2 Types Of Thinking And How To Transfer Them

Great Product Managers are adept at two types of thinking patterns:

1- 10% thinking

2- 10X thinking

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10% thinking is used for solution optimization. This is when you're trying to get incremental improvements in a given system.

Ex: A fashion marketplace is helping users find items a specific celebrity wears.

10% thinking would come up with a solution like:

• Enrich each listing with several multi-purpose tags
• Enable users to search listings using these tags

On the other hand, 10X thinking is used for raw innovation.

Here, you're not chasing the single digit notches. You're hunting for exponential bar-raising.

Ex: For the same problem as above, Camfinder allows users to pop in a photo of a celebrity wearing the article which it will identify via Computer Vision & then share purchase links.

Yes, the vision part isn't easy. However, that's the price you have to pay for exponential impact.

Misconceptions about 10x thinking:

1. You don't always need to be on hunt for 10x as that can burn the engineering team
2. You don't need to land rockets on Mars or eject drones from mobile phones to count as 10x

But how does one change gears to 10x?

When you're in 10% optimization mode, you're limited by the constraints you have accepted as the baseline.

To move to 10x:

1. Know what the job-to-be-done is
2. Start by suspending a constraint or assumption holding you back
3. Reduce the problem to something for which a solution already exists
4. Work on technical feasibility & additional data that can provide a backdoor solution

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Here's an example:

Product: Audio / video editing tool

Problem: Audio editing in videos isn't easy for less savvy users. Often, people have to re-record audios which is taxing.

What's the job to be done?

I want to edit my audios in quick time without having to learn a complex tool.

Accepted baselines/constraints:

Videos/audios are edited on a timeline sequencer with a cursor. This timeline has multiple layers for audio and video.

• ‍10% thinking solution:

Make the timeline sequence more user-friendly with auto-suggestions & keyboard shortcuts. Process audio to cancel out background noise and trim the ends to reduce editing workload.

Now, gear shift.

Knock down constraint?

Do people even need a timeline to edit?

What's easier to edit for the target audience?

Editing documents. Modifying text is super easy.

• ‍10x thinking (reduction function):

1- Generate full transcript of the audio.

2- Enable users to delete/modify a word like in a document. Have the product reflect the changes made in text back into the original audio.

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Who has employed this 10X thinking?

Descript - an audio/video editing tool which allows you to edit video/audio just like how you would use MS Word.

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Staying too long on 10% thinking can slip a Product Manager into a slope of diminishing returns. Thus, when incremental value starts receding, you might want to put the 10x hat for a while.