For API products, how do you push back against engineers who believe they know what to build because they "are" the target user?

Question

Melissa Ushakov · Accepted Answer

I think that the whole team should strive to build a product that end users love. I love when there's passion on the team and ideas about what to build. When you are building a product for a persona that is close to you, it's important to gather data from end users to ensure that you have a complete picture of their needs.

This generally comes in two forms:

Problem Validation: Identifying your end users' pain points. This can also be confirming of a problem hypothesis. https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/product-development-flow/#validation-phase-2-problem-validation

Solution Validation: Ensuring that the solution will meet end users' needs. https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/product-development-flow/#validation-phase-4-solution-validation

Sharing customer learnings with your team goes a long way in helping get alignment about what you are doing and why. I like to post summaries of my findings on our team Slack channel and document my detailed findings in places that are accessible to the whole team. Ultimately, product managers are responsible for the product roadmap, but collaboration is essential! Some of the best ideas for features I've worked on have come from other team members.

Kalvin Brite · Answer

As a product manager, it's essential to consider the perspectives and expertise of all team members, including engineers. However, it's also important to remember that as the product manager, you are responsible for representing the needs and interests of the target users and ensuring that the product meets their needs.

Here are a few strategies you can use to push back against engineers who believe they know what to build because they "are" the target user:

1. Gather data: Use data, such as customer feedback and usage metrics, to back up your perspective on what the target users need. This can help to provide a more objective view of the situation.
 2. Emphasize the importance of user research: Make it clear that user research is a crucial part of the product development process and that the insights and perspectives of the target users should be given weight. It's too easy to assume we know what customers want if we have been on the customer side before or identify with their needs. This is a common trap that all of us have to work against actively.
 3. Encourage collaboration: Encourage engineers to work closely with you and other team members (design, research) to better understand the needs and perspectives of the target users by participating in interviews and surveys. I've found it helpful to record user interviews and share snippets of the recordings and the transcripts with the entire product team to foster customer-first thinking.
 4. Communicate your perspective: Share your perspective on the needs and interests of the target users, and explain how the proposed feature or update aligns with or deviates from those needs. Centering the conversation on the customer, their context, and their problem helps to shift conversations back to the actual customer.

Ultimately, it's important to foster open and respectful communication with your engineering team and to work collaboratively to find solutions that meet the target users' needs while also considering the product's technical constraints and capabilities.

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