find a challenge in determining who or what type of users you should contact. This is where the target audience will be useful. It would be best if you defined the characteristic of the users. Read my old essay on this topic: https://newsletter.buditanrim.co/p/feature-target-audience or https://newsletter.buditanrim.co/p/how-to-define-the-target-customers

Prepare the questions. Before you talk to the real users, you want to create the research script. It's a list of questions. Make a bullet point of questions you want to ask. My favorite questions are:

Intro

• Can you tell me a bit about your role?

• How long have you been doing this?

• What's the hardest part about your job?

Problem

• What is the biggest challenge you're facing now?

• How often do you experience < the challenge >?

• When was the last time you experienced it?

• What makes it hard?

• What have you done to solve it?

• If users mentioned any solution—what do you like? What do you dislike?

These questions are starting point. You might need to modify this. If you ask these questions, you’ll get an overview of their problem.

Build the trust battery

Once you get some interesting insights, share them with your team. You want to build the trust battery. Show that by talking to users. You can help clarify the problem. Bonus:

P.S. That’s in a nutshell. It’s hard to explain this in one essay. But I hope you found this useful! If you're interested in learning and getting hands-on practice about this, join the waitlist for my upcoming two-week problem discovery course. Visit https://joincrafters.com/

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It’s challenging to grow as a product designer or product manager.

Sometimes, we always have this questions in mind.

Remember the last 2 weeks in your work. What challenges are you facing in your role? What mystery that you still unsure about design or product?

Ask me anything. I’m collecting questions to activate “Dear Budi” column.

I’m looking forward to hear from you. You can reply on the comment or send me an email. You know I always love to hear from you.

With a warm handshake,
Budi

Q: How do you know it was no longer a fit? I understand company and people evolve. I am curious about the thought process here and how you approached it.

Thanks, Ann, for the good question.

I think a "fit" is very personal for every person. It wasn't obvious back then, but it boils down to this: What value are you prioritizing in your life now?

• Knowledge — Do you want to learn about new things?

• Status — Do you want to build a reputation?

• Health — Do you want to increase your longevity?

• Money — Do you want to increase your financial wealth?

• Relationship — Do you bond with others?

• Passion — Do you pursue what you love?

• Career — Do you pursue career advancement?

I write this on a piece of paper and stack rank them. I let it simmer for a bit and revise as I go. In this process, I notice slight feelings or thoughts throughout my day, so I have a note ready to jot down.

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If you're in a similar situation, here's my recommendation:

1. Decision level 1 (irreversible). My mindset in approaching this is I know I'm dealing with the decision level 1—it is not easily reversible. Once you resign, it's weird to pull it back. (See my old blog post)

2. The tension is necessary. I spend months thinking about this. I keep coming up with an idea. For example, there's a day when I think: Maybe I should take this opportunity for Director of UX. It's going to be amazing international exposure. I left that idea floating around for a week. Then, I realized I don’t want to play status game. Then, I assess, okay, what do I want then? Another idea comes up. Repeat the process and revisit your value prioritization above.

3. The process is not neat or organized in any way. Just like anything in life—chaotic and painful to some extent. Start a straightforward question: If I have don't a job tomorrow, what do I want to do that excites me?

4. What do you value? List them down. Rank them.

After you cooldown, consider a few things:

1/ People come from different backgrounds, experiences, and values. You will, no matter where, meet people who don't meet eye to eye with you. There's no place where you won't find conflicts or differences

2/ Assuming the other person has ill intent is a way to live a miserable life.

3/ If you want to improve the situation, you gotta talk about it. Share candid feedback. Be respectful in the process.

4/ There's nothing wrong with sharing your perspective. But remember, your perspective is incomplete. There's always the other side of the coin.

5/ Leave some room for clarification. After sharing your observation with an example, ask about their perspective. Be open-minded, then, perhaps an interesting insight could be revealed.

6/ The goal of the discussion is not to find who is wrong and right. The goal is to find the resolution and how can you avoid a similar situation in the future.

7/ Sometimes, the other person has to "grow up."

8/ Sometimes, we have to "grow up."

9/ Don't lose the big picture. This conflict is usually only a small part of the broader goal you have in mind.

10/ Talking behind their back won't do anything. Gossiping make things worse. Alternative? Let people cool down. Then, talk to the person, straight.

P.S. Join the discussion on this tweet.

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When it comes to customers, many product managers don't realize they can choose customers, just like how customers choose the product.

A product team with clear target customers will have an easier way to a) talk to a specific group of users to understand their problem in a profound way, b) design a practical solution that fits the customers, and c) plan a communication narrative that's compelling because you can be specific.

1. Why: A product will likely attract a specific group of people.

If you open a buffet restaurant, who will probably come? A heavy eater would. You should design the products for a particular group of customer with specific needs. Which leads to the following question: Where should you start?

2. Start with a qualitative hypothesis.

Define it qualitatively first. PM should develop a hypothesis of the potential customers with a problem their product can solve. Maybe after talking to a few customers, you'll get a sense, "This customer, Gabriel is the perfect customer for our product idea." Try to write what this customer is. What's their motivation? What's their current workflow? What's their most significant pain?

3. Big market, but focus on a small audience.

A startup must target a big market. Your goal is to build something a lot of people want. However, when you start, do things that don't scale. If you're making a new product from zero-to-one, it's best to focus on a small group of users while still figuring out what works for that target market. As the Co-Founder of Airbnb, Brian Chesky, mentioned that one of the best piece of advices he got from Paul Graham, “It’s better to have 100 people love your service than a million of people are kind of like your service. Turned them into the advocate" [1]

Related: Do things that don’t scale.

4 Utilize the qualitative hypothesis for research.

PM can use this qualitative hypothesis for an early discussion with the design and research team. Use it to spark the initial meeting on how we can find these people. You want to start interviewing or make a contextual inquiry so you can understand what's their workflow. This workflow and nuances are valuable for consideration when designing the solution later.

5. No middleman

PM should spend their time talking to users. Don't rely on any research team to hand you a research report. In my experience, joining the field study or customer interview has been the most valuable activity to sharpen the strategy. During the observation, you'll catch nuances and context that will help you shape the strategy—no need for a formal research report. Remember to separate needs and wants during the discussion with them.

6. Build a direct relationship

Suppose you can exchange phone numbers or email to contact the customers quickly. I find it valuable because whenever I have a small question, I can call them for 10 minutes and get valuable input. It's important to note that asking a series of good questions that don't lead you to bad data is essential.

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Related posts

• PMF narrative

• PMF narrative template

• Vitamin vs painkiller

• Need vs want

• Switching cost

• See more on the table of contents

Hi Daniel,

Thank you for the question. In this post, I’ll share the work-in-progress framework I use to start thinking about the strategy—which can be a starting point to consider.

By the way, we’re reaching a new milestone with 1,800 subscribers in the tribe :) Thank you for joining the tribe. Please don’t hesitate to reach me out via email and we’ll have a fun discussion.

You can access the table of contents here.

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Revenue and impact, should go hand-in-hand

A lot of company focuses on revenue.

But it's unclear why they even exist or what the impact they aim.

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with aiming for revenue to ensure the company has enough money to keep going. However, without a clear impact to aim, things can be directionless. The better way to see it is this drive to be profitable should go hand-to-hand with the mission.

Consider Tesla

Tesla is one of the most mission-driven company. Tesla is also a profitable company. So, the profitability can live together with the mission. Elon Musk famously published his master plan for Tesla explaining his logic about how they should make money to accelerate their mission.

Create a low-volume car, which would necessarily be expensive

Use that money to develop a medium-volume car at a lower price

Use that money to create an affordable, high-volume car

While doing above, also provide zero emission electric power generation options

Reading this, everyone can understand that his plan essentially starts with an expensive car because that's what he can afford with his money. He will then move to a high volume. This strategic narrative is so powerful because it's super simple.

Strategy narrative

I’ve been experimenting with a few ways to come up with this level of clarity for my team. I have been doing a lot of readings and discussions. I read Playing to Win, Good Strategy Bad Strategy, and more. So far, this is how I structure the strategy:

1. Compelling problem: What is the compelling problem we want to solve?

2. Impact: What the better future do we seek to make?

3. Solution: What's the solution we envision to achieve that?

4. Near-term outcome: What has to be true in the near term to achieve that impact?

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Compelling problem

Your team must build a clear understanding of the problem space to the point that you can explain why this problem is so painful for the users or society in a simple way. This is fundamental to why your team exists. For example, Elon Musk explained that civilization will collapse if we don't have sustainable energy. He also mentioned the increasing oceanic carbon level. This is a very compelling and important problem—a lot of motivated people would want to really join the journey.

Prompt: What's the compelling problem you want to solve? Why is that important?

Impact

Then, your team must be able to articulate the desired future you seek to make. This future must be an exciting one. It's something you'll rally around your team to keep people excited because everyone knows what they do now is leading toward that better future. For example, Elon Musk always mentioned a sustainable future where fewer emissions are created by fossil fuels. You can even see that Elon opens up the pitch with a clear why in this Model 3 presentation.

Prompt: Looking at the problem, what's the better future you seek to make?

Solutions

Tesla has different solutions to achieve its mission. Tesla builds an electric car, solar roof, and battery storage. Detailed solutions like this ground the team to have clear solution spaces to explore.

Prompt: What is the opinionated solution you think will highly have a chance to achieve the impact?

Near-term outcomes

Once you can articulate the compelling problem and the impact. You want to step back and connect the dots between today and the future. What are the key aspects that need to be changed? In Tesla's example, it's important to (1) make the electric car not expensive and (2) break the preconception that the electric car is slow. This will be your fundamental logic for the roadmap.

Prompt: Looking at the future you seek to make, what's stopping you from achieving that?

Key actions to make:

1. Make a new doc

2. Draft out the problem-impact-solutions

3. Go through each prompt and try to articulate

4. You can workshop this with your leadership if you want more perspective

5. You can consider going out to the field and observing users if you want to understand the problem more deeply.

In the upcoming post, I'll share how I develop the strategy in the context of digital products for the Government, which my team is working on now. Identifying the compelling problem requires you to really understand what happens on the ground, so I'll tell you about my experience doing field studies.

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Today, we’re going to discuss a question from one of our readers. It’s about the purpose of our job as product practitioners:

Dear Budi, I’m a Product Manager and sometimes wonder what the purpose of my job is. I keep thinking about helping the company make profit. But I feel like that’s not really meaningful. I write this to you because you work in the public sector now and recently transitioned to the Product role, I want to know your take on this one. 

Thank you, your newsletter is always helpful!

Super interesting question, right? I think it’s important to check on this question ourselves from time to time. So, let’s dive in! Thank you for sending me this question, by the way.

Budi

Here’s my thinking from my younger version.

1) I used to think my job was to create a great experience. Early in my career as a designer, I was obsessed with the craft of design. I wanted to create the best and most delightful experience. But then I realized it was not enough. We can see from two examples: Google Allo was delightful but failed to penetrate the market and closed down. Then, I see Craiglist. The design is “just enough,” and many people find it useful. So, it gets me thinking: Oh, a delightful experience is important. But it’s only one thing, not the whole point.

2) I used to think my job was about giving value to the customers. I thought the point is to deliver value to the users—see Craiglist or eBay, their design is decent, but it’s valuable. But this is not right either. I realized my decision-making was too one-sided. I prioritize what’s the most useful for users but dismiss the constraint from the business aspect. If I don't help the company monetize, it can't sustain.

3) I used to think my job was to help the company sustain its business. Because I thought good design is good business. I learned a lot about business and ensure my impact was measured in the business metrics. Then I realized I was moving to the other extreme. If my Northstar is to help the company make revenue, it puts me in a place where I can cut corners. I can simply think, “As long as I make revenue, I don’t give a f*ck about the side effects of our product.” It’s not healthy, either.

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My current thinking

Then, after going through this reflection over time, now I landed on this…

Our goal is to collaboratively create positive changes for the planet and society, through products that people value yet are viable for the organization to sustain its mission. Tweet this

1. Collaboratively create: We can’t work alone. We need a good team to build something significant. Collaboration is at the heart of our job.

2. Positive changes for the planet and society: People often argue this is only possible because I work in the public sector. If I go back to the private sector at one point, I want to join a company with a strong mission that creates a positive change in this world. For example, Tesla helps reduce carbon emissions through technology so we can stay on this planet. TOMS shoes still maintain profitability and give free shoes to people who need them.

3. A product that people love: If we create a cool product that no one cares about, no one will use it. We need to understand the problem and build a valuable solution.

4. Viable for the organization: The organization needs to be sustained to pursue its mission. Profit is a means to the end. The mission should be the end—it expresses the positive change they want to make.

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Prompt for you

• Why do you work as a product builder?

• What is the impact you seek to make in this role?

With a harm handshake,

Budi

P.S. I’ll do a field study next week, it’s been a while since the last time I did it because of Covid. I’m excited, I’ll share the some of the updates later.

In today’s Dear Budi column, we have a question from one of our lovely readers about the team’s cadences.

Q: Dear Budi, one of my responsibility is to lead the team and ensure we stay aligned. I feel it’s important to ensure the team is motivated yet stays on track with their initiative. I constantly revisit my team’s cadences, so I’m actually curious about what cadences you run in your team. Can you share a little bit of each cadence’s purpose as well? Thank you, really appreciate your newsletter.

I really like this question because cadence might seem insignificant, but is actually an essential part of your team. Let me share my perspective on this.

Budi

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Friday: Sync up

Let me start with the Friday Sync Up. It’s a moment where cross-functional members gather to close up the week and get ready for the next week.

I usually will use the first 10 minutes to open up the meeting with a quick recap of our strategy—usually, I remind everyone about the target audience, the problem we’re trying to solve, and the users’ feedback about our product.

Basically, I’m trying to ensure everyone understands our goal and our plan to achieve that.

Then, we’ll go through each initiative one by one on Asana. For each project, the DRI will share the progress, the blockers, and the next steps.

We’ll close this with a high note and ensure everyone is ready and know what’s their focus next week.

Monday: Co-design

Then, on Monday, we’ll have a co-design session. This is a session for the design and product team. We’ll invite other functions as needed.

The intent of this session is to either sharpen our problem space or to use it to do some design critique. If we started a new initiative, we could use this one-hour session to really write down the pain point and the job to be done from the user's perspective. This will help everyone align.

Sometimes, we can use this time to really explore wild ideas that might have never been discussed before. I really aim for this session to be a moment where we problem solves, but also be creative.

Mon-Wed: Talk to the users

From Monday to Wednesday, my team typically always runs user interviews. We typically have a set of questions from the prior week, then we talk to the users to uncover a few insights.

I love this part because it really helps my team understand the user and the problem space. I’ll talk more specifically about this part if you’re interested, let me know in the comment, or simply reply to this email.

Then, we usually have time to really synthesize and debrief all of the interviews. As we talk to the users, we slowly build a persona to easily differentiate them.

Discovery playback

To embed the learning spirit in the team. We have discovery playback where we invited all cross-functional members to share the learning from the research or experiment that we run before.

Typically, I will have a document prepared beforehand with a list of questions we wanted to answer that week. For example, “Does [solution x] actually useful?” or “What’s the biggest pain point for the community leader?” We will answer these questions and really share all of the synthesis and learnings.

I will have one document dedicated to recording all of the important learnings in bullet points. One of the bullet points can go like this: 50% of our community can’t make a webinar.

I love discovery playback because it’s the time my team really learns and reflects on the questions and assumptions we have.

Closing note

Of course, there are more cadences that we hold from time to time, like design critique or design scoping. However, these are 4 cadences that I feel are the most essential for my team. I hope by sharing this, you and your team can start discussing what cadence is essential for your team.

I’d love to know what’s your favorite cadence in your team. Please drop any in the comment section to share with other readers in this newsletter :)

Related posts

• Make your 30 days onboarding plan

• How to prepare your one-on-one as an individual contributor

• How to scope product design work

• Find time for deep work

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Subscribe to Budi Tanrim’s Newsletter and join 1500+ other practitioners to get practical insights you can use every Tuesday and Friday.

This newsletter depends on word-of-mouth. The more subscribers, the more questions, and I can make relevant content. Please share this with your peers or drop a question in the comment.

You can book a paid 1-1 mentoring session—in the 50 minutes, we’ll discuss your challenge and questions you have in mind.

Today I started a new column: Dear Budi. I have been getting a lot of questions lately (thank you) and I will answer one every Monday. Today’s question comes from one of the readers who will be transitioning to a new job next month—congrats!

Q: Dear Budi, I'm getting a new job. So, I'm thinking about making an onboarding plan to smooth my transition. Can you write about any tips on how to make a good onboarding plan?

Let’s dive in!

Budi

You are about to join a team.

What's your plan?

The first 30 days are critical. Here's some data: 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for three years if they experience great onboarding. (Society For Human Resources Management)

During your first 30 days, your number one priority is to learn. I highly recommend you have a discussion with your manager to learn about these 3 aspects: product, people, and contribution.

People. You'll work with people, so invest your time in building rapport.

• Who are the people I'll work with?

• How do they see their role?

• How best work with them?

• What are their worry and priority?

• How can you build a relationship with them?

Product. Feel out the product and understand the persona that you target.

• Who is the user? Why are we targetting them?

• What is the product look like?

• What's our priority? How is it connected to the mission?

• How do we define success this quarter?

• What is the ongoing project?

Contribution. What can you contribute?

• Contribute to a project

• Contribute to process

• Contribute to strategy

But, of course, act based on your context. By the way, I wrote: Advice for transitioning to a new job, maybe it's useful for you. Also, check Trust Battery to help you think about trust.

Good luck.

Related posts

• Advice for transitioning to a new job

• Principles on career advancement

• How to prepare your one-on-one as an individual contributor

• How to scope product design work

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Subscribe to Budi Tanrim’s Newsletter and join 1500+ other practitioners to get practical insights you can use every Tuesday and Friday.

This newsletter depends on word-of-mouth. The more subscribers, the more questions, and I can make relevant content. Please share this with your peers or drop a question in the comment.

You can book a paid 1-1 mentoring session—in the 50 minutes, we’ll discuss your challenge and questions you have in mind.