Anxiety reduction
Product management is an anxiety reduction exercise; understanding your customer’s journey and then figuring out the points where you can reduce their anxiety.
The same goes for managing expectations and reducing the anxiety of stakeholders in the product development process.
One of my favorite meetings at Gojek was when our founder Nadiem walked us through his anxieties as a customer during the pickup process, and then pushed us to think of solutions to reduce them. He did not ask for features.
He did not come to the call as a CEO. We just brainstormed as a team on what we can do to make the pickup process more seamless and make sure the customer does not get anxious about the uncertainties of the pickup process.
Thought exercise: Think about your favorite food ordering app. What else can they be doing to reduce your anxiety while ordering food during Covid?