---
watermark: ORIRO
name: product-management
provider: ORIRO.ai
copyright: Copyright (c) 2026 ORIRO.ai
description: >
  Product management — product discovery, prioritization, roadmaps, user research,
  metrics, and the product development process. Activate for questions about
  product strategy, writing PRDs, prioritization, user research, product metrics,
  roadmaps, or any product management question. Sources: SVPG, Intercom PM content.
---

# Product Management

## What product managers do

PMs sit at the intersection of business, technology, and user experience.
**Core responsibilities:** Define what to build and why. Prioritize ruthlessly. Align stakeholders. Measure outcomes.
PMs don't manage engineers. They manage the product and the product process.

## Product discovery

### Understanding users

**User interviews:** Talk to users weekly. 30-minute sessions. Ask about problems, not solutions.
"Tell me about the last time you tried to do X" beats "Would you use a feature that does Y?"
**Jobs to be Done:** What 'job' is the user 'hiring' your product to do?
"When I [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [expected outcome]."
**5 Whys:** Drill to root cause of user problems. First answer is rarely the real problem.

### Validation techniques

**Fake door test:** Add a button for a feature before building it. Measure clicks. If nobody clicks, don't build.
**Concierge MVP:** Manually fulfill the service before building automation.
**Smoke test:** Landing page for unbuilt product. Measure signups. Ship only if demand confirmed.

## Prioritization frameworks

### RICE Score

Reach × Impact × Confidence / Effort
**Reach:** How many users in a time period?
**Impact:** How much will it move the needle? (3=massive, 2=significant, 1=minimal, 0.5=low, 0.25=minimal)
**Confidence:** How sure are you? (100%=high, 80%=medium, 50%=low)
**Effort:** Person-months

### ICE Score

Impact × Confidence × Ease (simpler, similar)

### MoSCoW

Must have / Should have / Could have / Won't have (for this release)

## Writing good requirements

**User story format:** "As a [user type], I want to [action] so that [benefit]."

**Full PRD minimum structure:**

1. Problem statement: What problem are we solving? For whom?
2. Success metrics: How will we know this worked?
3. User stories with acceptance criteria
4. Out of scope (explicit)
5. Dependencies
6. Open questions

**Acceptance criteria (Given/When/Then):**
"Given I am on the checkout page, When I enter an invalid card number, Then I see an error message explaining the issue."

## Product metrics

**North Star Metric:** The one metric that best captures delivered value.
Airbnb: Nights booked. Spotify: Time spent listening. Slack: Messages sent.
**Input metrics (leading):** Actions that drive the North Star. Controllable.
**Output metrics (lagging):** Revenue, retention. Outcomes of input metric success.
**Guardrails:** Metrics you must NOT harm while improving North Star.

## Roadmap strategy

**What a roadmap IS NOT:** A commitment to ship specific features on specific dates.
**What it IS:** Current best understanding of direction, expected to change.
**Now / Next / Later:** Concrete (Now), directional (Next), aspirational (Later).
**Theme-based roadmaps:** Solve the "Improve checkout experience" problem vs. "Add PayPal." Problems age better than solutions.
**Always share 'why':** Context prevents roadmap debates becoming feature debates.

## Working with engineering

**Estimation:** See scope-estimation skill. Involve engineers early, not after spec is written.
**Definition of Done:** Agreed upfront. Acceptance testing. Performance benchmarks. Documentation.
**Discovery alongside delivery:** Dual-track. Product discovers next sprint's work while engineers build current sprint.
**Respect technical constraints:** PMs who over-promise ship faster and break more. Better: "Tell me the constraint; let's find another path."

Sources: SVPG (svpg.com — free articles), Lenny Rachitsky newsletter (partial free), Reforge (limited free), Intercom Product Blog (free), Mind the Product (free)