How to take data driven decisions?
Jhashank Gupta
Mobile Product Manager, Zomato
Truly innovative ideas you have won’t come from boring over data but when you are half-asleep in bed, or travelling in a cab or I don’t know maybe just having a cup of tea.
This is a difficult question to answer – and I would really like to quote Deep Kalra from a fireside chat that he and Deepinder recently had at Zomato’s office:
He said something that made sense to me – that the truly innovative ideas you have won’t come from boring over data but when you are half-asleep in bed, or travelling in a cab or I don’t know maybe just having a cup of tea.
Data is very important because it helps you identify where to look. After that I think it is about diving deeper into the problem and coming up with solutions.
Where data helps me the most is in prioritization – you’ve figured out a few problem statements, you have figured out a few solutions for each of the problem statements – now you need to decide what to build.
The framework is simple – Effort vs. Impact. Let me illustrate this using an example.
As a product manager, you have to increase the % of users who sign-up and login on your app.
Case 1 : Problem with sign-up
Some people are dropping off from the email field, you can get a 12% increase in throughput if you make it optional
Case 2 : Problem with phone number already registered
All users encounter an issue where they can’t proceed if their phone number is already registered, this can be resolved for 100% of the users by integrating the SDK.
Prima facie, Case 2 seems to be a much bigger challenge, but when you consider:
- Case 2 impacts only 3% users whereas Case 1 impacts 40% users
- Case 1 can be fixed by a small backend change
You realise how it can have a much greater impact on your metrics – this is where the data helps.
