What Building a Dog Puzzle Feeder Taught Me About Product Management

A grad school project that connected my program management past to my product future.

Pupuzzle Feeder Concept

I came into my graduate program at the University of Washington’s Human Centered Design and Engineering (HCDE) program with about six years of program management experience. I knew how to build roadmaps, align stakeholders, and keep complex projects on track. What I didn’t know was how naturally those skills would translate into product management.

That realization came during a solo class project where I spent 17 weeks developing a product concept from scratch: the JoyBrand Pupuzzle Feeder.

Where the Idea Started

This project started with my dog. She had CCL surgery on her knee, and for six weeks she couldn’t do any physical activity while she recovered. No walks, no fetch, no zoomies around the apartment. During that time, I leaned heavily on puzzle feeders to keep her mentally stimulated when her body couldn’t be.

That experience gave me a firsthand look at both the value of puzzle feeders and their biggest friction point: they require daily setup. You have to fill compartments, hide treats, and reset the whole thing every single day. When you’re already managing a post-surgery recovery routine, that extra effort adds up fast.

When it came time to brainstorm what I wanted to build for this class project, I kept coming back to problems I wanted to solve for my dog. And then, out of nowhere, the idea just appeared. I could see it so clearly: a volcano-shaped feeder, kibble pouring in at the top, tumbling down through a funnel, and scattering into little puzzle compartments for her to solve. It wasn’t something I sketched out or reasoned my way into. It just popped into my head as a fully formed image. That vivid mental picture became the Pupuzzle Feeder.

The core tension I wanted to address: simplifying the owner’s experience while maximizing the dog’s mental stimulation.

The Concept

The Pupuzzle Feeder is a puzzle-based feeding system built around a volcano-shaped design. At the top sits a funnel where you pour in your dog’s kibble. The food disperses down into multiple interactive puzzle compartments, each with different mechanisms like lifting flaps, sliding plates, and pressing parts. The dog has to push, pull, slide, and lift to access their food.

The key innovation is that the funnel does the distribution work for you. Instead of manually filling each compartment, you pour kibble in once and the feeder handles the rest. Mealtime becomes enrichment time without any extra effort from the owner.

I designed the V1.0 to be made from durable, pet-safe materials and to be dishwasher safe, because early survey research told me that cleanability was a non-negotiable for pet owners.

Thinking in Phases

One of the most valuable parts of this project was developing a three-year strategic product roadmap. Rather than trying to build the perfect product on day one, I planned a phased release strategy where each version had its own distinct business goals.

V1.0: Market Entry. The first version focuses purely on core functionality. A reliable, well-designed puzzle feeder at $79, launched through e-commerce platforms like Etsy and Chewy. The goal here is simple: get into the market, make sales, and start collecting customer feedback. Small-batch production with small-scale suppliers keeps risk low.

V2.0: Enhanced Design. The second version incorporates real customer feedback to refine the product. This means sturdier materials, easier cleaning, adjustable difficulty levels, and new options like different sizes and colors. V2.0 also expands distribution into retail stores like PetSmart. At this stage, the business shifts from market entry to market expansion.

V3.0: Smart Integration. The third generation is where things get interesting. This version introduces a companion app for tracking meal times, engagement, and calorie intake. It adds an automatic feeder component and expands into new product lines like a travel-sized portable version. V3.0 is about competitive differentiation and cementing brand loyalty with customers who are willing to invest in premium features.

What I learned from this exercise is that phased roadmapping isn’t just about features. It’s about business strategy. Every decision I made about V1.0, from material choices to distribution channels, either enabled or constrained what was possible in V2.0 and beyond.

AI as a Solo PM’s Best Friend

One unexpected takeaway from this project was how much AI tools expanded what I could do on my own. I’m not a product designer or illustrator, but I needed to communicate what this feeder would actually look like. Using AI-generated sketches, I was able to create detailed, labeled product visuals that brought the concept to life in a way I never could have done by hand.

This mattered more than I expected. Having a clear visual of the product, with every component labeled and placed, helped me think through the design more carefully. It also made my final presentation significantly stronger. For solo PMs or anyone working without a dedicated design team, AI tools are a genuine force multiplier for product visualization and communication.

Various AI sketches of the concept

The Program Management Connection

Here’s what surprised me most about this project: how familiar it all felt.

Building a phased release strategy, balancing competing priorities, making data-informed decisions, thinking about stakeholder alignment, all of it drew directly on skills I developed during my years in program management. The frameworks were the same. The mindset was the same. The difference was the lens.

In my previous roles, I was optimizing internal processes and managing operational complexity. In product management, I’m applying those same skills to build solutions that directly impact people’s daily lives. It’s the same strategic thinking, but now with a user-centered perspective that makes the work feel more connected to real outcomes.

This project showed me that program management skills translate to product work. Strategic roadmapping, stakeholder research, and balancing priorities form the foundation of strong PM work. Now I’m applying those same skills through a user-centered lens to build solutions that directly impact lives.

What I’d Do Differently

If I were to revisit this project, I’d want to go deeper on user validation. While I conducted survey research that informed key design decisions like material choices and cleanability, I didn’t do formal usability testing with the product concept itself. In a real product development scenario, I’d want to put prototypes in front of dog owners early and often to test whether the funnel distribution mechanism actually works as intended, and whether the puzzle difficulty levels are calibrated correctly for different dog sizes and breeds.

I’d also want to explore the competitive landscape more thoroughly. The pet enrichment market is growing fast, and understanding where existing products fall short would sharpen the value proposition.

The Bigger Picture

This was a class project, and I want to be upfront about that. The Pupuzzle Feeder isn’t launching on Etsy next month. But the exercise of taking a product concept through a full development cycle, from problem identification to roadmapping to go-to-market strategy, was incredibly valuable.

It confirmed something I suspected when I started my HCDE journey: that my background in program management isn’t something I need to leave behind as I move into UX and product work. It’s an asset. The skills transfer. And when you add a human-centered design perspective on top of operational and strategic experience, the combination is powerful.

I’m excited to keep building on that foundation.

Savannah Buchanan is a graduate student at the University of Washington’s Human Centered Design and Engineering program, with a background in program management and psychology. She writes about the intersection of UX, product management, and career transitions.

My baby, Joy, who inspired me