How To Overcome Prioritising Challenges

Andreea Popescu at UXDX Community: Europe East. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bT0EQ9OIaE

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

Introduction and agenda

[00:00:00] Hello, everyone. I'm Andreea, and I will talk a few words about how to overcome prioritization challenges. Sometimes "prioritization" is that kind of word where you lose your tongue when you pronounce it, and sometimes it also gives you some problems when you actually start prioritizing in your work life. Good. Before going further, I will tell you a few words about me. Right now I'm called a UX PO. It's a combination of UX designer and product owner. I've been a product owner since April last year, so I have a year, and I've been a UX designer since 2015. Correct. So I have a few years behind me.

[00:00:52] I'm also a UX design mentor for et health [?], mainly helping startups with their UX design process, and for ADPList, where I've been a UX mentor since, actually, this month. You can find more information about me by following me on LinkedIn or Twitter. I'm not tweeting so much, but usually I'm sharing a lot of information on LinkedIn, information related to user experience and product ownership. Good.

[00:01:25] So I told you about prioritization. I will start with prioritization with love, of course. After that, what it means to be a UX product owner and to prioritize, because sometimes those jobs are fighting head-to-head, so it's not really easy to take some decisions sometimes and then to make the priorities. Which are the challenges during the prioritization process? Because, as I said, it's not something easy. Business value and user needs: those are the main values you should take into consideration when you are doing the prioritization. And what I've learned during prioritization, for future improvement of my process.

[00:02:22] Because I'm pretty sure there is no best process for prioritization. Each product owner, each UX designer, each development lead and so on has their own process for prioritization. Sometimes we can have some similarities between our processes, but I'm pretty sure that we do not have a best process, and I'm pretty sure that we are having great processes applied for our needs. Good.

Prioritization with love

[00:02:53] So, from prioritization with love: what is prioritization? When we're talking about prioritization, the best definition came from SCRUMstudy. I'm pretty sure that you are used to scrumstudy.com. But let's think a little bit about our life. You have two tasks to do: you need to go to the market to buy some apples, and you need to pay your electricity, because if you're not paying the electricity, the company may cut it. Which task is the most important? Of course the electricity, because the apples are in the market and you can go at any hour you want.

[00:03:45] Prioritization may seem simple at first glance, and may seem like, okay, you are doing that, and that, and that. But sometimes it's not really easy, especially when you are working with software products and you are handling a lot of stuff. In my experience until now, the most difficult part for me is prioritization. Why am I saying this? Because sometimes, when you are working in a company with other product owners in the team, you need to prioritize everything. That's why I'm saying "prioritization with love": you need to love prioritization, and you need to love working with other people to prioritize. Correct.

The challenges of prioritization

[00:04:43] Good. Which are the challenges of prioritization? There are not a few challenges; there are many challenges, but I'm pretty sure you know about those challenges as well. I will start with having two positions at the same time. Think about the fact that you need to take some decisions being the user experience designer, in my case being the design lead, and being also the product owner. From time to time it's pretty hard for me, and I need some time to reflect about how I should take the decision in that moment.

[00:05:36] I will give you an example. Let's say we have a shopping cart that needs to be redesigned from scratch, and let's say that we have a phone page, or product page, redesign from scratch. What should you choose to prioritize first? When I'm facing this kind of challenge, each time I'm going to trust the user, and also to see exactly which data, which analytics, can help me take this kind of decision, because both decisions are very important for the end user. How do you choose? For example, from the design perspective, I would say, "Okay, let's do the redesign of the shopping cart," because it's something larger than the product page; it has multiple flows, multiple elements and so on.

[00:06:41] And being a product owner, I would say, "Okay, but the shopping cart is running okay; the users know exactly how to use it. But the product page seems to be not really okay, and we want to sell more. We want to have in there maybe some information about the product." So sometimes it's pretty difficult to know exactly which is the best decision, and when you have these two positions at the same time, it's harder. But it's not impossible, and it's very fun sometimes.

[00:07:22] When you need to prioritize both the tasks for the design team and mix them. For example, my team has four designers, two copywriters and another UX designer, and they are shared resources. That means that everyone will need to take a resource, some people, from my team. And what should I do in that moment? Because I would also need those people. I will need to discuss with the other product owners, so discussion with the other product owners will be the most important thing. The challenge here is that you need to discuss, and you need to find the correct time to discuss, and you need to find the correct argument for you to have the team.

[00:08:22] And also, because the developers and content creators and testers are also shared teams, shared people, you need to negotiate people as well. From this kind of thing come a lot of challenges. You need to be a very good seller sometimes, and you need to be a very good advocate, because you need to sell your proposal, and you need to be a very good advocate for why you need to have that task or that story prioritized compared to other POs' stories or tasks.

[00:09:04] Shared teams and many projects to do. For example, sometimes we are running multiple projects at the same time, and it's not easy, because you may face the fact that two or three projects are all very, very important, and you need to prioritize which project is more important. Sometimes it's damn hard, very, very hard. There are things that you needed to finish yesterday, and another project that you need to finish today, and both are very important. You need to face this challenge, take it as it comes, and find a great solution to balance both projects.

[00:09:57] Changes that should be done as soon as possible. Oh, yeah. Sometimes, when your projects are running and you have everything very well established in your sprint and so on, there are things that are not working. Let's say that a feature in the flow is not working anymore, like maybe the know-your-customer feature for photographing and so on is not working. What should you do in that case? Because it's a very important feature, and people are not able to use the shopping cart anymore, you should prioritize that feature, and for the other features you need to find a solution to reprioritize them, especially because sometimes you do not have the people. In my opinion, at this moment these kinds of things are the largest challenges. There are other, smaller challenges, but those are manageable. These kinds of challenges are the most challenging, for me at least.

Being both UX designer and product owner

[00:11:15] UX PO prioritization. Oh, yeah. Let's say that my right half is a product owner and the other half is UX designer. So I need to be very, very clear with the tasks, with the roadmap, with the backlog, with everything. Every instrument we have needs to be very well defined and well documented. And not just that, but we also need to know the customer very well. For example, we are running a lot of usability testing sessions, because it's not helping just me as a UX designer to better understand the behavior of the customer. It's also helping me as a product owner to better understand which features the client wants in the website or in the application.

[00:12:28] It will also help me to understand if the business direction in which we want to go is the correct one. I don't know if you know this example: what the business may want, for example, is a rocket; what we deliver in the prototype is a small rocket; and what the user really wants is a bicycle. So sometimes from the business perspective there may come some KPIs that are not really easy to achieve. But by better understanding the behavior of the customer and the needs of the customer, we will know exactly how to achieve those KPIs.

[00:13:20] Let's say that I run a usability testing audit; for example, I'm running a few usability testing sessions this week. To know better how the user is behaving, and why the user is stopping in the shopping cart, is very important for me to know, because we have some KPIs, and as a product owner I want to know why those KPIs are not achieved. As a UX designer, I want to see exactly which are the problems in the flow. So when I see the results at the end, when I receive the report at the end, I will find the balance: solving the flow, but also solving the KPI, the business need, the business need to sell the product. In that moment I will know exactly how to do the prioritization.

[00:14:15] So in my opinion, being both product owner and UX designer at the same time is a blessing. Why am I saying this? Because I'm more into understanding the customer compared with if I was just a product owner, let's say. Right now I'm having a greater focus on doing the UX design work to understand the customer behavior, but also, with the mind of product ownership, I want to see exactly how this customer behavior can change my KPIs, or how this customer behavior will help me achieve my KPIs.

[00:15:00] This mindset, in which I'm focusing on what the customer wants, is helping me to actually do the prioritization. Let's say that maybe I'm seeing that the customer is saying, "Okay, I want a feature because it's helping me remember my address," or something; it's just a random example. But as the product owner, if I see that that feature is not so important compared with a bug in the flow, the prioritization in this case will be to solve this bug in the flow, and after that will come the feature that the user wants, as something that may help him or her in the process, or not.

Balancing business value and user needs

[00:15:55] Business value and user needs. I mentioned a few minutes ago how important it is to have a balance between business value and user needs. Understanding those will help you a lot to find the equilibrium in the prioritization. It's not easy to understand the customer, the customer experience. It's not easy to understand the customer needs, because sometimes the needs of the customer may be very different from what you have in mind as a business goal. Sometimes you need to see exactly why those are different. And also, as a business, you need to see if you are focused on the customer.

[00:16:50] I will give you an example of selling. As a company, I want to sell phones. As a user, I want to buy phones, but I want to buy phones without paying too much for a phone, and having some plan for paying, not everything at the same time. Not paying 100 euro for the phone at once, but paying the hundred euro over five months. So as a business, I understood this problem of the user. To help me grow and also to help the user achieve the need, I will let the user pay the amount for the phone over five months.

[00:17:58] This is happening in prioritization too. You need to find exactly how to help the user by offering responses to their needs, but you also need to find the equilibrium to sell your thing and grow your business, because those are very important. In prioritization, as I said before, when you have a large number of tasks, let's say you have 30 tasks, maybe it's too much, but sometimes it happens, and you do not know exactly how to prioritize them, make sure that you have in mind the business goal. It's mandatory for the product owner to know about the business goals and the user needs. When you have a happy user, you will also have a good business. When your customer, your user, is not happy, your business is failing. So when you are doing the prioritization, have in mind both the user needs and the business goals.

What I've learned

[00:19:12] What I've learned until now: I learned that finding the balance between business goals and user needs is not as easy as you may think. It's never easy, because there are a lot of problems that you need to prioritize. Let's say that users are complaining that your website is running very slowly. What should you do? But at the same time, users are complaining that they cannot see enough details about the product. Both complaints are user needs, but which of these complaints relates to business goals? As a business, I want to sell more. As a user, I want an easy-to-navigate website, or more information about the product.

[00:20:16] So how I would prioritize depends on how I calculate a little bit here. Usually, for example, from usability testing you may find out which is more important for the user: the information, versus how fast the website is running. And based on this I will prioritize, because as a business, in this way, I will see exactly which is the breaking point where the user is not buying from me anymore. So I will need to prioritize in this way.

[00:21:00] Listen a lot to stakeholders and user direction, research and analytics, and take the right decision for your product. As a product owner you should listen, and not just to your colleagues and your stakeholders; have a look at users' direction. Do the research when you are creating the task. Do your research, and each time use Google Analytics or Hotjar or another tool that provides you very good information, the analytics on which direction the user is going. Research and analytics will help you a lot to prioritize.

[00:21:55] For example, let's say that you have two similar pages to do, one for television and one for internet. What do you choose to prioritize? How do you choose? From the business perspective, both are very, very important. Which is the one? If the pages still exist on your website, you can go directly to usability testing to find out. Or if you do not have the time or resources, because it's happening, it's a reality: we do not have time. We may say it's very important to have usability testing, to run a lot of A/B testing and so on, but we do not have time, and we need to accept it and be honest about that.

[00:22:48] But when you do not have time to do this kind of research, do the analytics part. In this way you will analyze the analytics, and you will find which of the pages is most used by users, so you may take the decision based on that. But here also it's not easy. You may say, okay, if the television page is more accessed by users, maybe it's because the flow is easier. If the internet page is not so accessed by users, maybe the flow is not really okay. So based on those, and I suggest also having Hotjar, you will be able to take the right decision.

[00:23:44] Communication is the main key, which opens many doors. Yes. Learn to communicate with developers. Hear what they want to say, because developers are great people. It's not so nice to say "resources"; developers are great people, and they may know the product better than you, because they spend a lot of time in the product. So make sure that you are communicating with the stakeholders, with the other product owners, with the designers, with everyone. Learn to communicate, because when you learn to communicate, you will achieve something much bigger. That means that you will learn how to prioritize.

[00:24:37] Shared resources: you need to learn how to negotiate them. Yes, you need to be a negotiator as well. If you do not have the skills, there are a lot of courses where you may learn how to negotiate for people; for example, some soft skills courses will help you learn about it. Be flexible and be adaptable, because you need to change from time to time. Sometimes during the sprint you need to change. It's not something that you want, but sometimes it's mandatory. So you need to be flexible, have a positive attitude regarding the changes, and adapt to everything. And of course, agile can be adapted to your group's way of working. This is another thing that I suggest doing.

Future improvements to my process

[00:25:30] Future improvement of my process: listen more and more. Sometimes when we are having too many meetings, maybe we are not listening too much. So in my opinion I should also listen more and more, have more patience, and analyze everything. In my opinion, to analyze something is the key to learning more about your product, your people, and also how to prioritize.

[00:26:05] And know about other products that can affect your product. Sometimes in larger product companies, the main product has other ramifications. It's something like a tree with leaves and branches. So you need to know how the other products are interfering with your product, to know exactly what to expect when the other products are changing, and which changes can affect your product. This is the best lesson I've learned, because at the beginning, when I became a product owner, there were other products that I didn't know, because I was new to product ownership, and I didn't know exactly all the implications in that direction. And I may say that right now I know the other products. At the beginning I didn't, but right now I know the other products.

[00:27:06] Takeaways: listen, communicate, be flexible and learn. These are my four strong pieces of advice for you. Be open to listen. Be open to communicate. Be flexible; it's very, very important. And learn: we never stop learning. Each day is a classroom, in my opinion. For example, each day I'm opening the laptop and jumping into the first meeting, and it's something that I might learn from. I might learn from the developer, because I'm curious to know exactly how things are going behind the scenes. I may learn from the tester. From the designer I may learn about how the brand book is behaving, how the other products are behaving and so on. So learn.

[00:28:04] Thank you very much for your time. And not least, at the end: I am not a UI designer, and for the images used in my presentation I've used some images created by other UI designers, and you may find the images here. Thank you very much, and do not forget to use those four pieces of advice.