Product Management and Society Playbook

The Product Management and Society Playbook is a practical new resource for anyone involved in building technology products that affect the public. The Playbook is designed to help leaders, product managers, and developers in the government, tech, and nonprofit sectors thoughtfully incorporate societal needs and values into their product work. 

The Playbook was developed by technologists and public interest practitioners working across disciplines with the understanding that all technology shapes and is shaped by society and the people who build and interact with it. Shorenstein Center Fellow and Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Kathy Pham, a leader in product development, AI, and civic technology, led its development, drawing on insights from her HKS course, “Product Management and Society: Building Technology in the Public Interest.” Former course teaching assistants and HKS students Devyn Greenberg, Sahil Joshi, Medha Patki, and Nagela Nukuna contributed significantly to the content. It reflects their joint expertise from having built, invested in, and regulated technologies in the service of the public good. 

The Playbook begins by laying out why this work matters and the guiding beliefs that underpin it. It also shares the values that underpin public interest product work: understanding the broad range of people and communities affected by technology, and translating respect and empathy into tangible product decisions. 

The main body of the Playbook is organized into nine sections that follow the steps of the product development lifecycle, including defining the problem, conducting stakeholder research, and running discovery sprints. In each section, readers get a summary of why public interest considerations matter at that stage, questions and tactics to guide the process, and links to learn more.  

The Playbook aims to codify the work that public interest technologists have already embarked upon and to add some new tools and framings. Especially in the context of products with high societal stakes (e.g. medical care), the Playbook argues that product leaders must prioritize an understanding of the people and the societies they aim to serve — both direct users, and impacted non-users – and gives them a framework to do so.  

To move beyond theoretical frameworks, the Playbook showcases real-world cases where technology was built or reimagined to serve societal needs. These case studies show how public interest product development is put into action, providing readers with a blueprint for implementing these practices in their own work. 

Examples include how California’s Child Welfare Services adopted an agile approach to overhaul a crucial system, ensuring faster delivery of services; how the governments of Peru, Argentina, and Mexico built unified government websites for citizens’ services; and how Slack considered wide human experiences and trust. These and other examples illustrate how technologists across sectors can address societal needs and drive meaningful outcomes. 

One of the Playbook’s defining features is that it’s not meant to be static – it was designed to be a living, community-driven resource. For that reason, the Product and Society team invites further contributions from practitioners who are working at the intersection of technology and societal impact. Through shared case studies and examples, the Playbook will continue to evolve, fostering a broader conversation on how technology can be responsibly built with the public’s best interests in mind. 

Contributions can be submitted via email to productsociety@hks.harvard.edu or the Product and Society Playbook Contribution Form.