In this episode of the How to Succeed in Product Management Podcast, marketing professor Jeff Shulman and The Product Management Center advisory board members Red Russak and Soumeya Benghanem welcome Dontae Delgado (Compass) and Siddhartha Rabindran (Microsoft) to discuss managing assumptions and start ranking them from the top most important to the least important, and build a framework around it to help develop the product. Assumptions, when correctly utilized and tested in the right environment exponentially helps product leaders find success.

Support for How to Succeed in Product Management is brought to you by Apptentive, which enables product managers to measure shifts in customer emotion and gather actionable feedback across the mobile customer journey. To learn more, go to Apptentive.com/UW.

What to Listen For:

00:00 Intro
01:42 The importance of managing assumptions and risk management
03:46 It’s easy to become comfortable with the flows of the product
05:11 Clarity plays an important role in managing assumptions
08:44 The different classifications of assumptions
10:45 Approach is the most important part of addressing assumptions
13:55 Assumption prompts to make assumptions explicit
15:52 The build versus buy evaluation
19:53 After generating assumptions, start ranking them
23:36 Critical path is about the solution and the framing
24:25 Proper documentation is key to effective communication
27:17 Situations that could happen when assumptions aren’t made
29:45 Reference books and resources for assumption management
37:04 How do you go about validating assumptions?
40:31 The product team considers four important things: product, market, channels, and business model
43:42 Producer and consumer framework in critical in managing expectations
47:31 Building a culture of domain empathy
50:28 Assumptions are an integral part of everything we do
54:13 Assumptions are linchpin to product success
55:29 Some assumptions, when utilized correctly or incorrectly, either hurt or help the products

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