THE GOLDEN CIRCLE

As product leaders, when we are in the middle of day-to-day work - writing specs, mentoring others, doing brainstorming with various research teams, engineering teams, sales teams, UI/UX team and stakeholders of products we are building etc. etc., we sometimes loose sight of the “Why”.

We get so close to the trees that we tend to lose sight of the forest a.k.a your Why, the big picture!

START WITH WHY?

One of the simplest frameworks in product management to think and ‘work backwards’ is to follow the “Golden Circle” which Simon Sinek coined in his famous book “Start with Why” and his TED talk with the same title. The below article is from my own experience of using this framework in my day-to-day work which I have found useful.

GOLDEN CIRCLE - WHY, WHAT & HOW OF PM

When someone asks what do I do? I used to reply: "I work as a consultant/project lead/solutions architect/product manager...". However, after I read and reflected on the book by Simon Sinek “Start with Why”. (Also, the famous TED talk is a must watch too), my answer to this question changed.

Start with Why shows that the leaders who've had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way - and it's the opposite of what everyone else does.

Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organisations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.

In fact, the way I now answer a what or how question is to first give the context of the why. So, my previous answer to that question was a typical

“I work as a product manager for ___ company where we build innovative products and solutions in the___ industry, really has no context of why. This answer begins by talking about the “What”. In rare cases, when someone probes further, we start answering “How” and I do not remember anyone asking me the Why question at all! This structure is exactly opposite to what Simon explains in the book where he observes that successful companies always begin with sharing the Why followed by How and What. I believe if its applicable to companies then its applicable to all of us, individually as well. Equipped with the knowledge straight from Simon's books, here is how I started responding to the same question. "I have always loved and believed in making software products which adds real value to people in their work and life. I figured out that, for me, the best way to achieve was to create products which are innovative, intuitive and efficient. Based on my previous experience grounded in deep customer empathy, I could start working towards it by working in product management. I started applying the same framework to every product vision, product feature and event meetings". I have found it immensely helpful when we set the context(why) before we share the content (how, what, who). Using the same framework here are some examples.

SCENARIO 1: DISCUSSION WITH ENGINEERING TEAM

A PM is discussing an analytics feature in a an ongoing product, which allows users to select a filter based on custom query to display records on a grid table.

Instead of conveying "WHAT" we want to build first.

Here is how the discussion went. (observe the sequence Why, How, What)

Why: We want the users to have a flexibility (which implies freedom) to see filtered data based on their specific dynamic requirement.

How: The way we want to achieve it is by abstracting the user from creating a custom query on their own while allowing them to select a pre-customized query.

What: We would like to build a formula feature which allows them to select and display the records on the grid on selecting this pre-customized query filter.

SCENARIO 2: DISCUSSION WITH UI/UX TEAM

Why: We want the users to have a seamless experience of allowing them to visually see data from custom filters just like other filters on the UI.

How: The way we want to achieve it is by offering an intuitive UI which the user can use to select a pre-built filter.

What: We would like to build an integrated feature with our existing UI for the user to select a custom filter from the drop down and visually see the displayed records of the filter with minimum clicks.

SCENARIO 3: DISCUSSION WITH Stakeholders

Why: We want the product to offer our business users to have a flexible analytics solution for their data to meet 100% regulatory and compliance requirements at all times.

How: The way we want to achieve it is by offering an intuitive UI which allows our business users of the product to not only use the OOB filters but can have the ability to use to select a pre-built data filter.

What: We would like to build an integrated feature of a custom filter, as part of our product offering, which allows users to intuitively filter data and perform the required functions on the data.

So, as you would observe, establishing the context and working backwards from the "Why" really helps in re-casting the vision of the product, feature and establishes a culture based on a customer centric and empathetic approach. This is for a simple fact that when we "Start with Why" we are starting with an end user in mind and we are in the "Start with Empathy" circle first!