Who This Helps
This is for product managers who are tired of guessing which experiment to run next. You have a list of ideas, but no clear way to pick the one that moves the needle. The Product Portfolio Strategy course teaches you to treat experiments like bets—size them, sequence them, and kill the losers fast.
Mini Case
Meet Priya, a PM at a mid-size SaaS company. She had 12 experiment ideas from customer interviews, but her team could only run one per sprint. She used bet sizing from the course: gave each idea a rough confidence score (1-5) and estimated effort in days. The top idea had a confidence of 4 and took 3 days. The second had confidence 2 and took 7 days. She picked the first. The experiment boosted activation by 12% in one week. The second idea? She killed it after a quick test showed no lift.
Do This Now (5 Steps)
- List your open questions. Write down every product question you're trying to answer this week. Keep it to 5 or fewer.
- Give each a confidence score. Rate how sure you are that this experiment will work. Use 1 (wild guess) to 5 (strong signal).
- Estimate effort in days. Be honest. A 2-day test beats a 10-day gamble.
- Pick the highest-impact move. Multiply confidence by 1/effort. The highest number wins. Run that one first.
- Set a kill criterion. Decide upfront: what result would make you stop? For example, "if less than 5% lift, kill it." This saves you from sunk cost.
Avoid These Traps
- Falling in love with your own idea. Your job is to test, not to prove yourself right. Let the data decide.
- Overthinking the numbers. Confidence and effort are rough estimates. Don't spend an hour debating a 3 vs. 4.
- Running too many experiments at once. Focus on one per sprint. Split attention kills learning.
- Ignoring the portfolio view. Your experiments are bets. Balance high-risk, high-reward with safe, incremental moves.
- Forgetting to celebrate a kill. Killing a bad idea early is a win. It frees up time for better bets.
Your Win by Friday
By Friday, you'll have one experiment running that you're confident will teach you something useful. You'll also have a clear kill criterion, so you won't waste time on a dud. That's one measurable decision that moves your product forward. And you'll feel like a portfolio pro—without the jargon.