Jason Oakley
When you think of Isaac Newton and the apple, you probably remember a story like this:
Apple falls from a tree, hits him on the head, and blammo, he gets the idea for gravity.
But that's wrong. Because when the apple fell, Newton was already studying astronomy, how planets and moons move, and trying to find a unified rule for terrestrial and celestial mechanics.
In other words, he was actively trying to figure out gravity.
That's the problem with a lot of the research being done by PMMs today. We're out there doing random acts of research. Maybe just for the sake of it, maybe because we feel we should be doing it.
Newton had a question he was trying to answer. We often don’t.
And I'll be the first to say, I've been guilty of it too. Setting up systems and having a quota of X interviews a month, with no clear objective in mind. Just gathering "voice of the customer" ya know?
Instead, we should take a page from the way most win-loss programs are run, and adopt the idea of learning objectives and sprints. My friend Ryan Sorley taught me this.
At any point in time, have 3-5 questions you're trying to answer. And focus on that until you feel confident you have it answered enough to make a recommendation you can act on.
All of your interviews, the questions you ask on random calls or at event, even what your ask your LLM to look for in all your transcripts and Slack messages, should be focused on those learning objectives.
And the learning objectives shouldn't just reflect what you want to learn. After all, product marketing is the most interconnected role in your company. So if you want a seat at the table, and people invested in your research, you need to have your learning objectives align with theirs.
You can uncover their learning objectives with a simple question, like:
- What decisions are you trying to make this quarter?
- If you could have a customer answer one question, what would it be?
- What unknowns are you trying to figure out in the sales cycle this quarter?
Then, understand the impact that learning objectives could have, by asking:
- Why does that matter?
- What will you do with the insight once you have it?
- How will you measure the success that?
That will get your started on a solid list of learning objectives.
You then just need to prioritize them, pick a few, and go chase down the answers.
When you feel confident you have an answer, mark it as “done for now” and move on to the next one.