Unlocking the Power of Data-Driven Product Management
As a product manager, you’re constantly seeking ways to stay ahead of the curve and drive business outcomes. One crucial aspect of achieving this is by leveraging data analysis tools that go beyond basic spreadsheets and bar charts. But where do you even begin?
The Altitude Map: A Game-Changer for Product Managers
An altitude map is a visual landscape that displays various levels of product metrics, providing a comprehensive understanding of how each metric influences others. This powerful tool helps you identify which solutions drive outcomes, enabling you to become more strategic with roadmaps and data pursuits.
Breaking Down the Altitude Map
An altitude map consists of three distinct scorecards:
- Supervisor’s Scorecard: Identifies the key metrics your supervisor wants you to influence, ensuring you’re aligned with their goals.
- Product Area’s Scorecard: Showcases the performance of the area you’re responsible for, highlighting metrics that demonstrate your success.
- Solutions’ Scorecards: Tracks the performance of specific features or sets of features, providing insight into their impact on product and business metrics.
Building an Altitude Map from Scratch
Let’s take the example of a subscription product. To create an altitude map, you’ll need to:
- Identify Supervisor’s Parts: Determine which metrics your supervisor cares about and how you can influence them directly.
- Define Product Area’s Metrics: Ask yourself questions like “Who is your target audience?” and “What problem are you solving?” to identify the best metrics to track your performance.
- Establish Solutions’ Metrics: Identify key metrics for each solution, including adoption, retention, value, product impact, and business impact.
Putting the Altitude Map into Action
Once you’ve built your altitude map, you can use it to:
- Assess Solution Health: Quickly evaluate the performance of your solutions and identify areas for improvement.
- Decide What to Do Next: Make informed decisions about which solutions to focus on and how to drive product and business outcomes.
- Provide a Sanity Check: Ensure your work contributes to product and business performance, and spot potential issues early on.
- Display Metrics Clearly: Share your altitude map with stakeholders to promote transparency and collaboration.
- Troubleshoot Issues: Analyze the entire metrics landscape to identify the root cause of underperforming metrics.
The Power of Data-Driven Decision-Making
By crafting an altitude map, you’ll gain a solid understanding of your product landscape and be able to make strategic decisions that drive business outcomes. Remember, using data for the sake of using data is a waste of time. Altitude maps enable you to be intentional with your data pursuits, ensuring you’re always moving the needle.