What Product Management and Design Can Teach about Gift Giving
I love gift giving. Finding the perfect gift for someone is among the greatest feelings. During the holidays, I started thinking about the process of gift giving and how I approach solving the problem of finding just the right gifts for family and friends. What I discovered was that there were many connections between my approach to gift giving and my approach to product management and design.
Finding the right gift for a person isn’t all that different from finding the right solution for a user or client.
Understand Your Audience
Gift giving is hard. But one factor pivotal to success is keeping your recipient front of mind. Sound familiar?
Any product initiative can benefit from a user-centered approach. At each phase of a project, you think about your users, their situation, and their needs. While gift giving, you have a greater chance of success if you also think about your recipient, their situation, and their needs.
What can help you understand your recipient or client better?
Avoid thinking of things YOU would like, because you’re not buying the gift or designing a solution for yourself.
Ask yourself about the person you are buying or designing for. What do they like to do? What issue are they trying to solve?
Listen. What was that thing my friend mentioned they wanted last week? What use cases were described on the last client call?
Observe. Did your sister struggle with dinner the other night because she didn’t have the right pan? There’s a gift idea! Did a user take a long time to do something that could be simplified and save them time? There’s a new design idea! Simply paying attention to your recipients, users, and clients can open up fabulous solutions.
Do Your Research
If you still need help generating the right idea, research can help. The product design cycle often begins with research. Perhaps you conduct interviews or surveys with your target audience to better understand their needs. You can also review the competition to understand what else is out there.
Gift giving can begin with research, too. One of the most common Google searches I make is “Best Gifts for [fill in the blank].” Does the person like coffee? Is the person camping every opportunity they get? What can I get an 11-year-old? There are so many targeted gift guides online for inspiration. Many of these guides even show prices at various stores and reviews so you can make educated choices.
Keep The Budget (And Other Constraints) in Mind
Any product team has to grapple with budget and resource constraints. As much as we would like, some solutions are not feasible. Whether it’s money, tools, resource availability, or existing tech, every product initiative will be impacted by constraints.
As a gift giver, especially during the holidays, you also have a budget to respect as you decide which gifts to purchase and how to allocate money toward everyone on your list.
And just as clients have specific budgets your team needs to respect, there can be spending limits for some gift exchanges. It’s important to select an appropriate gift or solution based on these factors. Remember the havoc Michael Scott created on The Office when he brought an expensive iPod to the office gift exchange? Not ideal.
Planning Ahead
Every product initiative has a timeline. You work with and consult your team to establish a realistic timeline, add some room for unplanned issues, and set a target date for completion. Remember the time for testing and deployment, too.
For gift giving, you also usually have a target date - whether it’s the holiday season, a birthday, an anniversary, or a wedding. You need to deliver a gift to the recipient by a certain time. It’s important to allow yourself an appropriate amount of time to get everything done. So, I often set a reminder on my phone to look for a gift a few weeks before an event. This way, there is enough time to research, shop for, and ship a gift.
Provide Support and Feedback
The process doesn’t have to end after delivery. After building a feature, sometimes a client needs support. Perhaps you demo the feature for them. Or write up instructions on how to use it. Or perhaps even quickly fix a bug.
Gift giving sometimes requires the same support. Are batteries not included? Does it require assembly that you can assist with? Is a return or exchange required?
And once a project is completed, doesn’t it feel great to receive constructive feedback from your client or users? Or reciprocate and tell a team member how much the project benefitted from their work? As a gift giver, it is so satisfying when a recipient writes a thank you note or mentions how much they use your gift.
After the work is done, it’s important to celebrate, appreciate the win, and recognize those involved. And then start looking for the next solution or gift.
