How can Whatsapp create a feature that enables users to conveniently organize simple single-task events like dinner or a movie night directly within the Whatsapp platform?

Question

How can Whatsapp create a feature that enables users to conveniently organize simple single-task events like dinner or a movie night directly within the Whatsapp platform?

Context:

You are the leader of the Product team at WhatsApp. It is now post-pandemic 2021, and people have started making plans for outings as the new year approaches.

Your team consists of:

2 backend engineers
1 front-end engineer
1 QA engineer
1 product designer

Your team follows agile deployments and has a fast release cycle of twice a week. As the sole product manager, your team relies on you for all product specifications, designs, and expectations. You inspire the team with your vision.

Problem:

People have started creating plans to meet for the first time since the Covid pandemic. However, only a few of these plans actually materialize.

Business requirement:

How can WhatsApp assist users in creating plans? Can we develop a feature that empowers users to easily organize simple single-task activities like dinner or a movie night directly within WhatsApp?

Task:

Define the scope of a feature that focuses on creating plans within the WhatsApp interface, considering the limitations of your team.

Draft a comprehensive Product Requirements Document (PRD) that includes the necessary research, action items, and deliverables for your team (and potentially beyond, if required). It should also encompass all relevant user stories, features, and wireframes.

Asked at Whatsapp in the past year

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arpit agrawal · Answer 1 · 2023-08-23T03:39:28+0000

What is WhatsApp? It is a mobile app which helps you connect with others via internet.

Problem why plans are not getting materialised

Time Sync Up.
Distance: Do not want to travel to far.
Scared of meeting people who are unvaccinated.
Event Host have to follow up for split money.
Users have to follow up for the pictures.

Users

Very scared of covid: Age group: Above 35, not vaccinated
Less scared of covid: Vaccinated, Age group: 20-30
Don’t scare of covid: Vaccinated, Age group: 15-22

Assumption

We are creating this for events of more than 2 people because events of materializes more because of easy co-ordination etc.
We are building it for India, hence we can use whatsapp pay for money splitting.

How do currently people plan/do on WA?

Users message in group/personally and discuss about plan.
User shares the images of event.
Users split the amount after event.

Solution

User can create an event on whatsapp with details of event such as Timing, Location, Ticket Price.
This event should be sharable across chats, groups and communities.
Anyone who want to join an event can join the event from invite link.
Users have to mark their vaccination status before joining any event.
Users can see who all have joined the event.
Reminders should be sent before event timings.

Metrics to be tracked We are launching a new product so we focus 1st on adoption and engagement. After that we will look into retention.

% Users adopted to create event.
Average Events created in a Day.

Agrim · Answer 2 · 2023-08-12T18:30:37+0000

Questions

Are we looking at One on One meets or Group meets : Group
Should this feature be an add on to existing feature (e.g Poll) or a new feature : New
Should we also include money handling along with this (similar to splitwise: take a call (out of scope)

User problems

Generally in a group meet, whenever some peple want to get together, these are the key decisions to be made :

What : What should we do?
Where : Where should we do this?
When : When should we do this?
Who : Who all will participate.

following things typically happen in a whatsapp group :

Someone proposes an event along with date and time
people give thumbs up/down/other emojies that group is comfortable with
Someone else proposes something else
Finally an event and venue is decided
Someone makes a booking (Assuming we are discussing booking must events)
People change plans and booker keeps making adjustments

Given that we have limited time, we will be looking at the following features

Ability to find common time
Abilty to add possible events
Ability for people to opt in
Syncing the data along with native calender for automatic reminders

User stories

As a user, I whould be able to publish my availability to the group
As a user, I should be able to publish a meet along with date and time to the group
As a user, I should be able to RSVP to the meet
As a user, I should be able to cancel the meet
As a user, i should be given an option to sync the meet with my native calender application

Metric

Feature adoption
1. Users posting the meets
2. Other group users responding to the meets
People linking their calender app to sync data

Week 1 : Identifying user needs and having a feedback session to prioritize needs

Week 2 + 3: Work on the user stories and wireframes. Get the user feedback and iterate. Also identify the MVP that the early adopters would be able to user

Week 4: Create the final designs and run design sessions along with engineering team. Identify the bottlenecks for faster delivery and look for alternatives. Also agree on timelines for MVP

Week 5-Week 8: deliver the 1st MVP over 2 sprints

Week 9 Week 10: User testing and feedback.

Aditya Narayan · Answer 3 · 2023-08-10T14:50:26+0000

Introduction- Whatsapp is a free-messaging platform that allows users seamlessly connects with people with end-to-end encryption, more than a billion users trust Whatsapp, Nowadays Whatsapp is used as the default messaging service users receive and send tons of messages every day. WhatsApp is used by people of all ages and backgrounds, including working professionals, students, retirees, and homemakers.

The scope of the answer is clear it barely required any follow-up questions

Solution-

Integration of Calendar to the app- People receive numerous messages every day, making it difficult to remember everything. Whether it's for an interview, meeting, or get-together, adding a calendar to WhatsApp empowers users to remember and schedule events both online and offline. This not only solves the issue of scheduling meetings but also enables users to remember deadlines, schedule messages, and manage their time more effectively.