End User Validation

 It is difficult to design a product feature purely based on user feedback.

Users are good at providing user experience related suggestions and validation.  However, when we design a product feature, we are frequently thinking about automation which is eliminating the job.

To think of the product feature and design, as a product management professional, we need to think from business process perspective.  Learning how users handle the work is important and it is the job of a system analyst.  A system analyst does not have to have the experience as specific user role before he or she can conduct the business process analysis.

 It took me sometime to figure out but it was a good experience.  To learn how a project manager work, I got PMP certified in order to fully understand project management process from the professional organization's perspective.  To learn how a project cost engineer work, I got certified as a cost engineer from AACEi.  To learn how intercompany accounting and shared service work, I studied accounting and all the way to Advanced Accounting.  These knowledge was helpful but the best experience and learning coming from interviewing with the user.  The most important skill is analyzing the business process and map the product into the business process.

The real challenge comes from that many product managers and analysts falls into the trap of trying to matching product feature from competitors or trying to think from product feature list perspective.  Another trap is to come up something cool, nice to demo, but not really usable.  On the other hand, a product which is not demoable may never reach the customers and gain any attention.  That is the dilemma.