Google Product Design: Connecting Product Managers With Customers, With Success Metrics

As a product manager at Google, you are asked to create a solution that helps product managers and their customers communicate better. You also need to explain how you would measure whether the solution is a success. ### Clarifying Questions - Are the customers the end users of a specific Google consumer product, or the business customers of an enterprise product? - Does communication mean customers reaching product managers (feedback, bug reports, ideas), product managers reaching customers, or both directions? - Should the solution be a tool for Google's own product teams, or a product Google could offer to product managers at other companies? - Is improving an existing feedback channel in scope, or should the answer be something new? ### Part 1 — Design the solution Choose whose communication you are improving on each side, identify what goes wrong in it today, and propose the solution you would build first, explaining why it beats the alternatives. ```hint Two groups, two directions Product managers and customers want different things from the conversation, and messages flow both ways. List what breaks for each group in each direction before you decide what to build. ``` #### What This Part Should Cover - A clear scope: which product, which customers and which direction of communication, with reasons - Prioritized pain points for both product managers and customers - Two or three distinct solution ideas compared on impact and effort, with one chosen and its first version described ### Part 2 — Define success metrics Propose the metrics you would use to judge whether your solution is working. ```hint Success for each side Decide what a successful exchange looks like for a product manager and for a customer before you pick numbers, and think about what could get worse if the solution works too well. ``` #### What This Part Should Cover - A primary metric tied directly to the problem the solution addresses - Supporting metrics for both the product-manager side and the customer side - Guardrail metrics that catch harm such as prompt fatigue, low-quality input or privacy concerns ### What a Strong Answer Covers - Treats the problem as two-sided and two-way rather than only as a better way to collect input - Fits the answer to Google's scale: very large volumes of input, many feature teams and strong privacy expectations - Links the metrics directly to the chosen solution and its first version - Names risks such as bias toward the most vocal users, overloading people with prompts, and promising changes that never ship ### Follow-up Questions - Your solution triples the amount of customer input, and product managers say they cannot keep up. What do you change? - How would you make sure what product managers hear represents all users, not only the most vocal ones? - How would the design change for an enterprise product whose customers are companies with dedicated account managers?