Product Launch: Reducing the Product Manager’s Workload
When do most Product Managers start thinking about the product launch?
Many wait until the development process is nearing the end before bringing other departments into the fold. Sure, you copy them on project updates and milestone progress (which they probably never read). But you’re too busy writing requirements, tracking development progress, reviewing designs and answering questions. Finding the time to involve the rest of the company to the extent necessary for launch success is difficult. The Playbook:
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Product Feature ROI: A Fool’s Errand?
If you’ve ever been asked to produce a product feature ROI, you know what a mind numbing exercise it is. In most cases it’s a fool’s errand. Here’s the deal: most products and features are usually integrated and target the same markets and same customers. If that’s the case, think about how much additional revenue you can generate in each market segment by increasing the business value via additional features. While it’s easy enough to estimate the cost of building features, there’s simply no practical way to determine the revenue impact at that level of granularity. The Playbook: Go macro on your feature ROI: […]
Strategic and Tactical Requirements: Spaghetti or Layer Cake?
When you combine strategic and tactical requirements, you can end up with a bowl of spaghetti or a layer cake. The layer cake approach makes the relationship between strategic and tactical requirements simple for everyone to understand and, believe it or not, a more appetizing dish for the masses. The Playbook:
Segmenting Markets and Quantifying New Product Ideas
Segmenting markets is the most important thing your organization can do because it answers the question, WHO are our target customers? In other words, your market segments are the basis for all critical decisions because they form the common bulls-eye that focuses all product, marketing and sales activities to common customer needs and goals.
Market segmentation is especially important when quantifying new product ideas because it doesn’t force you to rely on sales forecasts or sales commitments which are highly volatile. When your target markets aren’t clearly defined (segmented), every product idea looks like a great opportunity because, on the surface, it has unlimited potential. The Playbook: […]
Demonstrating Solutions vs. Products
In many cases, the product silos that exist internally become transparent to your buyers during the sales cycle, creating the perception you’ve got a bunch of fragmented products instead of integrated solutions. Longer and more difficult sales cycles lie ahead if this is the case. The Playbook:
Three tactics that will help you sell a high-value business solution instead of a bunch of tactical products.
Five Steps to Solutions-Driven Product Management
Here’s what makes solutions-driven product management such a challenge. The vast majority of product companies are a mishmash of products brought together through mergers and/or acquisitions. Each one throws another silo into the fire that further fragments strategies, product plans, R&D, marketing and sales. The $64,000 question is, “how do you transform multiple disparate products into business solutions to achieve a whole that’s more valuable than the sum of the parts?” The Playbook: