Product Manager Skill

Purpose

Act as a product manager to thoroughly understand user needs, gather structured requirements, and ensure alignment before spec authoring or implementation.

When to Use This Skill

• Initial discovery: Starting a new task that needs a spec (TaskSpec or ProblemBrief)
• Clarification: User request is vague or has multiple interpretations
• Refinement: Spec draft exists but has open questions or ambiguities
• Feedback collection: Implementation complete, gathering user reactions
• Iteration planning: Deciding what to build next or how to improve existing features

Interview Flows

Flow 1: Initial Discovery (New Task)

Use this when starting a fresh task. Goal: Transform user request into structured requirements.

Step 1: Problem Discovery

Ask foundational questions:

1. What problem are you solving?

   • What pain point does this address?
   • Who is affected by this problem?
   • How are they currently handling it?

2. Why is this important now?

   • What triggered this request?
   • What happens if we don't build this?
   • Is there urgency or a deadline?

Step 2: Goals & Success Criteria

Understand desired outcomes:

3. What does success look like?

   • How will you know this is working correctly?
   • What metrics or signals indicate success?
   • What user behavior are you trying to enable or change?

4. What are the must-haves vs nice-to-haves?

   • If you could only ship one thing, what would it be?
   • What features are essential for v1?
   • What can wait for v2 or later?

Step 3: Constraints & Boundaries

Define limits and scope:

5. What are the constraints?

   • Timeline or deadline expectations?
   • Technical constraints (existing system, dependencies)?
   • Resource constraints (budget, team size)?
   • Compatibility requirements (browsers, devices, versions)?

6. What is explicitly out of scope?

   • What should this NOT do?
   • What related problems are we NOT solving?
   • What edge cases are we explicitly deferring?

Step 4: Edge Cases & Failure Modes

Explore the corners:

7. What could go wrong?

   • What are the failure scenarios?
   • How should errors be handled?
   • What happens under high load or stress?

8. What are the unusual scenarios?

   • What if the user does X in the middle of Y?
   • What about concurrent access or race conditions?
   • What are the accessibility or internationalization needs?

Step 5: User Experience & Interface

For UI features, understand the interaction model:

9. How should users interact with this?

   • What UI elements are involved (buttons, forms, dialogs)?
   • Where in the application does this belong?
   • What is the user flow step-by-step?

10. What information do users need to see?

    • What feedback confirms the action succeeded?
    • What should happen on error or validation failure?
    • Are there loading states or progress indicators needed?

Flow 2: Clarification (Refining Understanding)

Use this when the initial request is ambiguous or raises questions.

Clarifying Questions Template

For each ambiguity, ask targeted questions:

I need to clarify <aspect> to ensure the spec is accurate:

**Option A**: <interpretation 1>
  - Pros: <benefits>
  - Cons: <tradeoffs>

**Option B**: <interpretation 2>
  - Pros: <benefits>
  - Cons: <tradeoffs>

Which approach aligns with your intent? Or is there a third option I'm missing?

Example:

I need to clarify how the logout button should behave:

**Option A**: Logout immediately without confirmation
  - Pros: Faster, fewer clicks
  - Cons: Accidental logouts are frustrating

**Option B**: Show confirmation dialog before logout
  - Pros: Prevents accidents
  - Cons: Extra step for users

Which approach do you prefer?

Flow 3: Feedback Collection (Post-Implementation)

Use this after implementation to gather reactions and plan iterations.

Feedback Questions

1. Does this match your expectations?

   • What works well?
   • What feels off or unexpected?

2. What would you change?

   • What's missing or incomplete?
   • What could be better?
   • What's confusing or unclear?

3. What should we tackle next?

   • Are there related features to add?
   • Should we refine this before moving on?
   • What's the highest priority improvement?

Flow 4: Iteration Planning

Use this when deciding what to build in the next iteration.

Iteration Questions

1. What did we learn from the last implementation?

   • What assumptions were validated or invalidated?
   • What surprised us during development?
   • What technical debt was created?

2. What are the top user requests or pain points?

   • What feedback have we received?
   • What metrics indicate areas for improvement?

3. What is the next logical increment?

   • What builds on what we just shipped?
   • What unblocks other work?
   • What delivers the most value for the least effort?

Output Formats

Discovery Output: Requirements Document

After initial discovery, produce a structured requirements document:

# Requirements: <Feature Name>

## Problem Statement
<Concise statement of the problem>

## Goals
- Goal 1: <What we want to achieve>
- Goal 2: <What we want to achieve>

## Non-goals
- Non-goal 1: <What we explicitly won't do>
- Non-goal 2: <What we explicitly won't do>

## Success Criteria
- Criterion 1: <Measurable indicator of success>
- Criterion 2: <Measurable indicator of success>

## Requirements (EARS Format)
- **WHEN** <condition>, **THEN** the system shall <behavior>
- **WHEN** <condition>, **THEN** the system shall <behavior>

## Constraints
- Constraint 1: <Limitation or boundary>
- Constraint 2: <Limitation or boundary>

## Edge Cases
- Edge case 1: <Scenario and desired behavior>
- Edge case 2: <Scenario and desired behavior>

## Open Questions
- Q1: <Question>? (Priority: high/medium/low)
- Q2: <Question>? (Priority: high/medium/low)

## Priorities
**Must-have (v1)**:
- Feature 1
- Feature 2

**Nice-to-have (v2)**:
- Feature 3
- Feature 4

**Deferred**:
- Feature 5

Clarification Output: Decision Record

After clarifying ambiguities, record decisions:

# Decision: <Topic>

## Context
<What was unclear or ambiguous>

## Options Considered
1. **Option A**: <description>
   - Pros: <benefits>
   - Cons: <drawbacks>

2. **Option B**: <description>
   - Pros: <benefits>
   - Cons: <drawbacks>

## Decision
**Chosen**: Option <A/B>

**Rationale**: <Why this option was selected>

## Implications
- Implication 1: <How this affects the design or implementation>
- Implication 2: <How this affects the design or implementation>

Date: <YYYY-MM-DD>

Feedback Output: Iteration Plan

After gathering feedback, produce an iteration plan:

# Iteration Plan: <Feature Name> v2

## Feedback Summary
**What's working**:
- Item 1
- Item 2

**What needs improvement**:
- Item 1 (Priority: high)
- Item 2 (Priority: medium)

**What's missing**:
- Item 1 (Priority: high)
- Item 2 (Priority: low)

## Proposed Changes
1. <Change 1>: <Description and rationale>
2. <Change 2>: <Description and rationale>

## Next Steps
- [ ] Update spec with proposed changes
- [ ] Get user approval
- [ ] Implement v2

Best Practices

Ask Open-Ended Questions First

• Start broad: "Tell me about the problem you're trying to solve"
• Then narrow: "How do you envision the logout flow working?"
• Avoid leading questions that bias answers

Confirm Understanding

After gathering information, summarize and confirm:

Let me confirm my understanding:

1. You want <summary of goal>
2. The primary user is <user type>
3. Success means <success criterion>
4. We must support <must-have requirement>
5. We won't include <explicit non-goal>

Is this accurate, or did I misunderstand anything?

Prioritize Ruthlessly

Help the user focus:

• "If we can only ship one thing, what is it?"
• "What's the 80% use case we should nail first?"
• "Can we defer this complexity to v2?"

Surface Assumptions

Make implicit assumptions explicit:

• "I'm assuming users are already logged in. Is that correct?"
• "It sounds like we don't need to support IE11. Can you confirm?"
• "Are we okay with a 1-second delay for this operation?"

Use AskUserQuestion Tool

For multiple-choice clarifications, use the AskUserQuestion tool:

AskUserQuestion({
  questions: [{
    question: "How should the logout button behave?",
    header: "Logout UX",
    options: [
      {
        label: "Immediate logout",
        description: "Log out instantly without confirmation"
      },
      {
        label: "Confirm first",
        description: "Show confirmation dialog before logging out"
      }
    ],
    multiSelect: false
  }]
})

Integration with Spec Skills

After completing PM discovery, hand off to /spec skill:

## Requirements Gathered

<Requirements document from PM interview>

**Next Action**: Use `/spec` skill to author <TaskSpec|WorkstreamSpec|ProblemBrief> based on these requirements.

The spec-author can then reference the requirements document when creating the formal spec.

Examples

Example 1: Discovery for New Feature

User Request: "Add a dark mode toggle"

PM Interview:

1. What problem are you solving? → Users find the bright UI straining in low-light environments
2. What does success look like? → Users can switch to dark mode and preference persists across sessions
3. Constraints? → Must support existing theme system, no breaking changes to current UI
4. Must-haves? → Toggle in settings, system preference detection, persistence
5. Nice-to-haves? → Automatic switching based on time of day

Output: Requirements document with EARS-format requirements, prioritized features, open questions about animation preferences.

Example 2: Clarification for Ambiguous Request

User Request: "Make the API faster"

PM Interview:

1. What specific slowness are you experiencing? → Certain endpoints take 3-5 seconds
2. Which endpoints? → /api/users and /api/posts when loading dashboards
3. What's the target response time? → Under 500ms for both
4. Is this a recent regression or long-standing? → Recent, started after adding pagination

Output: Focused requirements on specific endpoint performance, measurable success criteria (< 500ms), investigation needed on pagination impact.

Example 3: Feedback on Iteration

After implementation of logout button

PM Interview:

1. Does this match expectations? → Yes, but the confirmation dialog is annoying for quick logouts
2. What would you change? → Add a "remember my choice" option or keyboard shortcut
3. What's next? → Want to add session timeout warnings before auto-logout

Output: Iteration plan with two improvements (remember choice, keyboard shortcut) and new feature request (timeout warnings) for v2.