Customer Research & Data-Driven Decision Making

Product Owner Academy II: learning about customers, understanding statistics and applying scientific methods to testing

What you'll learn

Conduct the customer research in the right order

Plan and conduct quantitative research

Identify customer target segment

Review and refine the product vision

Conduct qualitative research

Prepare for a customer interview

Conduct a successful customer interview

Build customer persona

Build customer journey

Understand the key concepts of statistics

Use samples to derive conclusion about population

Identify mean and proportion

Describe the normal distribution and apply Empirical rule

Set null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis

Calculate confidence intervals for means and proportions

Set up experiment criteria

Apply various sampling techniques

Avoid common mistakes and biases

Understand the difference between MVP and prototype

Plan an MVP

Use multiple usability research methods

Understand the difference between usability research and user research

Plan and conduct an A/B test

Requirements

There are no prerequisites

Description

In order to survive in the market these days, it is absolutely critical to understand who your customers are, what are their needs, wants, goals and pain points. Missing a step in customer research, interviewing the wrong people or misinterpreting the experiment results can lead to poor sales, bad reviews and even to the product failure. At the same time, a holistic approach based on science and best practices will help you to maximize value delivered to the customers, and as a result bring your business to success.This is the second course in "Product Owner Academy" series. In this course we are going to take a deep dive into the world of customer research, statistics, user testing and data-driven decision making. You don't have to have any prior knowledge of the subject, as we will learn all the concepts from the basics.What will you learnAfter completing this course you will be able to confidently plan and execute quantitative and qualitative customer research, build customer personas, design customer journey and product vision. You will also learn how to confidently navigate the world of statistics, estimating means and proportions of the population, setting up confidence intervals and margin of error, defining null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis, calculating the rejection regions and criteria for decision. On top of that you will become familiar with various approaches to usability testing, learn how to set up an A/B test, how to design MVP and what is the difference between MVP and prototype.The course includes many activities using Miro (a free online whiteboard tool), knowledge tests and a lot of practical examples and pieces of advice on how to apply the new skills and knowledge to practice. There are also downloadable materials and useful links to help you maximize your learning outcomes.Whom is this course forWhile this course is designed with Product Owners in mind, it would definitely be useful for people involved in product or service development - startup and business owners, product team members, product and project managers and anyone else interested in customer research and data-driven decision making.This is an entry-level course, so we will start from the very basics and gradually build up the knowledge as we dive deeper into the topics. About your instructorI am the founder of Agile Apothecary. Having worked as Agile Coach and Product Owner in Rakuten, Indeed and McKinsey & Company, I had the privilege of being part of Agile transformation across multiple industries and geographies. Over more than 10 years of professional career, I have supported hundreds of teams, coached and trained thousands of people. I am especially passionate about training Product Owners, as this role is critical for the success of the business and is as challenging as it is exciting.Don't wait, sign up today and let's get started!

Overview

Section 1: Introduction

Lecture 1 About this course and Product Owner Academy

Lecture 2 Resources and tools you will need

Lecture 3 How to make the most out of this course

Section 2: Who are your customers?

Lecture 4 About this section

Lecture 5 Importance of knowing your customers

Lecture 6 Quantitative research

Lecture 7 ACTIVITY: research for a new business idea

Lecture 8 Segmentation: narrowing down your focus

Lecture 9 Review your product vision

Lecture 10 Section wrap-up

Section 3: Getting to REALLY know your customers

Lecture 11 About this section

Lecture 12 Qualitative research

Lecture 13 How to conduct interviews to get the information you need

Lecture 14 ACTIVITY: Preparing for an interview

Lecture 15 Why do we need customer persona?

Lecture 16 ACTIVITY: build a customer persona

Lecture 17 What is customer journey and why do we need it?

Lecture 18 ACTIVITY: Develop a customer journey

Lecture 19 Section wrap-up

Section 4: Applying statistics and making data-driven decisions

Lecture 20 About this section

Lecture 21 Statistics, population, means and proportions

Lecture 22 Confidence intervals and margin of error

Lecture 23 Normal distribution and Central Limit Theory

Lecture 24 Empirical rule

Lecture 25 Mean or proportion?

Lecture 26 ACTIVITY: Calculating confidence intervals

Lecture 27 Null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis

Lecture 28 Set up criteria for decision

Lecture 29 Sampling like a pro

Lecture 30 Common mistakes

Lecture 31 Section wrap-up

Section 5: Usability testing and user testing

Lecture 32 About this section

Lecture 33 MVP vs. prototype

Lecture 34 ACTIVITY: build MVP

Lecture 35 Usability testing: common approaches, pros and cons

Lecture 36 User testing or usability testing?

Lecture 37 ACTIVITY: Design an A/B test

Lecture 38 Section wrap-up

Section 6: Final notes

Lecture 39 What's next?

Lecture 40 BONUS

Product Owners, Product Managers and Business Owners who want to better understand the customers and maximize the business outcomes,Anyone who is involved in product development and wants to better understand customer research,Aspiring Product Owners and Agile Coaches who want to learn about the customer research process,Startup owners who want to build exceptional products loved by customers