{"id":585,"date":"2016-04-03T16:21:52","date_gmt":"2016-04-03T10:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nitishgulati.com\/blog\/?p=585"},"modified":"2017-07-27T19:05:12","modified_gmt":"2017-07-27T13:35:12","slug":"batman-vs-superman-from-the-eyes-of-a-product-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nitishgulati.com\/blog\/batman-vs-superman-from-the-eyes-of-a-product-manager\/","title":{"rendered":"Batman vs Superman – From the eyes of a Product Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bvs\"<\/p>\n

The movie recently released to high expectations. I noticed some heavy Twitter campaigns as well. For the record, I have been\u00a0a huge fan of Nolan’s Dark Knight series and cannot envision any other Batman other than Christian Bale.<\/p>\n

None the less, the concept of the two superheroes\u00a0going all out against\u00a0each other is a plot line (product idea), that holds enormous potential. Additionally,based on the reasoning provided by the production house, I felt that the decision to cast Ben Affleck was actually a good one. Without wasting further time on dilly dallying, let’s dissect\u00a0the product –<\/p>\n

Development of modules\u00a0(scenes) that were\u00a0not needed.<\/h4>\n

Clients usually demand a full suite of features without actually going after a specific target problem or target user base. This leads to the creation of a bulky product with multiple features which may not address\u00a0the core problem. Even if the\u00a0problem is taken care off, it might create\u00a0a negative\u00a0impact on the actual target category of users. This generally occurs\u00a0because a user might tend to feel bombarded with multiple features.<\/p>\n

In this case, the initial half an hour of the movie was utilized to establish the beginning\u00a0of Batman and a bit\u00a0of Superman. This was completely unnecessary as the target audience mostly comprised of users who were aware\u00a0as to\u00a0how\u00a0Batman “began his career”.<\/p>\n

Spent a ton on user interface\u00a0(CGI) without defining a user experience strategy (core offering\u00a0for the user)<\/h4>\n

When I conduct initial meetings with stakeholders, I try to extradite the ideas sitting in their heads. Along with that, I also try and study their psychology. This helps in understanding the vision that they have for the product. Which in turn, helps me in\u00a0extrapolating and defining the true vision of the product to be built.<\/p>\n

In this case, multiple resources (time and money) were heavily invested on the UI of the product. The resultant effects produced, were visually stunning, but lacked the connect.\u00a0In order to reflect the darkness within the characters, the movie itself was shot in\u00a0a very dark frame.<\/p>\n

This tends to reflect the reality of many a product out there! A lack of clarity on the UX tends to overflow into the\u00a0UI as well, leading to a domino effect on the entire product.<\/p>\n

Villain was a repackaged dude seen before (lack of innovation)<\/h4>\n

With a plethora of\u00a0mobile apps and web apps on offer, competition is extremely\u00a0stiff is an understatement to make!\u00a0It has become really hard to\u00a0capture the attention spans of users.<\/p>\n

Jesse Eisenberg was delightful as the\u00a0disturbed villain, Lex Luthor. But, his creation, Doomsday,\u00a0snatched the fun out of the game. The go to story line for almost all superhero movies these days, has been about varied\u00a0forms of aliens; bursting on to the scene\u00a0with an intent to either conquer or destroy the citizens of Earth.\u00a0From a personal perspective, I really do not mind\u00a0this sort of a story line. But, when the\u00a0product looks like an imitation\u00a0of other successful products on the market,\u00a0I tend to draw the line there.<\/p>\n

Which is what happens in today’s world! Even non technical users are increasingly becoming aware of the kind of apps they use. And that is where imitation becomes less of an art and more of a disaster.<\/p>\n

Product manager\u00a0(director) trying to handle 5-6 advanced features\u00a0(theories) in a single product (movie)<\/h4>\n

Without a doubt, I have to give due credit to the director for helming this film. It takes courage to direct\u00a0such a plot line when people have seen really great\u00a0Superman movies and have savored the\u00a0Dark Knight trilogy respectively.<\/p>\n

But as a product manager, it goes without saying that one\u00a0has to walk a tight rope, between balancing the vision of the product and the demands of the stakeholders.\u00a0Especially, if the demands\u00a0point towards high end features that take time to build. More importantly, features that might not be needed in the current iteration.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0believe that if there is a strong use case\u00a0for such features to be integrated, then\u00a0the details should be ironed out thoroughly. Such an approach helps in<\/p>\n