The role of a product manager might appear to be one that entails a lot of analysis and stakeholder management, but it can also require one to get their hands dirty.
Uber’s Chief Product Officer Sachin Kansal doesn’t rely solely on data analytics or user feedback reports. Instead, he embraces a hands-on approach, regularly immersing himself in the very ecosystem he helps design. His dedication to “dogfooding”—using a product or service yourself to identify issues and improvements—is not just a theoretical exercise but a consistent, practical commitment.
Kansal elaborates on his unique testing methodology: “I actually go out either once or twice a month. I will set aside half a day or a day, and then I’ll go out and I’ll drive and deliver here in the Bay Area. I’ve been doing that for many, many years now. I will say that’s probably one of the best parts of my job. I really, really enjoy it, doing trips as well as doing deliveries. And I’ll do about 10 to 12 rides and deliveries every time I go out. So that’s what dogfooding looks like at the outset. That’s the fun part.”
However, the process extends far beyond the initial experience. Kansal recognizes the crucial step of translating observations into actionable insights. “The painful part then is, okay, what did I learn? Because it’s very easy for me to do this and then just completely forget about it, not document it, use it anecdotally in some conversation, but not be able to go into a lot of detail.” To counter this, he employs a meticulous documentation process. “So what I do after each of these instances, whether it’s using the rider app or whether it is driving, I take a lot of screenshots. Then I come back and I write documents, or I add to an existing document. So I have a driver document, I have a rider app document, I have an Uber Eats document, and I’ll come back and I’ll just write everything that I learned. That is probably not ideal. I’ll add a lot of screenshots to that doc. I will tag people because I know who works on what, and then I’ll just send people my thoughts on what we think we can improve.”
The final, critical phase involves internal collaboration and resolution. “And after that, we have a process internally where we go through all of those issues, we prioritize them. Not everything that I thought is a great idea is necessarily a great idea. So we go through all of that and then we fix issues. And I’m not the only one dogfooding in the company, but I do follow through on the things that I reported, make sure that things that should be fixed get fixed and as quickly as possible. So that’s the sort of the end-to-end journey of dogfooding for me in my world.”
Kansal’s commitment to regularly driving and delivering for Uber underscores a vital principle in product development: empathy through immersion. By directly experiencing the challenges and nuances faced by drivers and riders, he gains an unparalleled understanding of the user journey. This firsthand insight goes beyond what mere data points or reports can convey, allowing for the identification of subtle friction points, unexpected use cases, and opportunities for significant improvement in the app’s functionality and user experience.
This approach aligns with a growing trend in the tech industry, where leaders are increasingly recognizing the value of direct engagement with their products and services. Companies like Airbnb, for instance, have encouraged employees to stay in Airbnb listings to understand the host and guest experience better. Similarly, many software companies encourage engineers to actively use the tools they build. In India, Flipkart and Zomato’s senior management have delivered orders to customers. Sachin Kansal’s consistent dedication to “dogfooding” at Uber serves as a powerful example of how leadership can foster a culture of user-centric design, ultimately leading to more robust, intuitive, and effective products for both service providers and consumers. His actions not only provide valuable feedback for development teams but also likely cultivate a deeper appreciation for the operational realities of the Uber platform among its leadership.