4 Product Management Lessons from PM Modi’s Lock-down Strategy

PM Modi addressing the nation about the lock-down

While watching PM Modi’s national address on Tuesday night, I couldn’t help but analyse the Prime Minister’s lock-down strategy from a product management lens. Here are 4 lessons to take away:

1. Minimum Viable Product/Pilot Program for gathering data

By now it’s pretty obvious that the voluntary curfew on Sunday was an attempt to understand how the public would react to a lock-down, what kind of measures the state and central government would need to take to enforce it and how to ensure that the essential services keep running.

This could very well have been the world’s largest MVP or Pilot experiment. In a situation where time is extremely critical, the roughly 48 hour period from Sunday to Tuesday gave the authorities time to monitor and collect relevant data on:

• How and Where to deploy resources and manpower
• Will the public follow social distancing and isolation voluntarily
• Was the messaging clear enough for the public to understand the seriousness of the situation
• Will a shutdown of services and amenities like Public transportation be necessary
• … and much more