What I Learned in the SheCodeAfrica 3 Months Product Manager Bootcamp

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6 min read

Taking part in the 3 months SheCodeAfrica Bootcamp for product managers was the next logical thing for me after I finished a course on the basics of product management conducted by EntryLevel.

The past 10 weeks have been an intense one with lots of learning. We started off by bringing product ideas that will solve real-world problems. After we did that, our mentor asked us to vote on the issues brought forward and the three problems with the highest votes got the approval. She then divided us into 3 teams to work on the three issues and I landed on the healthcare team.

I worked on the healthcare team with my teammates, Abasiono Timothy and Kelechi Origa with help of our mentor, Adedayo Idowu. Working with my team members taught me a lot about teamwork, growth, learning and pushing beyond my comfort zone.

team.png The team

The Problem

As a team, we tackled the problem of long wait times at the hospitals. This issue has made many people get lethargic about going to hospitals and getting proper medical attention.

Our goal was to understand why people prefer to stay at home instead of going to a hospital when they are sick while others prefer self-medication. We prepared some survey questions and sent them out to find out the challenges users had accessing health care. One of our survey questions was “What challenges do you have as a patient visiting a hospital?”

We had responses like:

  • Waiting for too long to see a doctor.
  • The long queues and protocols for seeing a doctor
  • Having to wait for long before I see a Doctor or any health practitioner
  • Delay in getting the attention of health workers.

With these responses, we realised users will like a solution that will reduce the delay and time wasted before accessing healthcare. We also asked if they would like to access medical care from home and received many positive responses.

Here Come Our User Personas - Abigail And Precious

Abigail is a 32-year-old teacher with two kids who don’t enjoy visiting the hospitals because of the long hospital procedures experienced before she can see a doctor. Precious is a 37-year-old business owner with a wife and 3 kids whose main pain point is the long wait seen at hospitals before accessing medicare.

After going through our user pain points, survey results, interview with respondents and personal experiences, we narrowed our focus to get our problem statement to be:

Individuals from the age of 18 to 40 who want to access medical attention from the comfort of their homes.

Why do we care?

  • According to World Bank Data, Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa with a population estimate of over 200 million people, a population growth rate of 2.5% and an average life expectancy of 55 years. Nigeria’s health care system has gone from being comparable to the rest of the world in the 70s and early 80s, to one of the world’s most under-funded sectors.
  • The current statistics show that health institutions rendering health care in Nigeria are 33,303 general hospitals, 20,278 primary health centres and posts, and 59 teaching hospitals and federal medical centres.
  • The recommended doctor-patient ratio according to the World Health Organization, (WHO) is 1:600 but in Nigeria is currently 1:6000. These last two points show that the current resources in healthcare in Nigeria are still inadequate.

Our Solution

medicalogo.png Medica is a service that allows users to chat with medical professionals, get health care tips and book appointments with doctors from the comfort of their homes.

Creating the Solution

We brainstormed the various pain points our users had and from there, proposed some user goals. We then mapped out the different user goals and their solutions using the Miro app, a challenging thing for me since I wasn’t used to these apps.

userjourneymiro.png From this, we decided to solve for first contact, which is Phase 1 of our user journey. After working on this, we created a user flow diagram in Figma, my first time using this app which, surprisingly, I enjoyed.

userflow.png From this, we created our prototype wireframe and from there; the product took shape. In creating our final product, we created our product requirements documentation, user stories, and user goals, and used the Moscow method to prioritise the features we should focus on.

prototype.jpeg

From all these, we narrowed down our North Star metric to the increase in mobile adoption by 20% within 6 months of launch with an additional metric of getting 80% of our users to make referrals.

The final step involved building a Medica web app using the no-code platform called Softr. You can see it at medica.softr.app.

Product Evolution

We know products evolve to meet the growing needs of the users and we have plans to accommodate this growth. We have plans to launch the mobile version as soon as possible. We also have a future plan to launch an online pharmacy where users can easily get drugs prescribed by doctors and also offer emergency services.

My 2 Biggest Takeaways

The 3-month Bootcamp from She code Africa was a great opportunity for me to immerse myself in the workings of a product manager. I started this year looking to get into tech but not really knowing which area of tech to focus on. Then I got a scholarship to study product management at EntryLevel and that piqued my interest in the subject. I realised I loved working with users to determine what product they need and the exact features they want in it. This Bootcamp has solidified that desire. My major takeaways are:

  • I am not so good with apps and designs. Yes, I can design some stuff to pass across my message but I’ll rather write and conceptualise my thoughts in written form. I remember telling my team members that I will prefer to work with Google docs and wouldn’t mind creating all the designs there. Thankfully, product managers do not have to be great designers, rather they work with UI/UX designers, software developers and others to bring out a product.
  • Perfect is the enemy of the good: I also learned that I should not strive to make a product perfect. As our mentor told us, if we wait for our product to be perfect before launching, then we launched too late. The main thing is to work hard and fast, launch then change as we go along.

I learned so many things during this Bootcamp, had many wonderful memories with my teammates and also learned from the solutions created by other teams. I look forward to what the future holds for me as a product manager.

Last, I want to thank Ada Nduka Oyom for creating a platform where women can get tech skills for free. If you want to transition to tech, you won’t go wrong with the SheCodeAfrica Bootcamps.