Facebook Product Development Framework

Julie Zhuo, director of product design for Facebook, once spoke at TNW Europe and talked about the framework that Facebook uses to focus on product development.

Working on this speech made me think of other lessons that I learned over the years about how to do great things.

This list is not perfect and not complete. If there was some step-by-step instruction (Step 1: Idea. Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit!), Then I would spend good money on it, and then slap us on the backs and see how great new products bloom around us like flower fields in May.
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Journey is completed by 1%. Let's continue to go ahead and learn.

Framing

1. The product is successful because it solves problems for people. It sounds very simple, but this is the most important thing to understand when creating good products.
2. The first step in creating something new is understanding what problem you want to solve and for whom. This should be very clear before you start thinking about a solution.
3. The third question you should ask yourself is: “Why is this problem worth solving?”
4. If the audience for which you are creating is narrowly defined (and you are part of it), then you can rely on your intuition to make product decisions. If not, rely on research and data.
5. If you are the founder of a startup, it will be easier to start with solving problems for a narrow audience, and then expand to a general audience after you gain initial support.
6. The problem you are trying to solve should be understood in a couple of sentences and resonate with any of your target audience. If this does not happen, then consider it an alarming sign.

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The translation was made with the support of the company EDISON Software , which invests in start-ups , and deals with porting and migration .

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Execution

1. A good implementation is to make plausible conclusions in the shortest possible time.
2. Bad implementation is when you try to do something wrong and a) you cannot learn from this failure that you could apply to future projects (because you do not understand the reason for failure) or b) a year passed before you learned a certain lesson, although a more logical way to learn the same thing would take 3 months.
3. The usual successful team is different from unsuccessful - this is not the fact that the team does the wrong things (and this is guaranteed), but how stable they work.
4. When studying solutions for a particular problem, think in breadth before thinking deeper. Brainstorm 10, 20, 50 solutions to a problem before choosing a “winner”. The first 5 ideas will be obvious. Creativity begins with the 11th, 20th or 50th idea.
5. If you are submitting a product plan, and someone asks, “Have you thought about considering X instead?” And your answer is “No,” then this is a signal that your research process was not thorough enough.
6. Use empirical evidence to reduce the list of the best ideas that you came up with through brainstorming. (For example, select the top N favorites from a team, design or prototype based on accuracy, and introduce them to people to understand their reaction).
7. After you have found a specific solution that you want to stick to when working, think about it from the point of view of a hypothesis - what, presumably, will happen if you implement it? (For example: "The problem we want to solve is that every citizen knows about local events at the weekend. Our hypothesis is this: we can report this to X% of residents through mailing to the post office").
8. You must constantly look for ways to shorten the analysis of your hypothesis. Can you give your idea to people on the street and see how clear it is? Can you create a survey aimed at your audience and assess if there are enough people interested in the idea? Can you quickly build a version that will lead you to a clear conclusion, even if it is not completely ready, like the vision in your head?
9. As soon as you get a positive feedback to your hypothesis, do not think that you need to immediately install what you have tested (because you could have come to this in detours). Instead, make a separate deliberate decision that is a barrier to a full launch when it comes to editing and additional features. What is acceptable for testing and what is acceptable for shipment as a whole should have different criteria.
10. If you are starting a large project that includes many different changes, see if these changes can be divided into smaller, independently testable steps. Do not fall into the trap when you make five changes, get a bad result and then have to understand which of these changes are responsible for such a result.
11. Analyze each project within the team, regardless of whether it was successful or not. What lessons did you learn? And team lessons? What will you do differently in the future? And then share your discussions with the whole company.

Success rating

1. How you measure success is critical to the long-term results of your team, because this is exactly what makes people united. Make sure you give it the proper time and attention (even more than “how do we do this?”)
2. Determine what success looks like for your product before launching it. Otherwise, if you try to interpret the results before they occur, the biased confirmation will lead to a biased understanding.
3. For each success metric, create a good counter metric that will convince you that you are not just connecting one hole to another. (For example, a total metric counter for measuring production increases also measures the quality of each item produced).
4. If an important indicator moves unexpectedly, whether it is positive or negative, your first question should be: “Why?”. Do not try to develop strategies to speed up / hinder what is happening without full understanding.
5. Use the Crystal Ball technique to choose the right ways to measure success. Ask yourself: “If I could know anything about how people use our product, what would I like to know in order to understand whether my product is successful or not?”. (Usually, the answer that people give is not “the number of clicks,” but something more abstract, like “How many people who used my product got value from it?”). Starting from this answer, work in the opposite direction to get a measurable metric that best brings you closer to what you are trying to accomplish.
6. Your goals should always be supplied with the best information you currently have. If you worked on a previously agreed goal, and then discovered new information that changes your understanding of the world, consider whether you should adjust your goals based on this new information.
7. If you work in a team and do not understand or disagree with how a team measures success, talk about it right away. It is better to decide everything ashore, provided that this leveling is fundamental for productivity and good performance.
8. If you constantly argue with your colleagues about where the product should go, the root of the problem is most likely that you measure success in different ways. See if you can formulate your problems in the form of a new proposal to measure success.
9. If you are trying to understand whether your product is suitable for the market (compared to attempts at optimization or scaling), then you better stop focusing on retention (how many people use your product and love it enough to return for it?) Than on engagement. or the number of users.

Team dynamics

1. Thinking in terms of your role (What is expected from the designer? What is expected from the engineer?) Will limit your ability to make an impact. Instead, think in terms of "What can I do to bring the team to success sooner?".
2. Teams who are in love with a problem have more successful results than teams who are in love with concrete solutions. This is due to the fact that knowing that a problem is worth a solution continues to motivate, even if the team does not come to the right decision from the first, second, or Nth attempt.
3. Always assume the best of intentions. I mean, in the end, everyone wants the same thing - to do something different. You may be mistaken for a certain percentage of the time, but this is how you save yourself from unnecessary drama.
4. Understand your strengths and the strengths of your colleagues. Then distribute the responsibilities of the team so that the strengths work for you.
5. Good communication is the key to a healthy team. Each member of the team must feel that he can boldly express his views, even if these views are opposed. A variety of opinions will lead to better results. Therefore, do not be afraid to express your opinion, do not be afraid to repeat it if you are not sure that people have heard or fully understood you and strive to create this security for others.