14 Instances

When Technical
Knowledge Helped
a Product Manager

SWIPE
Did you say...technical?
Relax.

While a technical background isn't necessary to get into

every product management job, learning about the

technical fundamentals of web & mobile apps can

empower a PM to write better specs & have meaningful

conversations with developers.

Moreover, with the upcoming web3 revolution, PM

pundits reckon a tech foundation will become vital.

These are examples from my career (written in third

person) or PMs in my team. While jumping into the "tech"

side wasn't mandatory in some cases, I hope you'll see

how it saved time & effort for all parties involved.

OK. Enough talk.

 INSTANCE #1

Selecting a Stack

SITUATION

The product team has been asked

to develop a mobile app for a job

site. They have to prepare a MVP

in 2 months to demo to

customers. The UI needs to

impress & performance is key. The

team is deciding whether to build

it on Flutter or React Native.

 INSTANCE #1

Selecting a Stack
Tech Knowledge that helped the PM

Both frameworks were cross-platform i.e. you code

once & they'd work for Android & iOS saving time.

React had a bigger community for support but

lesser UI options out-of-the-box.

Flutter's performance was solid, had more default

design widgets but functional libraries were limited.

Flutter was eventually chosen due to rapid development,

performance and range of design choices.

By researching the differences online, the PM was able to

participate in the discussion & provide relevant business

context to aid in decision making.

 INSTANCE #2

Loading Content Faster

SITUATION

The development team of a B2C

website setup a Wordpress blog

for the marketing team. A few

months later, users & teammates

noticed the site speed was

sluggish & needed to improve.

 INSTANCE #2

Loading Content Faster

Tech Knowledge that helped the PM

The marketing team had been loading heavy assets

like images and logo sets on the blog recently.

These images were currently being hosted on the

application server.

The PM knew that by moving the images to a

Content Distribution Network (CDN), the images

would be, simply put, placed across geographically

distributed servers. When a user would load the

page, the server closest to them would serve the

images, reducing latency & improving site speed.

An understanding of how servers serve content & how

CDNs help in reducing latency times empowers a PM with

a handy resolution to counter slow load times.

 INSTANCE #3

Embedding a Product

SITUATION

The product team of a classifieds

platform is planning to power the

classifieds section of a digital

news channel. The channel wants

their product embedded in one of

their site pages but the dev team

doesn't have access or control of

their page.
 INSTANCE #3

Embedding a Product
Tech Knowledge that helped the PM

The classifieds site they had made for the news

channel was hosted on a server they owned.

The new channel's IT team was sent an iframe (an

HTML container that can load a page within a web

page) that pointed to the site.

The IT team embedded this iframe on their page of

choice & their users were able to interact with the

portal without any issue.

Since the iframe pointed to a page the dev team

controlled, they could still push changes instantly.

Knowledge of HTML constructs helped the PM overcome a

challenge involving a product hosted on an external

environment.
 INSTANCE #4

Tweaking CSS

SITUATION

The design team pushed out a

release of a revamped landing

page of a B2C automobile

website. The Product Manager is

reviewing the build and planning

to give some feedback on the

first fold which looks off.

 INSTANCE #4

Tweaking CSS
Tech Knowledge that helped the PM

With the page open, the PM opened the developer

tools bar on their browser.

They highlighted a few HTML elements and tweaked

the CSS properties (e.g. font size, margins, padding

etc.) till the design matched expectations.

The PM then sent a screenshot to the designer to

highlight what they were hoping to achieve.

Tweaking the HTML/CSS saved the PM time on

wireframing or annotating the design. Note that the PM

isn't necessarily suggesting specific fixes to the code;

they're just manipulating the design to match their needs

to provide feedback faster.

 INSTANCE #5

Querying for Numbers

SITUATION

The Product Manager of a

recruitment site is trying to

calculate the average # of jobs

posted by a recruiter asap. The

development team is busy in a

sprint & the PM can't wait to log

a ticket & hope for a reply.

 INSTANCE #5

Querying for Numbers

Tech Knowledge that helped the PM

The PM fired up their SQL Query interface.

The PM typed a up a basic SQL query to find the

average using the AVG() function.

The PM then proceeded to group the results by

country & user-type using the GROUPBY () query.

When it comes to querying the database, fundamental

SQL knowledge can help PMs fetch answers they need by

performing read queries to extract insights & numbers.

 INSTANCE #6

Looking Up Data

SITUATION

The development team has

shared a list of user Ids & the IP

addresses these users logged in

from.

The PM is cross-matching these

IPs with a blacklist IP database

they acquired recently to decide

what users to block.

 INSTANCE #6

Looking Up Data
Tech Knowledge that helped the PM

The PM pasted the IP blacklist and the data given

by the dev team in one Google spreadsheet.

The PM added a column D against the user ID

called "Found/Not Found"

The PM used the VLOOKUP function on column D to

detect if the IP entered in the row was found on the

blacklist.

Excel might not seem like a tech skill but formula hacking

& basic scripting is a superpower. PMs often get handed

data on a spreadsheet and ability to cross-match data

across tables and sheets using presets comes in handy.

 INSTANCE #7

Flowcharting an Algo

SITUATION

The product team is attempting

to create an onboarding

experience that culls out spam,

minimizes data entry &

personalizes the welcome email.

The dev team is looking for the

logic to power this system.

 INSTANCE #7

Flowcharting an Algo
Tech Knowledge that helped the PM

The PM jotted down extensive psuedo-code to

depict the logic & cover all the possible branches.

Ex: Parse the domain from the email address >

if the domain was .edu or .gov, follow flow X

if the domain was from a free email provider like

Gmail, consult a service to check spam

then, check if the email was on a blacklist & so on.

The PM additionally drew up a logical flowchart to

illustrate this giving devs a great reference point.

A step-by-step representation of complex logic in the

form of a flowchart, pseudo-code or syntax like Gherkin

works better than an essay-like memo.

 INSTANCE #8

Visualizing States
SITUATION

The product team of a recruitment

platform is re-designing the job

posting experience.

They decide to update the various

states a job posting can assume

e.g. draft, published, expired,

closed etc. The development team

needs to know the possible states

& allowable transitions.

 INSTANCE #8

Visualizing States
Tech Knowledge that helped the PM

Instead of writing a long spec, the PM drew up a

state diagram in the shape of a directed graph.

The PM annotated all the actions that can lead to a

transition from one state to another.

The PM highlighted the start state and the sink

states (from where there was no exit e.g. deleted).

This helped save time as the development team

was able to codify this directly into a plugin that

governed the state of an object.

Knowledge of a state engine helps clarify the possible

transitions. It's also visually easy to see if any flows were

missing. Collaboration is also possible if drafted in Miro.

 INSTANCE #9

Scripting Combos
SITUATION

The PM was preparing to run

Google Ads to attract more

traffic to the automobile

classifieds platform the team

launched. The plan was to bid on

all the various car make & model

keyword combos across 3 cities.

The permutations were too many

to list out manually.

 INSTANCE #9

Scripting Combos
Tech Knowledge that helped the PM

The PM had to upload a CSV file for all the

keywords they wanted to bid on e.g. Used Honda

Civic in [City], Used Honda in [City], Used Cars in

[City] and so on.

With 20+ makes, 100+ models & 3 cities, the combos

would be too much to manually type up.

The PM put all the makes, models & cities in a file &

wrote a Ruby script to generate the combos & spit

them out in a CSV.

There was only 1 heavily-loaded developer on the team.

The PM was able to cut through a time-consuming task

with basic-level coding without getting blocked on the

developer's availability.
 INSTANCE #10

Empathizing with the DB

SITUATION

The product team of an employee

onboarding platform has just

discovered from a customer that

an employee can be assigned to

two different departments.

The original flows were developed

under the assumption that

employees are mapped to only a

single department.
 INSTANCE #10

Empathizing with the DB

Tech Knowledge that helped the PM
On face value, it may have seemed that change

was limited to the input form where the employee

department is specified.

However, the PM knew that the database (DB) table

that stored departments only had a single column

for it and would require a deeper change.

To accommodate for multiple departments, a new

database table would need to be setup & existing

data would need to be remapped, requiring time

and care.

The PM needs to know how data is stored in the backend

because it gives them a sixth sense on how heavy a change

request can be and what repercussions it can bring.

 INSTANCE #11

Researching APIs

SITUATION

The product team is brainstorming

how they can reduce time-to-

value on a travel agency

management app. The PM is

exploring options to capture flight

itinerary data from an external

service, FlightAware.
 INSTANCE #11

Researching APIs
Tech Knowledge that helped the PM
Use Case: The travel agent wants to add a

customer's itinerary by just adding a date & airlines.

The agent also needs meta-data on the flight like

times, flight codes, plane info & stopovers.

The PM explores if they can knock off a few manual

entry fields by fetching the data from a service like

FlightAware.

Before involving devs, the PM researches the API

documentation to understand endpoints, limitations,

parameters. The PM also uses an online curl tool to

use the API & check the returning JSON.

By conducting primary research, the PM not only saves

developer time, but also sketches out a more detailed spec

AND is able to stumble upon other opportunities of

automation by looking at other retrievable data points.

 INSTANCE #12

Baking Cookies
SITUATION

In a classifieds marketplace, users

were being asked to sign up

before they could save ads of

interest. This was dropping

conversions.

The product team is now

exploring options where items can

be saved without creating an

account.
 INSTANCE #12

Baking Cookies
Tech Knowledge that helped the PM
The PM knew that without a login, the data could still

be stored in the cookies of the browser.

However, the PM needed to plan for several scenarios:

clearing of the cache, a new browser, denial of

permission to drop cookies by the user at the start etc.

The PM had to handle cases like a user with an existing

≠
account logged in such that the saved items in the

cookies saved items on their account.

Predicting troubleshooting could get tricky, the PM

suggested to devs to periodically log the cookie state

in the server logs on page transitions.

Knowing the limitations around using cookies helped the PM

plan for several edge cases & scenarios. This not only saved

time but also created a solid user experience which

otherwise, could have led to tons of confusion.

 INSTANCE #13

Geo-Personalizing
SITUATION

The marketing site of a popular

multi-national recruitment

product displays the same 5

company logos as social proof

on its landing page.

The product team is planning to

localize the experience by

showing logos of companies

based on the visitor's geography.

 INSTANCE #13

Geo-Personalizing
Tech Knowledge that helped the PM

The PM knew that this required tagging each of the

customer logos with a standard list of geographies.

The PM also understood that there was no need to ask

the user for their geography. GeoIP services existed

that allowed them to infer the data from the source IP.

The PM acknowledged limitations like the usage of a

VPN (virtual private network).

The PM knew they should specify a fallback state (set

of logos) in case, for any reason, the system failed to

determine the geography.

Understanding that an IP can be used to reveal location

empowered the PM to craft different flows and logic

around the state of the application.

 INSTANCE #14

Deciphering Codes

SITUATION

The PM noticed sharp drops in

502 site traffic on Analytics in the last

month. The PM is investigating

possible causes for these

anomalies in traffic.
 INSTANCE #14

Deciphering Codes
Tech Knowledge that helped the PM
The PM pulled in the server logs and started reviewing

the server codes.

The PMs saw things like 301, 404 & 502s.

The PM knew that a 301 redirect wasn't something to

worry about (unless there was an infinite loop).

The PM also knew that 404 was an attempt to access an

invalid URL & just needed a standard page to redirect

the user back to a valid page.

The PM was shocked to learn a few unreported 502

errors which meant the server was overloaded or

memory capacity had been reached making it

unresponsive.

Typically, tools like NewRelic will monitor & alert about

server anomalies. However, even in normal conversation,

developers may use these error codes to convey issues. The

PM needs to know the differences to be able to comment.

 What technical
knowledge has
helped you as a
Product Manager?