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Neil Kulkarni

AMA: Cisco Director of Product Management, Neil Kulkarni on User Interviews

May 21, 2025 @ 10:00AM PT

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  1. How do you balance prioritizing current customer needs vs where technology is going with AI?

    Neil Kulkarni
    Neil Kulkarni

    Cisco Director of Product Management • 1y

    This question makes it sound like there is a trade-off to be made between these - however, in my opinion, they need not be separate goals. AI, if applied to solve the right problems, could actually help solve for customer needs. Lets take a real example on a product we just launched with Cisco's cloud management for Wi-Fi networks - AI-RRM. Before I dive into the specific product feature, let me present the problem statement and why AI was applied here. Customer Problem Statement: Radio Frequenc ...Read More

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  2. How do you incorporate user interview findings into your product roadmap?

    Neil Kulkarni
    Neil Kulkarni

    Cisco Director of Product Management • 1y

    Sometimes small tweaks can make a big impact - using user interview findings to help identify areas of fine tuning to create the "Aha" effect for the user could be one of the ways to incorporate the findings into product roadmap. After all, the product is ever evolving and understanding the areas that could use fine-tuning to make a big difference helps the user know their feedback was heard, while also minimizing engineering churn on a particular feature/solution.

    1,553 Views
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  3. What are some common pitfalls you've encountered in user interviews and how do you avoid them?

    Neil Kulkarni
    Neil Kulkarni

    Cisco Director of Product Management • 1y

    One of the most common pitfalls encountered in user interviews is "leading the user" to a response. Avoiding this takes some skill and practice on how the questions are framed and how specific vs open ended the questions are. This is an important aspect to discuss with your UX research partner. Sometimes the questions can be modified after the 1st round of user interview, after analyzing the type of responses seen to re-frame any questions, if needed.

    940 Views
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  4. How do you communicate user interview findings effectively to stakeholders and team members?

    Neil Kulkarni
    Neil Kulkarni

    Cisco Director of Product Management • 1y

    Though there is no one size fits all, the path we follow for communicating user interview findings is by scheduling a live call to go over all the findings. This also helps stakeholders get the opportunity for a live Q&A at the end of the presentation. Its also a good way to access if any gaps exist in the findings so far to go address in future opportunities. Once the call is done, the recording and AI summary is also posted in a group for all stakeholders to access async.

    823 Views
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  5. How do you handle conflicting user feedback obtained from interviews?

    Neil Kulkarni
    Neil Kulkarni

    Cisco Director of Product Management • 1y

    The key to handling conflicting user feedback is identifying the likely cause for those. Here are a few possibilities: The question isn't framed quite right or is too vague causing room for interpretation. The user persona responding might be different causing different vantage points, that might be a good thing to get, as long as there is clarity on the primary target persona. The UX is not hitting the mark and is leading to missed expectations for some users Understanding the root cause should ...Read More

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