As Product Managers, we always work with a long list of to-do things or with backlogs. But it is essential to make sure we have a list to do things and these requests and feature ideas will come from different stakeholders associated with the product. This is an ongoing process.

It’s important to understand that the product management role is not being the person who brings ideas. The product Manager will also have his own ideas and goals associated with the product but his main role is to collect ideas, feature requests, change requests and organize and manage them accordingly. But where do these ideas come from?

There are different sources that will bring ideas, feature requests and enhancements to the Product Owner.

1. Employees

• This includes ideas coming from coworkers, Management and by yourself
• Employees are very familiar with the product and the functionalities
• They have a clear understanding of processes, workflows associated with the product
• Therefore employees are able to identify potential for improvement and innovation
• It is important to have the necessary channels open to encourage employees to bring up their ideas

2. Metrics

• These ideas come from by looking at the metrics that indicate how users use the product
• It is important to have these metrics in place to obtain these details
• There are different types of Metrics
  • Growth and activation metrics
  • Engagement metrics
  • Retention metrics
  • User happiness metrics
  • Revenue metrics
• Improvements or changes can be done based on the insights obtained from these metrics

3. Users

• This includes feedback coming from different user groups
• This feedback comes via user feedback, social media comments or user complains
• The incident related stats coming from the support teams also give a good insight on the problems and difficulties associated with the product

4. Clients

• This includes feedback coming from clients
• This feedback is important in B2B businesses