How to make a good Product decision without any data?

You all heard it before: Product Managers have to be data-driven and decisions need to be based on research and educated estimations.

Easier said than done!

There will be many situations where the data simply won’t be available, regardless of how hard you research. Or, even more often, getting the answer in data will take more time than the actual development of an idea.

How to do then?

1. Generate your own data

This will probably be your go-to strategy. It’s also an investment that will consume a lot of time and effort, but it’s for a greater cause: not to invest many resources into something that may never work.

So, what are your options?

Basically, try to build any of the MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) that will make sense for your case. There are tons of MVP articles and I talk about them extensively in my courses, but for now, let’s focus on what matters.

An MVP is a version of your product or product update that allows you to answer a question of whether you should invest in the researched initiative. Sometimes, it will be very limited in features version of your product, sometimes it will be just something pretending to be a completed update, but will…