As I promised in a previous post , I’d like to introduce you to the Yahoo! Groups Product Management Team and highlight the role it plays in the larger Yahoo! Groups team.
What do Groups Product Managers do?
Groups Product Managers (PMs) are responsible for determining and prioritizing what features and enhancements are developed for Yahoo! Groups. These decisions are based on in-depth product knowledge, requests from users, and the User Experience team, whose members work to make sure the Groups are easy to use and remove barriers when they aren’t. PMs determine product specs and needs and then writes what is called a Product Requirements Document (PRD).
Another key role PMs play relates to Yahoo! Groups as a business, meaning that in addition to directing the overall product and its features, PMs have to figure out how to make money off the product through ad sales or other avenues. The PMs also take the lead in working with other teams within the organization, including Customer Care, Sales, Legal, the Paranoids (the team at Yahoo! that ensures we are safe and secure), and other Yahoo! properties like Mail, Answers, and Registration. that are relevant to Groups.
What is a PRD?
The PRD outlines the steps needed to develop new features. It also details how the feature will get rolled out. The PRD gives other teams (like design and engineering), the information they need to actually build or develop the feature. Once the product or feature is developed, the PMs continue to work on it until it’s ready to launch -usually in a limited beta. A beta is an early version of a product or feature that goes out to a segment of the community. Releasing a beta allows us to identify bugs, learn of additional enhancements that might make the feature even better, and simply gather feedback from the community of users (or in this case, beta testers).
Yahoo! Groups PMs take a number of factors into consideration when determining what features to add, change, or remove.
- They learn what users say they want through a variety of channels:
Groups Suggestion Board
Groups about Groups
Moderator Central discussion boards
Customer advisory panels
Focus groups
Surveys
Customer Care feedback
- They observe how members actually use Groups
- Analyzing statistics on usage
- Attending usability tests and reviewing ethnographies (home visits)
- They personally use the product
- PMs observe and learn from what competitors are doing
- They look at the needs and requirements of the rest of the Yahoo! community, including Security, Legal, Customer Care, and others.
This is just a snapshot of what the Groups Product Management team does. If you have a specific question for the Product Team, please post it in the comments area below.
Thanks! And stay tuned for next week’s post, where I’ll spotlight the Yahoo! Groups User Experience Design Team!
Best, Jami
Groups Community Manager
Want to reach better salary, Dominate Manufacture Computer Accounting in 15 Minutes. Call: http://www.cat22.net
each posted message receives a number, why can’t all messages generated relate to that number instead of each getting yet another number. I recently posted 2 similar items and when I got replies I didn’t know which reply matched which offer. Also I have messages regarding items I have not offered.
sometimes u dont get all the questions answered, iwould like to knw why this is the case, maybe the management team does not do much or there is something laking amog us, we should be the leaders by being responsible about wht we send on thhis program
sometimes u dont get all the questions answered, iwould like to knw why this is the case, maybe the management team does not do much or there is something laking amog us, we should be the leaders by being responsible about wht we send on thhis program
Wellcome to dalim group.thanks for.joining this.is a universal friends mailing group you can join with us as a friend and can send nice interesting Articles, forwards, pictures, Funny Pictures, songs, poems, Presentations, videos, cartoons, jokes, , cards, Latest &Interesting News, Informative ArticLes ,Latest websites stuff, politics and other much more funny stuff in JPG, GIF, BMP, PPT, DOC, XLS, MPG, or WAV formats .You can upload your pics, store files and add link for others. Also can create polls, database. Any one can join gets a lots of funny interesting emails everyday. Please manage ur Inbox properly.. Be a part of dalim. Just Send and receive nice mails. Invite your friends to join in. A lots of Knowledge waiting just for you. We do not allow Adult or any related emails, repeated emails, not allowed any email with other group’s advertisement . We do not allow GOD related jokes. We do not approve, If you send any email with pictures that doesn’t appear in email. . You must check that you are not sending same emails, that is just posted in this dalim group.Thanking you ta ta
what is your name
Want to reach better salary? Dominate computer accounting in 15 minutes! Call: http://www.cat22.net
I LOVE FFO MESSAGES.
why does the email of FFO group say
THIS MESSAGE CONTAINS BLOCKED IMAGES
?
are the messages virus free?are they scanned before transmission?
i wont to be withe you
this is my wish,to see otheres and live with group
this is my wish,to see otheresand live with group
I registered yesterday for this Brockville Freecycle Group and I have yet to figure out how to post an ad for there, I tried asking someone who already had an ad and I was ignored I tried going to help through yahoo and got nothing.Its suppose to be a group where you can get stuff free or give it away, I can’t do either.So why bother having a group if new people can’t even get on it.I like yahoo don’t take me wrong but I sure would like some help also.
I would like to know why SPAM is taking over. I would like to know why questions go UNANSWERED. I think we need more interaction between the team and those of us who really care about this project.
Welcome to a foreigner.
I posted in hopes that the groups mgt team would answer question re our groups and I see very few answers . I do not consider this very professional.
I remember somewhere that it was mentioned the site could support a newsletter and an event sign up form . Has this been done yet and if so how do I use it.
Hi,
Nice to see you here. I am new on this yahoo group.
this is what I get and I’m glad to see others can’t do it either.
You may not access this page without a valid key.
I have tried and tried to un-sub myself..I dont want to un sub from the entire group., just these comments…says I need a ‘key’..wtf is that??
To those of you who mentioned here that you accidentally subscribed to receive the comments from this blog post (versus entries), you should be able to go your news reader (like My Yahoo!) and unsubscribe.
Is that something you’ve tried? If so, and you are still having issues, please let me know and I will reach out to you directly.
Best,
Jami
Groups Community Manager
Is the last few comments the work of a bot?
Is there some serious bugs here?
>By the way, I do believe that in the PM Team picture above, that’s Gordon in the middle.
Nice to see you Gordon, I second “Denver” that he is a great guy!
I still can’t unsubscribe!!
The product team do not look that scary,lol
One constant issue is the use of auto responders, in the help area
perhaps the team could look at getting rid of them for a more personalised response.
Speaking of which I would like it if the Customer Care Team could introduce themselves
Customer Care feedback
They observe how members actually use Groups
Analyzing statistics on usage
Attending usability tests and reviewing ethnographies (home visits)
They personally use the product
PMs observe and learn from what competitors are doing
They look at the needs and requirements of the rest of the Yahoo! community, including Security, Legal, Customer Care, and others.
(1)I have the SAME shirt! Very cool!
- Mike Michalowicz
(2)I like the idea of having paranoids.. better safe than sorry. Next post please put a picture of that team..
(3)One constant issue is the use of auto responders, in the help area
perhaps the team could look at getting rid of them for a more personalised response.
Speaking of which I would like it if the Customer Care Team could introduce themselves
Very much appreciate the obvious attention to complaints about inappropriate advertisements on a health group – as in, a “cure” for a disease that has no cure. Now I’d like to see advertising that’s valid. When we talk about assistive devices, it would be cool to have an ad from Gold Violin, and etc. Has anything been created yet that will dig deeper than just the disease name (right in the group name) to what’s being discussed?
whats happening about eliminating the grouply spammers from the groups?
I ban them constantly but another one keeps coming.
how long does it takes to become a power user?
Hi! I hope I am not misunderstanding, but when I first signed-up (only a few days ago), I thought that when I checked the Individual mail box (I think that is what it was called) that I was going to be getting a lot of emails with the groups activities. Either 1) nothing has been going on in the group, 2) I am not getting any emails for some unknown reason, or 3) I misunderstood. If that is the case I am sorry for the misunderstanding! I hope that the problem can be worked out (if there is a problem!)
I have the SAME shirt! Very cool!
- Mike Michalowicz
I do not fancy your chances of getting a pic of the paranoids
think they might be paranoid about it, lol.
“Raj said,
I like the idea of having paranoids.. better safe than sorry. Next post please put a picture of that team..”
I am guessing the first guy is Stefan as Gordon has been identified, now only question is the female, Lena, Di or Anna /
Is there someplace where you actually provide the names of the three people in the picture?
Same here. Cannot unsubscribe!
OK, I did a stupid thing here when I first got this post, I signed up to get ALL comments about this. Now I can’t UNSUBSCRIBE from them!!!!!
HELP!!take me off!!!!
Thanks Jami,
The product team do not look that scary,lol
One constant issue is the use of auto responders, in the help area
perhaps the team could look at getting rid of them for a more personalised response.
Speaking of which I would like it if the Customer Care Team could introduce themselves
Finally as I write,I am experiencing a problem opening files in a number of my groups at the moment, whether in the group messages/group files area or in the email.
probably will fix itself as these do from time to time
Pleased to meet you and taking the opportunity to tell you that there is coming no mail to any of the 6 groups i joined since 13 august. There is no activity in any group what so ever.This is not a mail delay but a complete stop. I hope it can be solved soon. Kind regards, Pauline
I like the idea of having paranoids.. better safe than sorry. Next post please put a picture of that team..
Yep. That’s me in the middle Denver.
@Lena: We’re also responsible for prioritizing what bugs get fixed with non-Beta features as well. And since we’re currently refactoring the site page by page (per http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2008/07/14/whats-in-store-for-yahoo-groups/), unless a bug significantly affects the user experience with no work arounds, we’re unlikely to fix it since the new code would have to be thrown away shortly. However, as we refactor pages, we’re trying to address all known bugs on those pages.
@Di: We actually have to work Yahoo!’s Registration team to update that page. But we’ll definitely take a look at updating that picture.
@Anna: If you haven’t already, please post ideas like the one above here: http://suggestions.yahoo.com/?prop=groups . It enables us to get an idea of how many people agree with you and how important it is to folks. Helps us prioritize.
@Stefan: We’ve read all the comments on that blog post. Won’t be able to answer all of them, but we’ll likely do a follow-up post in the coming weeks that tries to address the main ones. And we’re also looking at some of the specific examples people have raised to help us continue to improve the way the system works.
@Yahoo
would you please answer the questions about Group Rankings (blog topic from July 7th).
By the way, I do believe that in the PM Team picture above, that’s Gordon in the middle. Hi, Gordon!
I am a beta tester for Y! Groups, well… when we were beta testing a new design, and I have talked to Gordon many times…a very, very nice person.
Denver
Di – I agree. That picture has been up for at least a year.. probably pushing two years now! I’ve heard (and it’s been mentioned here) that a re-design of Y! Groups is coming, which will be great. Maybe, then, we’ll be able to get rid of that picture!
Denver
Whose job is fixing bugs not in beta?
Welcome aboard. I love my Yahoo Group and I spend a lot of time working in the group and on the groups’ pages. I find it a great inconvenience to have to stop what I am doing and continuously go back to the groups front page to see if there is pending information. Why can’t that pending information be carried through to all the groups’ pages so we moderators will know about it without having to backtrack all the time? As I see it there is plenty of room at the top of each page for this information’s placement. Give it a thought please.
Thanks
Anna
I’d like to say thanks for fixing things rather quickly for the groups..As a sigtag maker, I was shocked by the delay in posting yesterday because I tell all thru group email to hurry and pick up their stuff, and when that email didnt go thru, I was in shock, but stuff happens..nice to have people working hard to get things fixed quickly…thanks…Joy
Nice to *meet* you .. one suggestion (and this is tongue in cheek) .. could someone PLEASE change that picture of that couple when you sign in to the groups? The dude with the white sunglasses…. let’s just say looks like he’s partaken of some illegal substance .