Saturday, February 9, 2019

Physics for Product managers


The very first products/inventions known to have been created by mankind were all physical in nature and Physics was born as a study of the laws of nature. Physics is the study of the behaviour of matter, and its interactions with space and time. It is the basis of mechanics and all machinery ever made. Somewhere in the last few decades with the advent of software as a stream of academics and a popular career option, we stopped focusing on physics. And the impact is evident - so many products created with millions of dollars, disappear into oblivion. There is no dearth of designers, software engineers, and product managers who have lost touch with the most fundamental science of Physics. in fact, the one piece of software that is known to apply the laws of physics most of often is Virtual Games - and now we know they are the most popular software.

Here is an attempt to look into a few topics of physics and how they apply for Products. It is aimed at product managers but even engineers and designers should find it a fun read.

Inertia (static and motion)

Whether it is a B2B product or a B2C app, inertia is a BIG bottleneck that product managers need to be aware of when designing new products/features. In physics, inertia comes from the mass of an object - due to which it holds its state. If it is static, it will oppose the motion. If it is moving, it wouldn't stop until some force is applied to stop it.

Product users also exhibit inertia - because of which they will always oppose change or disruption that product/feature can potentially bring about. Always! Even when they have purchased it, even when they are convinced that they really want it. Great marketing and word of mouth can lead the users to be convinced about signing up, downloading your app or even paying for the subscription, but, it takes a while before they are engaged. That's why you need to track acquisition, conversion, and engagement separately.

In physics, Mass is also a function of gravity. We weight lower on the moon than on the earth. So we should also check what gives the product its inertial mass? Is it a set of behaviors, culture (of a society/company/geography/country)? How deep-rooted is the behavior in the context?
What works in one market may not work in the other. The inertia in one market may be absent in the other.

A lot of products die out, trying to change the behavior of their users. You have to accept the simple law of physics that suggests that because of inertia users will continue to do what they are doing - until a strong enough external force is applied for a long enough period. And that's why incentives like deep discounting on e-commerce and free rides on ride-hailing platforms are a norm. They act as the strong external force needed to bulldoze users to change their existing behaviors or adopt new ones. Nir Eyal in his book Hooked describes how new habits can be created.

So, if you are creating a product or a feature that will change the behavior of the users, or that seeks a change in behavior to be useful - STOP! first get the marketing budget approved, or at least get your plan to fight the inertia in place before you move ahead.

Here is an awesome thread by Paras Chopra (Founder, Wingify) summarizing mathematically how this works? Conservation of probability-mass. 


Your users may not always need monetary incentives, the force could as well be internal. Can you move them, to get them moving? Your content, packaging, onboarding needs to trigger strong emotions. Here are the feelings that motivate people, in the order of strength - FOMO, Scarcity, Pride, Sadness (Compassion), Delight.

Whatsapp, for example, created your network from your contact list. Tinder starts showing you potential matches without taking many details from you. Facebook suggests you possible friends without you having to look for them. Having a tab on the intrinsic motivations of your users is extremely important - you need to know their Hopes, Dreams, and Fears.

Another place where product managers have to struggle with inertia is within the organization itself. For a big org, it is easy to believe but even the smallest of teams can get set into a routine very soon. Product thinking often requires product managers to bring in new tools, new processes, and new people - and every time you introduce something new you face inertia. You have to be aware and solve for it, the way you solve for it for the products.

Law of conservation of momentum 

We talked about inertia. Mass can be seen as how bulky the product is. Larger the product, the larger the force required to accelerate its growth. Hence, all modern practices are striving toward leaner products, leaner processes.

Friction

Friction/Drag is an external force that opposes the motion. In effect, it also opposes the external force you apply to move an object. So, as soon as you are done fighting inertia, you start fighting friction. Applies very well to products. Every interface is a potential point of friction. And I am not just referring to the user interface here. Any layer where your product meets another internal or external layer can be a point of friction - UI (product meets user), Delivery/Support(people meet people), Hardware (product meets system), Software - Third-party integrations (product meets other products) Software development (people meet people).

To make things simple I have categorized friction - so that it is easy to identify it and fight it. There are 3 types of friction in Products:

1. Physical: Physical friction is the most apparent. It is caused by a bad user interface (UI), unclear messaging, unintuitive placement of features, difficult usability, non-intuitiveness of the flow. A lot has been said about how to design better so I wouldn't focus on rehashing that. I'd just recommend reading the "Non-designer's Design Book".

2. Systemic: And then there are less apparent constraints that drag the experience back. It can be due to constraints of the Hardware or Software, Network speed, Sensor limitations, or even the Organization. Whether People meet a System, or People meet People, every interface is a potential point of friction. It might be easy to diagnose these constraints but it is hard to rectify them. However, in most cases with some effort, all of these can be optimized for better. And just like inertia, another level where product managers need to solve for friction is when people meet people. Your sales guy wouldn't talk to the operations and ops gang will just create support tickets that never reach the developers. A lot of time goes into setting up communication right. How the organization communicates internally has a lot of impact on products. So, removing this friction is one of the primary duties of a product manager.

3. Cognitive
This friction is the hardest to identify. Expectations, Ego and other behavioral issues often offer resistance to your product engagement tactics. Lack of trust is a big issue for a new product. And there are quite a few other Psychological biases that keep users from trying your product, trying all features, adopting it and engaging often. When users are past their inertia, there are more forces (biases) that drag the adoption rates. PMs need to know about these biases and how to leverage them.

Leverage  - Levers and Pulleys

Archimedes famously said, “give me a lever long enough and place a stand and I will move the earth.” Most mechanical machines work on levers and pulley mechanics. It teaches how a small effort can translate to a larger work done. We know for a fact that 20% of the activities generate 80% of results. There may be smaller things, e.g. improving the signup flow, making action button more prominent - that can have a disproportionate impact in growth, as compared to, a new feature that might not move the most important metrics.

Identify your business goals, what moves your product towards achieving the correct goals and focus your energy on pushing those levers. One should create a comprehensive data-driven roadmap - and then executing the roadmap is all about regular relentless prioritization.

Entropy 

Every new product/feature increases the entropy of the system for a limited period. As a product guy, it is our prime responsibility to reduce the entropy in User's Experience. I recall how introducing a new set of more appropriate, better-looking icons drew flak from the users at one of the Fintech SaaS products I worked for. The earlier icons may have been inappropriate and confusing (if not wrong), but the users (of this B2B product) had trained themselves to the current set. Changing it to appropriate icons confused the users and resulted in a lot of support calls and chaos. My learning - whenever I introduce something new I would introduce clients to it long before it actually gets to production. I would also create very readable release notes that users would love to read and enjoy - and also educate themselves about the new features.

Work does not convert 100% into the output. Some will get dissipated to create entropy. That's why perpetual machines are not possible. But this does apply to chain reactions in nuclear physics.

Chain Reaction -  Nuclear physics (can it be related to network effects) 

Most of the time the energy of the system remains conserved. So, is true for products. Growth is directly proportional to the effort. However, a lot of products in past grew disproportionately because of something called viral-ity, or network effects. 

A product is said to have a network effect when the users realize that having more users of the product will make it more valuable for them. This means they have an intrinsic motivation to brag about the product and get more people to it. Once a product's user base has realized the network effects - the product's user base grows much like a nuclear chain reaction. 

In the end, there is continuum. Everything in the universe has an ever-expanding scope. Beware. Understand your SPACE-TIME better. Both space and time can vary your product strategy. What is trending today, maybe a flop tomorrow? What works in one market may not work in other.

So, that was a little fun with analogies where Physics meet Products. Hope you enjoyed it.





If you managed to read all this, do leave a comment for Ujjwal Trivedi. 

1 comment:

  1. This is a great read and spot on!

    We could relate the Law of cooling to how quickly a product will become irrelevant. (The law states that the rate of change of temperature of a body is directly proportional to the difference between its own temperature and that of the environment).

    As the gap between the product's offerings and the requirements of the environment widens, the product lifetime decays faster! We must make sure to stay relevant to the customer's needs to safeguard our product from dying!

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