Whats your product ideation process?

This question is asking about your approach to coming up with new product ideas, which is also known as your ideation process. It is meant to explore your creativity, innovation, and ability in translating any identified needs or problems into a viable product. When you're asked this question, the interviewer wants to know how you generate ideas, what steps you take to validate them, and how you plan to implement them.

Key points to consider in your response:

1. The measures you take to ensure that your ideas are innovative and fresh.
2. Your methods in identifying market needs or problems that your product can address.
3. The steps you follow to validate your ideas, such as gathering feedback or testing prototypes.
4. How you plan for the implementation of your ideas from prototype to final product.

In my previous role as a product manager, my ideation process usually started from understanding the market and customer needs. I would look at product reviews, competitive analysis, and feedback from customer support to identify areas where our product could be improved or where there was a gap in the market. After that, brainstorming sessions with my team were crucial for initial ideation. Once we had a list of ideas, we would prioritize them based on market need, impact on the company, and feasibility. For the top ideas, we would create a basic concept or prototype and seek early user feedback. Once we were confident that the idea was solid, I would create a detailed strategy for implementation, including a roadmap and a development timeline. This approach has proven successful in my career, with a number of these ideas becoming major product features.

In my experience, a successful product ideation process begins with deep understanding and empathy for the user. After identifying the user's needs, the next step in my process is divergent thinking. In this phase, my team and I would come up with as many solutions as possible without worrying about feasibility. The aim is to explore all potential options. Then, we would move on to convergent thinking, selecting the most promising ideas using criteria like feasibility, impact, and alignment with our product vision. After narrowing down the ideas, we would create low-fidelity prototypes and conduct usability tests to gather user feedback. Based on the results, we would either iterate on the design or move forward with the development. I have found that this human-centered approach to product ideation not only fosters creativity, but also leads to products that truly meet user needs.