Product Development

Understand Your Outcome Metric

We’ll start by discussing your situation / goals and determining whether you need a product consultant and if so, what type of person. The most common scenarios where we consult are:

Serving as an interim VP of Product to set vision / strategy or manage the team as hiring takes place (of course, we can help with hiring too)

Stepping in as a part-time Product Manager to create a roadmap, deliver an existing roadmap, conduct customer discovery interviews or define / refine the product development process Producing delightful product designs (UX or visual/UI) to help your customers achieve their desired outcome

Strategic Planning

Strategic planning can help you create defined goals to explain how your company will move towards your mission and vision statements in the next three to five years. If you think of your company trajectory as a line on a map, a strategic plan can help you better quantify how you’ll get from point A (where you are now) to point B (where you want to be in a few years).

When you create and share a clear strategic plan with your team, you can:

• Align everyone around a shared purpose
• Proactively set objectives to help you get where you want to go
• Define long-term goals, and then set shorter-term goals to support them
• Assess your current situation and any opportunities—or threats
• Help your business be more durable because you’re thinking long-term
• Increase motivation and engagement

Step 1: Determine your position

Before you can create your strategic plan and define where you’re going, you first need to define where you are. To do this, your management committee should collect a variety of information from additional stakeholders—like employees and customers. In particular, plan to gather: Relevant industry and market data to inform any market opportunities, as well as any potential upcoming threats in the near future.

Customer insights to understand what your customers want from your company—like product improvements or additional services.

Employee feedback that needs to be addressed—whether in the product, business practices, or company culture. A SWOT analysis to help you assess both current and future potential for the business. SWOT is an acronym that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. You’ll return to this analysis periodically during the strategic planning process.

Step 2: Develop your strategy

This is where the magic happens. To develop your strategy, take into account your current position, which is where you are now. Then, draw inspiration from your original business documents—these are your final destination. To develop your strategy, you’re essentially pulling out your compass and asking “Where are we going next?” This can help you figure out exactly which path you need to take.

Step 3: Build your strategic plan

Now that you understand where you are and where you want to go, it’s time to put pen to paper. Your plan will take your position and strategy into account to define your organization-wide plan for the next three to five years. Keep in mind that even though you’re creating a long-term plan, parts of your strategic plan should be created as the quarters and years go on.

As you build your strategic plan, you should define: Your company priorities for the next three to five years, based on your SWOT analysis and strategy. Yearly objectives for the first year. You don’t need to define your objectives for every year of the strategic plan. As the years go on, create new yearly objectives that connect back to your overall strategic goals.

Related key results and KPIs for that first year. Some of these should be set by the management committee, and some should be set by specific teams that are closer to the work. Make sure your key results and KPIs are measurable and actionable.

Budget for the next year or few years. This should be based on your financial forecast as well as your direction. Do you need to spend aggressively to develop your product? Build your team? Make a dent with marketing? Clarify your most important initiatives and how you’ll budget for those. A high-level project roadmap. A project roadmap is a tool in project management that helps you visualize the timeline of a complex initiative, but you can also create a very high-level project roadmap for your strategic plan. Outline what you expect to be working on in certain quarters or years to make the plan more actionable and understandable.

Product Development Product development strategies may vary somewhat depending on the type of product or service being developed, but there are some general guidelines that should be followed in every development process to help maximize your product’s chance of success: Identify opportunities in the market space. Gaps or inefficiencies in the current market space represent valuable opportunities for businesses looking to develop and introduce new products. Once an opportunity has been identified, it is important to clearly define the problem your product is attempting to solve. Filling an existing market gap with a well thought out, carefully targeted product is the best way to ensure a successful product launch. Perform a cost-benefit analysis. It is important to keep in mind that not all product ideas are worth developing even if they do fill a void in the market. For example, certain products may require long periods of costly testing before they can be released. Such products should be closely evaluated to determine their long-term profitability. Another potentially risky product is one that involves a considerable level of initial investment to design and produce. When deciding whether or not a project is worth pursuing, it is important to consider launching costs, expected time to profitability, and potential risks associated with the product’s investment. Conduct the relevant research. Research is an extremely important element of every step in the product development process. Initial product research should be focused on ensuring that your idea is not previously patented. It is also important to keep a close eye on your competitors and the rapidly evolving market space so that you can be aware of any changes in the potential demand or profitability of your product. Thoroughly test designs, virtual prototypes, and physical models. Accurate virtual representations of a new product can be created and tested in digital environments to allow for early design validation and verification. These simulations can help to identify design flaws or areas for improvement, allowing the design to be optimized before reaching the physical prototyping step. Once a physical prototype is generated, the product can be further evaluated under real conditions to identify potential flaws and assess ease of use. Formulate a proactive marketing strategy. It is important to work on building a solid marketing strategy as you are going through the stages of product development. Companies should focus on developing strategies to boost demand for their product before it even becomes available for purchase. This proactive marketing approach can increase purchases once the product is released, which will help to speed up your return on investment.