Remember that quote by Brene Brown that I absolutely love?
Maybe stories are just data with a soul.
Brene Brown
There’s a reason I love it. To me it conveys two things:
- First, we need to make our product stories soulful so that they sell. We need to turn them into data stories.
- Second, we need to realize that the best way for us to get the story and our Why in the first place is through the extraction of data!
It’s the data really that informs your next strategic move as a Product person. So why would you not build it into all your product stories as well?!? In a past blog post, I talked about how you can create compelling stories that sell using two basic steps. I want to share a framework I often use for step 2 in that post: Accessorize your why with data.
The reason you accessorize your product stories with data is so that you can convey what success will look like to your stakeholder audience. You do that by first understanding the overall stakeholder or customer journey, and then using relevant data points to drive value.
North Star
Think of this like the title of your storybook. It’s that one golden thread that runs deep and true through every single thing you do for your product. Something like “Decrease number of penalties” or “Increase MRR”, for example.
Influencer
These are the chapters within your storybook. They are about the key outcomes your stakeholder wants to accomplish to get to that golden thread. It’s not a single thing they do within your product – it’s a funnel of a bunch of things they do in within your product that ends up being a key outcome for their day. Something like “Increase account reconciliations” or “Decrease churn”.
Lever
These are the sentences within your storybook. They are the nuts and bolts your stakeholders interact with in your product to achieve their key outcomes. Basically, your features and functionalities. Something like “DAU / Daily Active Users” or “Number of clicks”.
Remember, a book has a single title – so you need one North Star data point, not a gazillion; actually anything more than 1 is too much! A book then has just a handful of chapters – aim for maximum five Influencer data points because anything more is probably going to be noise. A chapter then can have many sentences – go slightly, not fully, wild here! Be deliberate about the kind of data points you choose at this level because you still want to be mindful about separating signal from noise.
The best way to do this is build top down. Figure out your North Star, then your Influencer, then your Lever. If you start bottom up, i.e. with Levers first, you’ll end up in analysis paralysis.
Also, be mindful about the stage your product is in. Is it a new versus growth versus mature product?
Our job as Product people is to deliver value and results through our stories. What better way to do that than through credible data points?
Don’t be shocked by the abundance of proof for the truth, which is hidden from many.
Ibn Taymiyyah