Product Management – Workshop 1 (What Must Products Have to Succeed?)
The Appleton Greene Corporate Training Program (CTP) for Product Management is provided by Professor Fradin Certified Learning Provider (CLP). Program Specifications: Monthly cost USD$2,500.00; Monthly Workshops 6 hours; Monthly Support 4 hours; Program Duration 12 months; Program orders subject to ongoing availability.
If you would like to view the Client Information Hub (CIH) for this program, please Click Here
Learning Provider Profile
Professor Fradin has experience in building successful products and services since 1969, at organizations including Hewlett-Packard as well as Apple, where he was at the same management level as Steve Jobs.
Professor Fradin also heads a professional development company (Spice Catalyst, Inc) specializing in building insanely great products, product management, and product marketing and has trained thousands of managers throughout the world based on his experience at Hewlett-Packard, Apple, and across 75 products and services and eleven startups.
His clients have included Cisco, GameStop, Botswana Telecommunications Company, IDA Singapore, Pitney Bowes, Capital One Bank, Infosys, Cognizant, and many others.
More can be learned about his extensive experience at Linkedin under his name David Fradin at Spice Catalyst.
He is the author of:
• Building Insanely Great Products
• Organizing and Managing Insanely Great Products
• Successful Product Design and Management Toolkit
All of which are available on Amazon.
MOST Analysis
Mission Statement
The mission of this workshop is to set the stage for the following 47 workshops in terms of understanding the rate of product failures and its associated cost. Also to understand what is a product and who is the person, the product manager, that is responsible for the product.
Another part of the mission is to learn about the six keys to product success.
First is the product market strategy which contains such elements as what is it that the customer wants to do, how do they do it, when do they do it, why do they do it, where do they do it, and how satisfied are they with the way it is being done now and how important is getting that thing done.
Additional elements are:
• Design thinking the process and how to do it, innovation: what is it and where does it come from,
• The value proposition or the product/market fit or what is the product going to do for the customer,
• Customer research and
• How to conduct it via observation, interviews, surveys and if big data is available the analysis of it,
• Market research including sources both first hand and second hand,
• Product positioning that is a stake in the mind of the consumer about the product and its relationship to competing products,
• Distribution channels that is how will the product be distributed: direct, through distributors, retailers, manufacturing representatives,
• Features/advantages/benefits: what features does the product have, what are the advantages each feature has over the competitor’s product and what are the benefits of each feature to the customer,
• Pricing strategy like a cash cow, skimming, gross profit, training plan in terms of who needs to be trained on what topics and by when and where, and
• Product roadmap laying out the development of the product and/or product line into the future
Lastly, the mission is to understand that product success is not just about technology.
The overall mission is for the participants to be able to have a structure or framework around which they can plan and implement what is necessary for a successful product or service.
The other 47 workshops go into these topics in greater detail.
Objectives
1. Understand the size and causes of product failure
2. Learn what is a product and a service and their differences and similarities
3. Learn about the role of the product manager in the success of the product
4. Learn the six keys to product success
5. Understand what goes into a product market strategy
6. Understand the importance of repeatable product development processes
7. Understand the importance of having the right information at the right time for product success decision making
8. Understand how important it is to understand your customers and to learn what it is that they want to do
9. Learn the key competencies or skill sets that your employees need to have in order to help ensure product
10. Learn about the information technology, software products, and systems that can be used to. track product management processes and success
11. Understand that success is not just the technology
Strategies
1. Read the section related to product failure
2. Read the section related to what is a product?
3. Read the section related to. the role of the product manager and discuss with the class Including how the role In your organization is similar or different?
4. Read about the six keys to product success and be able to articulate them
5. Read about the key elements of a product market strategy
6. Read about the importance of a repeatable product development process in order to avoid product failure
7. Review what product information is currently available and identify the steps necessary to acquire the additional information that is needed
8. Read about the process to learn about what your customer wants to do.
9. Read about the list of competencies required for product success and identify which of those you currently have and those in which you need additional training
10. Identify current systems and tools being used in the management of your product or service and which ones you should consider adding
11. Read about why technology is not the only factor in product success
Tasks
1. Select a product that recently failed and identify the factors that contributed to its failure. Identify what things could have been done to have helped predict success.
2. Identify five products and five services add decide whether or not they are a product or a service.
3. Based upon the role of the product manager described in the workshop discuss what additional responsibilities and authorities should be added or removed to your current product manager job description
4. Each member of the class should pick one of the six keys to product success and describe them in detail
5. Each member of the class should pick one of the elements of a product market strategy and discuss in detail
6. Pick a recent product failure and discuss whether it was a repeatable process that was used in its product management lifecycle
7. For product information that is needed for good decision-making, identify a methodology to Obtain the information that is needed
8. Identify the four cumulative ways of obtaining customer information
9. For those competencies you feel you need to acquire describe how you are going to go about acquiring them
10. For the tools you currently use in product management, identify each of their strengths and weaknesses
11. List the reasons why technology is not the only factor in product success
Introduction
This foundational workshop gives you a birds-eye view of the entire Product Management lifecycle and the key elements that make a product successful.
It briefly covers why products fail, what is a product, what a product manager is, and the six keys to product success.
Executive Summary
About 40% of all new products fail each year representing a waste of over USD 0.64 Trillion. But they don’t have to. This workshop and the next will give you the tools, skills, and competencies for consistent product success.
This workshop will cover:
• Product Failure and Its Impact
• Introduction to The Six Keys to Product Success
• What Is a Product? What is a Product Manager? Six Keys to Product Success The First is the Strategy or Plan or Product Market Strategy
• The Keys to Product Success
• The History of the Management of Products and its Organization
• What Distinguishes Products and Services?
• Business Model and Canvas
• Product Management Lifecycle and Framework
• Product Management Competencies
• Successful Management of Products in Startups
• Competencies Required for Successful Management of Products
• Product Management Focused Organizational Structure
Chapter 1: Product Failure and Its Impact
The actual product failure rate is about 40%. New products can fail for a variety of reasons—poor product-market fit, unanswered customer needs, or staunch competition, to name a few. The reasons are:
No Product-Market Fit because the product does not fit the needs of the market and thus has little to no value.
The product is solving the wrong problem. Sometimes there are just not enough potential users for that product.
Letting the perfect miss, the market window because it is taking too long to develop and build the product.
Ignoring the voice of the customer results in failing to update the product to current customer needs.
Failing to establish beforehand customer listening posts to hear what the customers think on a regular basis.
Moving too slowly, so the market passes by.
Misunderstanding your customers in terms of what they want to do and perhaps where they go to buy a product does not match your product’s distribution.
Having the wrong price could be another reason, like being too expensive for the customer to justify or afford. Or too cheap, so the customer doesn’t believe the product will do what its value proposition says at such a low price. Or a competitive product offers a better return on investment.
Another mistake is going after a market that is too small, or your research into the target market is flawed.
Sometimes the wrong area of business is invested in. For example, resources are spent on product features instead of gaining distribution where the market is located.
Intensively competitive markets can also result in product failure. Lastly, poor execution can affect product success. For example, wasting advertising funds before the product is distributed and the sales force is trained.
Chapter 2: The Six Keys to Product Success
The six keys to product success is Strategy, Process, Information, Customers, Employees and Systems.
The Product Market Strategy consists of up to 32 key elements, from clearly understanding what your customer wants to do, to market and competitive research, to the product’s value proposition, product positioning, product roadmap, pricing and distribution strategy, and more.
Repeatable and mature product development and marketing process is the second key.
Having the right information available for decision making is important too.
Understanding clearly and deeply what the customer wants to do and where they research and buy a product or service for that problem.
Having within your product managers all of the 130 competencies required for product success.
Plus having the systems and tools for getting the job done is the last key.
Chapter 3: What Is a Product? Who Is a Product Manager? Six Keys to Product Success The First the Strategy or Plan or Product Market Strategy
A product is an article or substance that is created or refined with the intention of being used. Typically, it is marketed to be sold and/or delivered. A product usually is tangible. Even though one cannot touch software, it is considered to be a product too, because people interact with it through their computers or other devices.
A service is an intangible product.
Therefore, the services that are developed and/or delivered by commercial or non-profit organizations, including government, are products too, and the foundations discussed in this workshop also pertain to them.
Who is a product manager?
In many organizations, the person or persons responsible for the success of a product has the title Product Manager or Product Marketing Manager. However, they also some- times go by different other titles—perhaps as many as a few hundred more titles—but they pretty much do the same things (or a subset of the same things) and need to have the same competencies.
Chapter 4: The Keys to Product Success
The following are the six keys to product and organizational success—in short, SPICES:
1. Strategy
2. Process
3. Information
4. Customers
5. Employees
6. Systems
Chapter 5: The History of the Management of Products
The concept of a Product Manager (which we will cover in more detail later) started in 1932 at Procter and Gamble (P&G) and spread, based on my research, from P&G to Hewlett-Packard, to Apple (and others) and then to many companies in Silicon Valley and around the world. This includes such places as Australia, Sweden, and recently Germany, Portugal, and India.
Chapter 6: What Distinguishes Products and Services?
A product is a tangible entity that satisfies a want or need. It could be something that has been made to be sold. You can touch it. It is considered inventory and might have value if it can be sold. You can feel it. It is usually measured in units.
Merchandise, raw materials, finished goods, commodities, project deliverables, and insurance policies are all products. Recently, the concept of non-physical, intangible data products has emerged as virtual data goods, which are virtual products. You cannot touch them, but they are there. JPG, MP3, video files, and in the future, more and more 3D representations or Star Trek’s Hologram are other examples of products.
For-profit organizations, which are typically corporations, manufacture and/or develop products for sale.
A service is an intangible product.
Chapter 7: Business Model and Canvas
A business model is a description of means and methods a firm employs to earn the revenue projected in its plans. It views the business as a system and answers the question: “How are we going to make money to survive and grow?”
A business model contains four parts: value proposition, organizational structure, organizational relationships, and operations.
There are many different business models to make money.
A business model canvas provides a one page summary of the business model.
Chapter 8: Product Management Lifecycle and Framework
Frameworks have started being used only recently to the management of products, based on software architecture frameworks. Some companies have tried to adopt frameworks from manufacturing’s lean or just-in-time architecture. Others have based their framework on the Six Sigma framework for quality assurance. Additionally, others have recently adopted agile framework, replacing waterfall or Toll-gate/Stage-gate processes.
The advantage of having an agreed-upon framework is that everybody in the organization knows what needs to be done and when it needs to be done. The disadvantage of a framework is picking the wrong one. If it does not match into the vision, values and culture of the company, the framework will contribute to failure. For example, if the company’s value is to build quality products, but the process drives getting the product out quickly to get sales and compromises on quality, there may be a conflict caused because of the differences between the two priorities.
Chapter 9: Product Management Competencies
A competency is the ability to do something successfully and efficiently. In this session, we will discuss the various things an organization needs to do successfully and efficiently to enable the successful management of products. We will also discuss the skills or abilities required in a product management team to manage the products successfully.
The list of personal competencies required for the successful management of products is long, detailed and very complex. Few organizations, let alone professionals, have all the necessary competencies. Even fewer have the required depth of knowledge and experience necessary. That is why the management of products requires teamwork and effective give- and-take as areas are explored, debated and decisions made.
For product success, it is essential that your organization has competencies in all the areas discussed here in terms of the activities that need to be performed in each area.
These competencies fall into the categories of organizational, foundational and individual.
Chapter 10: Successful Management of Products in Startups and Competencies Required for Successful Management of Products
While we discuss the product management lifecycle and framework, a question comes to mind—Do these also apply to startups, which typically seem to function a little differently from bigger organizations?
It is typical for entrepreneurs and those involved in startups to think that what they have to do is different from what organizations would usually need to do to successfully manage their products. Some of this understanding developed from the agile hacking together of a product—which is why the term ‘development’ was changed to ‘hacking’.
Trying to come up with product ideas and what they help do is being called by some as ‘innovation’, as if this is something that organizations have started doing recently, and in the past, it was a mystery.
Chapter 11: Competencies Required for Successful Management of Products
A competency is the ability to do something successfully and efficiently. In this session, we will discuss the various things an organization needs to do successfully and efficiently to enable the successful management of products. We will also discuss the skills or abilities required in a product management team to manage the products successfully.
The list of personal competencies required for the successful management of products is long, detailed and very complex. Few organizations, let alone professionals, have all the necessary competencies. Even fewer have the required depth of knowledge and experience necessary. That is why the management of products requires teamwork and effective give-and-take as areas are explored, debated and decisions made.
In addition to personal competencies, there are also organizational ones necessary for product success.
Chapter 12: Product Management Focused Organizational Structure
The organizational structure can affect the success of a product severely. In this session, we will understand which organizational structures support, and which do not support customer-centric products.
In this workshop, you will learn about a military or railroad top-down structure, a matrix structure, management by badgering, and a new enlightened approach as evidenced by Hewlett-Packard which makes the employee and asset not a liability.
Curriculum
Product Management – Workshop 1 – What Must Products Have to Succeed?
- Product Failure and Its Impact
- The Six Keys to Product Success
- What Is a Product?
- The Keys to Product Success
- The History of the Management of Products.
- What Distinguishes Products and Services?
- Business Model and Canvas
- Product Management Lifecycle and Framework
- Product Management Competencies
- Successful Management of Products
- Competencies Required for Successful Management of Products
- Product Management Focused Organizational Structure
Distance Learning
Introduction
Thank you for enrolling in Appleton Greene’s Product Management. We are sure that you will find this journey exciting and rewarding to both you as an individual and for your company as a whole.
The Product Management training program is a forty-eight-step process that is presented through Appleton Greene’s distant learning method. This method requires the participants who are involved in the various workshops to take more responsibility for their learning than in the more traditional training methods. With the distant learning method, you will be doing a combination of group classroom learning, individual and group study, and preparation outside of the classroom.
This method may take some getting used to because a lot of the learning will happen outside of the classroom. This being the case, to be the most successful you will need to hold yourself accountable plus you will be part of teams that will hold each other accountable. This Distance Learning Guide explains how this method works and what is required on your part to be successful.
You have been assigned an Appleton Greens Product Management facilitator. This person is responsible for supporting you and helping you achieve maximum benefits from the Product Management. Please see the following Tutorial Support section for further explanation.
As Individuals
In order to effectively implement the Product Management workshops, it is important that everyone involved in a workshop learn all they can prior to and during a workshop. This involves reviewing and understanding the materials presented during a workshop as well as preparing for the workshop by studying the material required prior to each workshop. All the materials available prior to, during and after each workshop are designed to reinforce what you learned during a workshop to help ensure that you are prepared for the next step in the process.
The Introduction material is designed to help each participant better prepare for the workshop so they learn more and are better able to contribute to the discussions during each workshop. Participation from everyone attending a given workshop is essential if you are to reap the most from the Product Management workshops. Some workshops will have exercises that the participants will be asked to complete prior to the workshop. If the material is not clear to you or if you need help to better understand the pre-workshop exercises you are asked to contact your Appleton Green Product Management facilitator for clarification and guidance. Please refer to the Tutorial Support section for guidelines concerning the process to be used when contacting your Appleton Greene Product Management facilitator.
As Team Members
In order to effectively implement the Product Management, it is also important that as a group everyone involved in a workshop learn all they can from the workshop and as a group be ready for your next workshop. This involves team learning and team accountability. Learning is individual but applying this learning is only beneficial if it helps the team.
Your individual learning is dependent on how you personally study and learn. Some of what you learn is applicable to you individually. Most of what you learn, however, is aimed at learning how to apply your individual knowledge to a team setting. The focus here is on making sure that everyone in a workshop understands the subject matter. If you are unclear or confused, you need to speak up and ask questions within the workshop setting. Your Appleton Greene Product Management facilitator is available to help you, or your team members clarify what is expected of you. This will need to be scheduled in advance and at a time that works for everyone involved, making it more productive for everyone and giving your facilitator proper time to prepare. Please see the Tutorial Support section for suggested timing requirements.
Self-Discipline
One of the challenges of receiving training through the distance learning method is that you are more on your own than if you are strictly working with a facilitator in a classroom setting. It is up to you to evaluate your progress. It is up to you to be truthful with yourself concerning your level of understanding of what you have been taught. If you are uncertain you need to reach out to your Appleton Green Product Management facilitator or talk with others who are in the same workshop as you. You will not be given any tests in order to move on to the next workshop. It is up to you to determine your level of understanding and to be sure to ask questions about what you do not understand. This can be a trying situation for some people who are used to being given clear direction concerning their job tasks. This can also be intimidating to those who do not have as much self-confidence as others. One of the main purposes of the Product Management workshops is to create synergy through effective teamwork throughout a company. Remember, everyone is in the same boat. You are all learning together. There is no reason for any of you to feel intimidated or that you lack what others may have. Everyone is different in varying respects and possesses different skill sets. These differences are in large part what makes teams so effective.
It is important that you discipline yourself to stay on track with what you are learning. If you do not stay current, you will not only hurt yourself because you are not gaining the type of understanding you need but you are also hurting the other members of your team.
Summary
The distance learning method allows you some freedom to study when you want and the ability to work around a more flexible schedule. However, it does require more self-discipline to ensure you stay on course. It also requires a more truthful self-assessment than if you are in a more structured learning environment. Not only does it require a more truthful self-assessment, it requires a more open atmosphere among the team you are part of. As team members, you will need to rely on each other to ensure that not only as individuals you are gaining the understanding you need but as teams you are gaining the combined knowledge necessary to make the Product Management workshops as successful as it can be.
Tutorial Support
Programs
Appleton Greene uses standard and bespoke corporate training programs as vessels to transfer business process improvement knowledge into the heart of our clients’ organizations. Each individual program focuses upon the implementation of a specific business process, which enables clients to easily quantify their return on investment. There are hundreds of established Appleton Greene corporate training products now available to clients within customer services, e-business, finance, globalization, human resources, information technology, legal, management, marketing and production. It does not matter whether a client’s employees are located within one office, or an unlimited number of international offices, we can still bring them together to learn and implement specific business processes collectively. Our approach to global localization enables us to provide clients with a truly international service with that all important personal touch. Appleton Greene corporate training programs can be provided virtually or locally and they are all unique in that they individually focus upon a specific business function. They are implemented over a sustainable period of time and professional support is consistently provided by qualified learning providers and specialist consultants.
Support available
You will have a designated Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and an Accredited Consultant and we encourage you to communicate with them as much as possible. In all cases tutorial support is provided online because we can then keep a record of all communications to ensure that tutorial support remains consistent. You would also be forwarding your work to the tutorial support unit for evaluation and assessment. You will receive individual feedback on all of the work that you undertake on a one-to-one basis, together with specific recommendations for anything that may need to be changed in order to achieve a pass with merit or a pass with distinction and you then have as many opportunities as you may need to re-submit project studies until they meet with the required standard. Consequently the only reason that you should really fail (CLP) is if you do not do the work. It makes no difference to us whether a student takes 12 months or 18 months to complete the program, what matters is that in all cases the same quality standard will have been achieved.
Support Process
Please forward all of your future emails to the designated (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit email address that has been provided and please do not duplicate or copy your emails to other AGC email accounts as this will just cause unnecessary administration. Please note that emails are always answered as quickly as possible but you will need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general tutorial support emails during busy periods, because emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. You will also need to allow a period of up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Please therefore kindly allow for this within your time planning. All communications are managed online via email because it enables tutorial service support managers to review other communications which have been received before responding and it ensures that there is a copy of all communications retained on file for future reference. All communications will be stored within your personal (CLP) study file here at Appleton Greene throughout your designated study period. If you need any assistance or clarification at any time, please do not hesitate to contact us by forwarding an email and remember that we are here to help. If you have any questions, please list and number your questions succinctly and you can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each and every query.
Time Management
It takes approximately 1 Year to complete the Product Management corporate training program, incorporating 12 x 6-hour monthly workshops. Each student will also need to contribute approximately 4 hours per week over 1 Year of their personal time. Students can study from home or work at their own pace and are responsible for managing their own study plan. There are no formal examinations and students are evaluated and assessed based upon their project study submissions, together with the quality of their internal analysis and supporting documents. They can contribute more time towards study when they have the time to do so and can contribute less time when they are busy. All students tend to be in full time employment while studying and the Product Management program is purposely designed to accommodate this, so there is plenty of flexibility in terms of time management. It makes no difference to us at Appleton Greene, whether individuals take 12-18 months to complete this program. What matters is that in all cases the same standard of quality will have been achieved with the standard and bespoke programs that have been developed.
Distance Learning Guide
The distance learning guide should be your first port of call when starting your training program. It will help you when you are planning how and when to study, how to create the right environment and how to establish the right frame of mind. If you can lay the foundations properly during the planning stage, then it will contribute to your enjoyment and productivity while training later. The guide helps to change your lifestyle in order to accommodate time for study and to cultivate good study habits. It helps you to chart your progress so that you can measure your performance and achieve your goals. It explains the tools that you will need for study and how to make them work. It also explains how to translate academic theory into practical reality. Spend some time now working through your distance learning guide and make sure that you have firm foundations in place so that you can make the most of your distance learning program. There is no requirement for you to attend training workshops or classes at Appleton Greene offices. The entire program is undertaken online, program course manuals and project studies are administered via the Appleton Greene web site and via email, so you are able to study at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office as long as you have a computer and access to the internet.
How To Study
The how to study guide provides students with a clear understanding of the Appleton Greene facilitation via distance learning training methods and enables students to obtain a clear overview of the training program content. It enables students to understand the step-by-step training methods used by Appleton Greene and how course manuals are integrated with project studies. It explains the research and development that is required and the need to provide evidence and references to support your statements. It also enables students to understand precisely what will be required of them in order to achieve a pass with merit and a pass with distinction for individual project studies and provides useful guidance on how to be innovative and creative when developing your Unique Program Proposition (UPP).
Tutorial Support
Tutorial support for the Appleton Greene Product Management corporate training program is provided online either through the Appleton Greene Client Support Portal (CSP), or via email. All tutorial support requests are facilitated by a designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). They are responsible for deciding which professor or tutor is the most appropriate option relating to the support required and then the tutorial support request is forwarded onto them. Once the professor or tutor has completed the tutorial support request and answered any questions that have been asked, this communication is then returned to the student via email by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). This enables all tutorial support, between students, professors and tutors, to be facilitated by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM) efficiently and securely through the email account. You will therefore need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general support queries and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because all tutorial support requests are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Consequently you need to put some thought into the management of your tutorial support procedure in order to ensure that your study plan is feasible and to obtain the maximum possible benefit from tutorial support during your period of study. Please retain copies of your tutorial support emails for future reference. Please ensure that ALL of your tutorial support emails are set out using the format as suggested within your guide to tutorial support. Your tutorial support emails need to be referenced clearly to the specific part of the course manual or project study which you are working on at any given time. You also need to list and number any questions that you would like to ask, up to a maximum of five questions within each tutorial support email. Remember the more specific you can be with your questions the more specific your answers will be too and this will help you to avoid any unnecessary misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or duplication. The guide to tutorial support is intended to help you to understand how and when to use support in order to ensure that you get the most out of your training program. Appleton Greene training programs are designed to enable you to do things for yourself. They provide you with a structure or a framework and we use tutorial support to facilitate students while they practically implement what they learn. In other words, we are enabling students to do things for themselves. The benefits of distance learning via facilitation are considerable and are much more sustainable in the long-term than traditional short-term knowledge sharing programs. Consequently you should learn how and when to use tutorial support so that you can maximize the benefits from your learning experience with Appleton Greene. This guide describes the purpose of each training function and how to use them and how to use tutorial support in relation to each aspect of the training program. It also provides useful tips and guidance with regard to best practice.
Tutorial Support Tips
Students are often unsure about how and when to use tutorial support with Appleton Greene. This Tip List will help you to understand more about how to achieve the most from using tutorial support. Refer to it regularly to ensure that you are continuing to use the service properly. Tutorial support is critical to the success of your training experience, but it is important to understand when and how to use it in order to maximize the benefit that you receive. It is no coincidence that those students who succeed are those that learn how to be positive, proactive and productive when using tutorial support.
Be positive and friendly with your tutorial support emails
Remember that if you forward an email to the tutorial support unit, you are dealing with real people. “Do unto others as you would expect others to do unto you”. If you are positive, complimentary and generally friendly in your emails, you will generate a similar response in return. This will be more enjoyable, productive and rewarding for you in the long-term.
Think about the impression that you want to create
Every time that you communicate, you create an impression, which can be either positive or negative, so put some thought into the impression that you want to create. Remember that copies of all tutorial support emails are stored electronically and tutors will always refer to prior correspondence before responding to any current emails. Over a period of time, a general opinion will be arrived at in relation to your character, attitude and ability. Try to manage your own frustrations, mood swings and temperament professionally, without involving the tutorial support team. Demonstrating frustration or a lack of patience is a weakness and will be interpreted as such. The good thing about communicating in writing, is that you will have the time to consider your content carefully, you can review it and proof-read it before sending your email to Appleton Greene and this should help you to communicate more professionally, consistently and to avoid any unnecessary knee-jerk reactions to individual situations as and when they may arise. Please also remember that the CLP Tutorial Support Unit will not just be responsible for evaluating and assessing the quality of your work, they will also be responsible for providing recommendations to other learning providers and to client contacts within the Appleton Greene global client network, so do be in control of your own emotions and try to create a good impression.
Remember that quality is preferred to quantity
Please remember that when you send an email to the tutorial support team, you are not using Twitter or Text Messaging. Try not to forward an email every time that you have a thought. This will not prove to be productive either for you or for the tutorial support team. Take time to prepare your communications properly, as if you were writing a professional letter to a business colleague and make a list of queries that you are likely to have and then incorporate them within one email, say once every month, so that the tutorial support team can understand more about context, application and your methodology for study. Get yourself into a consistent routine with your tutorial support requests and use the tutorial support template provided with ALL of your emails. The (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit will not spoon-feed you with information. They need to be able to evaluate and assess your tutorial support requests carefully and professionally.
Be specific about your questions in order to receive specific answers
Try not to write essays by thinking as you are writing tutorial support emails. The tutorial support unit can be unclear about what in fact you are asking, or what you are looking to achieve. Be specific about asking questions that you want answers to. Number your questions. You will then receive specific answers to each and every question. This is the main purpose of tutorial support via email.
Keep a record of your tutorial support emails
It is important that you keep a record of all tutorial support emails that are forwarded to you. You can then refer to them when necessary and it avoids any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.
Individual training workshops or telephone support
Please be advised that Appleton Greene does not provide separate or individual tutorial support meetings, workshops, or provide telephone support for individual students. Appleton Greene is an equal opportunities learning and service provider and we are therefore understandably bound to treat all students equally. We cannot therefore broker special financial or study arrangements with individual students regardless of the circumstances. All tutorial support is provided online and this enables Appleton Greene to keep a record of all communications between students, professors and tutors on file for future reference, in accordance with our quality management procedure and your terms and conditions of enrolment. All tutorial support is provided online via email because it enables us to have time to consider support content carefully, it ensures that you receive a considered and detailed response to your queries. You can number questions that you would like to ask, which relate to things that you do not understand or where clarification may be required. You can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each individual query. You will also then have a record of these communications and of all tutorial support, which has been provided to you. This makes tutorial support administration more productive by avoiding any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.
Tutorial Support Email Format
You should use this tutorial support format if you need to request clarification or assistance while studying with your training program. Please note that ALL of your tutorial support request emails should use the same format. You should therefore set up a standard email template, which you can then use as and when you need to. Emails that are forwarded to Appleton Greene, which do not use the following format, may be rejected and returned to you by the (CLP) Program Administration Manager. A detailed response will then be forwarded to you via email usually within 20 business days of receipt for general support queries and 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Your tutorial support request, together with the corresponding TSU reply, will then be saved and stored within your electronic TSU file at Appleton Greene for future reference.
Subject line of your email
Please insert: Appleton Greene (CLP) Tutorial Support Request: (Your Full Name) (Date), within the subject line of your email.
Main body of your email
Please insert:
1. Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) Tutorial Support Request
2. Your Full Name
3. Date of TS request
4. Preferred email address
5. Backup email address
6. Course manual page name or number (reference)
7. Project study page name or number (reference)
Subject of enquiry
Please insert a maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Briefly outline the subject matter of your inquiry, or what your questions relate to.
Question 1
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 3
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 4
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 5
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Please note that a maximum of 5 questions is permitted with each individual tutorial support request email.
Procedure
* List the questions that you want to ask first, then re-arrange them in order of priority. Make sure that you reference them, where necessary, to the course manuals or project studies.
* Make sure that you are specific about your questions and number them. Try to plan the content within your emails to make sure that it is relevant.
* Make sure that your tutorial support emails are set out correctly, using the Tutorial Support Email Format provided here.
* Save a copy of your email and incorporate the date sent after the subject title. Keep your tutorial support emails within the same file and in date order for easy reference.
* Allow up to 20 business days for a response to general tutorial support emails and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because detailed individual responses will be made in all cases and tutorial support emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received.
* Emails can and do get lost. So if you have not received a reply within the appropriate time, forward another copy or a reminder to the tutorial support unit to be sure that it has been received but do not forward reminders unless the appropriate time has elapsed.
* When you receive a reply, save it immediately featuring the date of receipt after the subject heading for easy reference. In most cases the tutorial support unit replies to your questions individually, so you will have a record of the questions that you asked as well as the answers offered. With project studies however, separate emails are usually forwarded by the tutorial support unit, so do keep a record of your own original emails as well.
* Remember to be positive and friendly in your emails. You are dealing with real people who will respond to the same things that you respond to.
* Try not to repeat questions that have already been asked in previous emails. If this happens the tutorial support unit will probably just refer you to the appropriate answers that have already been provided within previous emails.
* If you lose your tutorial support email records you can write to Appleton Greene to receive a copy of your tutorial support file, but a separate administration charge may be levied for this service.
How To Study
Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can help you to plan a task list for getting started so that you can be clear about your direction and your priorities in relation to your training program. It is also a good way to introduce yourself to the tutorial support team.
Planning your study environment
Your study conditions are of great importance and will have a direct effect on how much you enjoy your training program. Consider how much space you will have, whether it is comfortable and private and whether you are likely to be disturbed. The study tools and facilities at your disposal are also important to the success of your distance-learning experience. Your tutorial support unit can help with useful tips and guidance, regardless of your starting position. It is important to get this right before you start working on your training program.
Planning your program objectives
It is important that you have a clear list of study objectives, in order of priority, before you start working on your training program. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance here to ensure that your study objectives have been afforded due consideration and priority.
Planning how and when to study
Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. This approach is designed to let you study efficiently away from the traditional classroom environment. It is important however, that you plan how and when to study, so that you are making the most of your natural attributes, strengths and opportunities. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance and useful tips to ensure that you are playing to your strengths.
Planning your study tasks
You should have a clear understanding of the study tasks that you should be undertaking and the priority associated with each task. These tasks should also be integrated with your program objectives. The distance learning guide and the guide to tutorial support for students should help you here, but if you need any clarification or assistance, please contact your tutorial support unit.
Planning your time
You will need to allocate specific times during your calendar when you intend to study if you are to have a realistic chance of completing your program on time. You are responsible for planning and managing your own study time, so it is important that you are successful with this. Your tutorial support unit can help you with this if your time plan is not working.
Keeping in touch
Consistency is the key here. If you communicate too frequently in short bursts, or too infrequently with no pattern, then your management ability with your studies will be questioned, both by you and by your tutorial support unit. It is obvious when a student is in control and when one is not and this will depend how able you are at sticking with your study plan. Inconsistency invariably leads to in-completion.
Charting your progress
Your tutorial support team can help you to chart your own study progress. Refer to your distance learning guide for further details.
Making it work
To succeed, all that you will need to do is apply yourself to undertaking your training program and interpreting it correctly. Success or failure lies in your hands and your hands alone, so be sure that you have a strategy for making it work. Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can guide you through the process of program planning, development and implementation.
Reading methods
Interpretation is often unique to the individual but it can be improved and even quantified by implementing consistent interpretation methods. Interpretation can be affected by outside interference such as family members, TV, or the Internet, or simply by other thoughts which are demanding priority in our minds. One thing that can improve our productivity is using recognized reading methods. This helps us to focus and to be more structured when reading information for reasons of importance, rather than relaxation.
Speed reading
When reading through course manuals for the first time, subconsciously set your reading speed to be just fast enough that you cannot dwell on individual words or tables. With practice, you should be able to read an A4 sheet of paper in one minute. You will not achieve much in the way of a detailed understanding, but your brain will retain a useful overview. This overview will be important later on and will enable you to keep individual issues in perspective with a more generic picture because speed reading appeals to the memory part of the brain. Do not worry about what you do or do not remember at this stage.
Content reading
Once you have speed read everything, you can then start work in earnest. You now need to read a particular section of your course manual thoroughly, by making detailed notes while you read. This process is called Content Reading and it will help to consolidate your understanding and interpretation of the information that has been provided.
Making structured notes on the course manuals
When you are content reading, you should be making detailed notes, which are both structured and informative. Make these notes in a MS Word document on your computer, because you can then amend and update these as and when you deem it to be necessary. List your notes under three headings: 1. Interpretation – 2. Questions – 3. Tasks. The purpose of the 1st section is to clarify your interpretation by writing it down. The purpose of the 2nd section is to list any questions that the issue raises for you. The purpose of the 3rd section is to list any tasks that you should undertake as a result. Anyone who has graduated with a business-related degree should already be familiar with this process.
Organizing structured notes separately
You should then transfer your notes to a separate study notebook, preferably one that enables easy referencing, such as a MS Word Document, a MS Excel Spreadsheet, a MS Access Database, or a personal organizer on your cell phone. Transferring your notes allows you to have the opportunity of cross-checking and verifying them, which assists considerably with understanding and interpretation. You will also find that the better you are at doing this, the more chance you will have of ensuring that you achieve your study objectives.
Question your understanding
Do challenge your understanding. Explain things to yourself in your own words by writing things down.
Clarifying your understanding
If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your understanding.
Question your interpretation
Do challenge your interpretation. Qualify your interpretation by writing it down.
Clarifying your interpretation
If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your interpretation.
Qualification Requirements
The student will need to successfully complete the project study and all of the exercises relating to the Product Management corporate training program, achieving a pass with merit or distinction in each case, in order to qualify as an Accredited Product Management Specialist (APTS). All monthly workshops need to be tried and tested within your company. These project studies can be completed in your own time and at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office. There are no formal examinations, assessment is based upon the successful completion of the project studies. They are called project studies because, unlike case studies, these projects are not theoretical, they incorporate real program processes that need to be properly researched and developed. The project studies assist us in measuring your understanding and interpretation of the training program and enable us to assess qualification merits. All of the project studies are based entirely upon the content within the training program and they enable you to integrate what you have learnt into your corporate training practice.
Product Management – Grading Contribution
Project Study – Grading Contribution
Customer Service – 10%
E-business – 05%
Finance – 10%
Globalization – 10%
Human Resources – 10%
Information Technology – 10%
Legal – 05%
Management – 10%
Marketing – 10%
Production – 10%
Education – 05%
Logistics – 05%
TOTAL GRADING – 100%
Qualification grades
A mark of 90% = Pass with Distinction.
A mark of 75% = Pass with Merit.
A mark of less than 75% = Fail.
If you fail to achieve a mark of 75% with a project study, you will receive detailed feedback from the Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and/or Accredited Consultant, together with a list of tasks which you will need to complete, in order to ensure that your project study meets with the minimum quality standard that is required by Appleton Greene. You can then re-submit your project study for further evaluation and assessment. Indeed you can re-submit as many drafts of your project studies as you need to, until such a time as they eventually meet with the required standard by Appleton Greene, so you need not worry about this, it is all part of the learning process.
When marking project studies, Appleton Greene is looking for sufficient evidence of the following:
Pass with merit
A satisfactory level of program understanding
A satisfactory level of program interpretation
A satisfactory level of project study content presentation
A satisfactory level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
A satisfactory level of the practical integration of academic theory
Pass with distinction
An exceptional level of program understanding
An exceptional level of program interpretation
An exceptional level of project study content presentation
An exceptional level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
An exceptional level of the practical integration of academic theory
Preliminary Analysis
Content here…
Course Manuals 1-12
Course Manual 1: Product Failure and Its Impact
Workshop Objectives
At the end of this workshop, you will be able to:
LO1: Define product management
LO2: Discuss six key steps to product success
Each year, Battelle (a nonprofit research organization) and R&D Magazine publish a report on the global research and development funding forecast (The Annual Forecast of Global Research and Development Funding), which is a public service for use by policymakers, corporate research leaders, researchers, educators, and economists. They believe that research and innovation ‘contribute in the short and long terms to prosperity and competitiveness, as well as to the resolution of society’s greatest challenges in areas such as health, energy, and security.
The world, according to the report, spent about USD 1.6 trillion on research and development in 2014. But not all those expenditures translated into ‘prosperity’ because many of the resulting products and services failed in the marketplace. The product failure rate can be defined as the percentage of new products actually introduced to the market, which then failed to meet the commercial objectives of the business unit that launched the product.
Each year, Battelle and R&D Magazine report on their “annual forecast of global research and development funding, which is a public service for use by policymakers, corporate research leaders, researchers, educators, and economists.”
They claim that research and innovation “contribute in the short and long terms to prosperity and competitiveness, as well as to the resolution of society’s greatest challenges in areas like health, energy, and security.”
Product failure is a commonly discussed theme in today’s world. The common conviction today is that approximately 80%–90% of products fail.
George Castellion of SSC Associates and Stephen K. Markham of North Carolina State University, however, do not agree with this data. According to one of their White Papers (Myths About New Product Failure Rates: New Product Failure Rates: Influence of Argumentum ad Populum and Self-Interest), the common assertion that 80%–90% of products fail is an urban legend. Instead, they claim, the actual product failure rate is around 40%.
So, even if we were to believe this assertion, then instead of having wasted USD 1.28–1.44 billion, our world wasted only USD $0.64 trillion in resources. Even that is a huge amount!
If we could do just a little better, the increase in productivity will have a measurable impact on improving our society overall, because successful products can enhance our life and the environment immensely. Imagine if we could use the same techniques that reduced airplane accidents to reduce the level of product failure!
In the same way, Steve Jobs built a company (with a ton of help from many others) that changed the world, imagine if other companies and organizations could also do the things Apple does well too. That shall also truly change the world and help many more beyond those who purchase Apple’s products.
The question becomes:
What are the reasons for product failures, and what key things can be done to reduce the rate of failure? If the rate of failure can be reduced, then that waste can be reduced with those resources being used elsewhere.
Failure reduction will also increase the productivity of research and development.
Product failures tend to fall into six general areas. Here is a high-level overview of the six essential keys to averting failure and enhancing the chances of product success. We will go into much more detail in the upcoming workshops.
The Six Keys to Building Insanely Great Products — You won’t learn in MBA School!
Product success is first based on building a company or organization that can be successful, then understanding the customer, innovation, a market strategy for the product, and then the hard part — the implementation: marketing, sales, service, support, and operations.
This article “11 Reasons New Products Fail” by Jared Shaffer is a pretty good review of the issues.
Great products fail all the time. It’s difficult to say precisely how common product failure is. Some popular statistics overestimate that 80% to 95%—the vast majority—of new offerings wind up as failures. While newer research suggests that the number is closer to 40%, the likelihood of product failure still represents a very real risk to fledgling companies. The stakes are high for new startups to launch products that earn enough revenue to sustain the business—but it isn’t an easy feat to achieve.
New products can fail for a variety of reasons—poor product-market fit, unanswered customer needs, or staunch competition, to name a few.
Reason #1: No Product-Market Fit
Achieving product-market fit means you’ve developed a product that offers value to the right market for your business. When you’ve found it, you’ll see signs like:
• Increased sales
• Low churn rates
• Product popularity growing through word of mouth
• High usage among your core customers
Without product-market fit, you’re unlikely to find much success with your product, no matter how well it works.
I’m sure you remember how Microsoft decided to take on the iPod in 2006. The company launched Zune, which promised to do everything that Apple’s device could do too. Yet, in spite of great promises, Zune failed on the market.
Why did Zune fail? Microsoft was just chasing Apple and created a product that offered no reasons for customers to switch. Microsoft’s marketing campaign fell flat compared to Apple’s, and the Zune’s feature set wasn’t as valuable to users as the iPod’s was. What’s the lesson from this mistake? It’s hard to know how the market will react to a product and marketing messaging, hence why it’s crucial to test these things beforehand.
Targeting the wrong market can lead to problems with fit, as can chasing a market that’s too small to sustain your business. Companies that routinely earn and keep product-market fit do so by adapting their product regularly to fit the changing needs of their market (not the other way around).
Reason #2: Solving the Wrong Problem
Every successful product needs to solve a problem for its users, and, going back to the idea of product-market fit, there need to be enough users with that specific problem. Solving a non-existing or rare problem won’t earn the popularity you need to gain traction in the market.
In 1990, Maxwell House launched Ready to Drink Coffee. The premise behind the product was simple: To create a new, convenient way for customers to enjoy coffee instantly, without having to actually make themselves a cuppa at home. Sounds genius, right?
A customer could buy the product at their local supermarket, bring it home, microwave it, and … voila, their coffee was ready. So why did it flop?They experienced a common problem many business leaders (especially early-stage entrepreneurs) encounter: feeling overly attached to their idea and convinced that there’s no need to change course. In this case, they envisioned a high-tech way to tackle a problem that didn’t need such an intricate, resource-intensive solution.
It turned out that you couldn’t microwave the coffee in its original packaging. Instead, customers had to pour the product from the packaging into a mug before putting it into the microwave … an activity no different than pouring yourself a cup of fresh coffee from the coffeemaker. That’s exactly what customers kept doing, forcing the company to abandon the product.
The solution for this kind of problem is to talk to your customers and target market. You may start out by creating a product that solves a problem you experience—and that’s a great place to begin. However, if you don’t check in with a larger audience, you’ll never know how widespread that problem truly is. Going back to your customers and validating your product decisions during (and even after) the build is the key to creating long-lasting, highly efficient products. Keurig’s continued success is a great example of a company finding an innovative way to solve the same problem Maxwell House tried to address.
Reason #3: Aiming for “Perfect” Instead of “Done”
When you’re launching something new, you have to balance the value you’re trying to deliver against the timeframe needed for your team to develop it. While putting a half-baked product on the market can certainly lead to problems, so can waiting too long to launch. It’s better to spend a month creating and launching an imperfect product that will garner feedback than it is to devote a quarter to perfecting software that may not actually address the problem you want it to.
That was what happened with Google Lively, the search giant’s answer to Second Life. After prolonged product development, Lively finally launched in 2008, just as the recession started to take its toll. As a result, the company pulled the product after just five months to “focus more on our core search, ads and apps business.”
New products (and new businesses) often fail because they spend too much time and resources trying to create something “perfect” instead of going to market with a completed product that can begin earning revenue. By the time that over-engineered product does hit the market, customer needs could have changed, the market segments may have evolved, or the economy could have shifted.
It’s completely normal to feel a little embarrassed when you launch your minimum viable product (MVP)—in fact, if you don’t feel at least a little worried about how your first launch will go, you’ve probably waited too long to release your product.
Reason #4: Not Gathering Regular Feedback from Customers
Customer feedback is the key to developing a product that solves their problems. Without checking in regularly, you’ll never really know if your product is delivering value or not. Even if that initial feedback is negative (which, if you’re working with an MVP, some of it will be), it contains actionable insight into how you can make incremental changes and improve your product over time.
In 1970, AT&T became blinded by its own vision and ignored negative feedback in trials, which led to the failure of the Picturephone. The company’s executives believed that a million units would be in use within 10 years of launch. Instead, after spending years researching and trialing the product, they pulled it off the market in just three years due to a lack of consumer interest. We know now that customers want video calls (we use them every day), so why did Picturephone fail?
As it turns out, users found the equipment too bulky, its controls unfriendly, and the picture too small to view clearly. The price for the service was also too high for most consumers—and these were all things users brought up during the trial phase.
Negative feedback can be difficult to deal with, especially if your company is brand new and you’re trying to make your entrepreneurial dreams a reality. It’s completely natural to want to avoid acting on it—or to avoid collecting it altogether. However, if you don’t ask your customers for their truthful opinions, you’ll never be able to iterate on your product responsively and quickly.
Your best defense against frivolous spending and wasting precious development cycles is proactively gathering feedback and validating every new feature and iteration of your product to better understand which product features add the most value for your end-users.
Reason #5: Iterating too Slowly
Quick updates are another key component of a successful product. The emphasis here is on “quick”—customer needs change fast, and so does the competitive landscape. The only way to keep up is to move in fast iterative software development cycles.
Fast iteration is part of what propelled Slack to its current success (which is a story we’ve discussed before on our blog). What started as an internal communication tool for a video game company was tested and tweaked until it became the uber-popular work tool it is today.
Timing is very important for B2B SaaS companies. In fact, mistiming a launch is a common reason why startups ultimately shut their doors. Your best option is to get comfortable making fast changes (and even get comfortable occasionally breaking things). It’s better to fail fast and learn something actionable than it is to move slowly and never understand why your product failed to gain traction.
Fast iterations will sometimes mean deviating from your initial product roadmap. That’s OK, and it’s quite common for early-stage startups to make big pivots away from their original plan. The key is to prioritize those pivots, which will deliver the most value for your customers.
If you’re not sure which changes to prioritize, your customers will tell you. Try to use feedback as a guide pointing you toward which iterations offer the most strategic benefit for your product’s overall success.
Reason #6: Using Incorrect Assumptions About Your Customers
It’s not always immediately clear how your customers will use your product—and sometimes, they use it in a way you didn’t intend. If your customers are getting value from your product, that can still be a win, and understanding user habits is the first step toward giving them the experience they want (even if it’s not the one you originally envisioned).
PayPal is a great example of how to pivot once you find out that your assumptions about your customers were wrong. When they initially developed their product, founders Max Levchin and Peter Thiel intended to provide an online banking service. Users came to rely on the service for quick online payments that didn’t require checks or money orders, and PayPal was born.
However, be careful of incorrect assumptions that can create problems if you’re not aware of them. If your customers are relying on your product for an unintended use, it’s only a matter of time until a competitor shows up to offer that functionality more purposefully than your product does. In fact, PayPal has made recent rate changes in response to increased competition in the digital payments space.
In product management, we talk about a concept called the intention-action gap. This gap is the distance between the way a customer would theoretically use a product and the way they’ll actually interact with it under real-world pressure and time constraints. The intention-action gap can be tough to plan around: prospective customers will sometimes assume they would use a product one way during a survey, even if that’s not realistic to their everyday life.
You can understand how your customers use your product by talking with them and, if possible, by watching them interact with it. Usability testing gives you the opportunity to find out exactly how your product is solving problems for your customer base. Short validation tests can also help you determine what your customers are using your product for.
Reason #7: Pricing Your Product Wrong
Products that aren’t priced to fit the market can fail. Customers won’t buy products that are priced too high, but if you set your price too low, you won’t generate enough revenue to sustain your business. It can be difficult to get your pricing strategy right, and many entrepreneurs put too little thought into how they’re going to turn a profit off of their idea. Some venture-funded companies eat through cash quickly because they don’t consider how much it really takes to earn a profit off of their product.
The Apple Newton PDA flopped for a number of reasons. Although some observers cite poor handwriting recognition as a main reason for the product’s failure, the steep $700 price point contributed significantly. That cost was too high for many consumers at the time, and, in the next few years after the Newton came out, cheaper alternatives became available.
The popular freemium model presents another pricing challenge for startups. Convincing customers to open their wallets and switch from a free version of your software to the paid flagship product is sometimes easier said than done. If the free version of your software offers enough perceived value to users, they won’t feel motivated to switch to the premium version. Meanwhile, your business can run out of resources while you’re waiting on free users to convert to paying customers.
If your pricing is getting in the way of your product’s success, it’s time to adjust. You can look to your competitors for an idea of what the market will sustain. Also, keep in mind how much expenses really go into creating your product. There are many strategies for pricing your product, and it’s OK to change course if your current approach isn’t working.
Reason #8: Not Enough Market or Industry Research
Successful products serve the needs of the market and industry. If you’re missing information about your target market or overall industry, it’ll be difficult (maybe impossible) for you to develop a product that fits.
Market research is an essential step to launching a successful new product. In fact, consulting firm McKinsey identified “incorporating market insights” as one of the most important steps for a successful product launch. Understanding who you’re serving is, of course, crucial for creating a valuable product, but it also influences how you position and market your product within your industry.
As a startup, Instagram successfully pivoted thanks to in-depth research into product analytics and user behavior. When it started, Instagram was called Burbn and, among a long list of other features, it allowed iPhone users to check in at different locations and share photos of their exploits. Burbn turned out to be too complicated for users—most people ignored the app’s full feature set and relied solely on its photo-sharing feature.
Instagram’s research into user behavior uncovered an important finding: the social media market was missing a simple photo-sharing app. Thus, Instagram was born.
Instagram’s success would not have been possible if co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger didn’t check in with people to find out how they were really using their product. Without that step, they may have remained hyper-focused on offering a feature users didn’t really want or need.
If you constantly talk with your customers, you’ll uncover insights that can help you make sure your product fits the needs of your target market.
Reason #9: Investing in the Wrong Areas of Your Business
When you’re just starting out, it’s common to have a tight budget and limited time to devote to your product. Under those constraints, you need to be extra careful when you decide which areas of your business receive time and money and which ones can wait until later.
You may not need to devote a lot of money to a marketing blitz, for example, if you already have deep industry connections and word-of-mouth buzz. Your budget may be better invested by hiring capable developers and conducting regular customer surveys and interviews to gather their feedback.
In 2007, Joost promised to be the peer-to-peer TV network of the future and seemed off to a flying start. Unfortunately, Joost had various problems with its architecture, player, content library … you name it. Their team wasn’t able to fix those issues, and, as a result, it never took off. Two years after its launch, whatever was left of it was sold to Adconion.
The lesson? Lack of resources and internal support can hinder your efforts to produce a product that satisfies customer needs.
Early-stage startups are often fast-paced and a little unpredictable—as are new product launches. You and your team can lean into that unpredictability by staying malleable and being willing to pivot with little notice. It’s often better to shift course and make a mistake, as long as you do it quickly and learn how to do it better next time.
Reason #10: Problems with Your Competition
B2B SaaS is intensively competitive, and being outcompeted is a common reason that new startups fail—as much as 20% of startups closed because of a crowded marketplace.
It’s possible to pivot even if you’re facing a seemingly insurmountable challenge. Twitter did this quite successfully. Originally known as Odeo, the company had developed a podcasting platform while founders and staff tinkered with what we now know as Twitter on the sidelines. Odeo’s hopes to corner the burgeoning podcasting market were dashed once Apple released podcast support on iTunes. So the company pivoted to offering a micro-blogging social media platform—a segment they still dominate today.
If your market share is challenged by a new product, you have a couple of options on how to respond:
• Figure out what valuable functionality is missing from the product and add it to yours (but be sure it’s something that customers really want)
• Determine what users love about your product and focus on pleasing that segment of devoted customers
Whichever path you take, try to be sure you’re innovating and not just copying the competition.
Reason #11: Poor Execution
So many things contribute to new product failure: bad design, poor user experience, sloppy implementation, feature creep, and lack of quality control. Microsoft alone has several examples of how poor execution affected their product’s performance on the market.
Microsoft’s BOB, a UI addition that was intended to make PCs more beginner-friendly, relied on technology most users didn’t possess at the time—and that resulted in the product not functioning properly. The 2007 iteration of their core product, Windows Vista, used so much power that most users found it unusable. Vista also created a plethora of problems when using the Internet, including slow-loading pages and missing graphics. It was a recipe for failure. It’s no surprise that four months after the launch, Microsoft allowed Dell to sell computers with an older version of Windows pre-installed.
It’s tough to learn that your team didn’t execute part of your product strategy successfully, especially when you’ve poured so much time and dedication into your work. However, learning those hard lessons is the first step to iterating and correcting your initial mistakes. Even if your new product launch didn’t achieve the level of success you hoped for, it’s not too late to address the problem and try again. Microsoft learned how to improve on some of the problems with Vista in the later iterations of its OS.
Understand Why Your Product Is Failing
Before you can fix the problem with your product, you need to understand the reason why it failed. If you’re not sure what was behind the initial failure, talk to your customers. Ask them via surveys or one-on-one interviews which aspects of your product fell short of their expectations, and look at your product analytics to find out how users behave.
The approach to fixing the problem will vary depending on what’s behind your failed initial launch. If your product’s functionality is great, for instance, but something is amiss with your user experience, fixing the problem may be as easy as simplifying your user onboarding process.
Your best option is to talk with your customers and prospective users before your new product fails. That will help you identify potential problems early so you can iterate fast and deliver more value than your competitors.
The combination of a company’s values/vision, processes, employees, and systems/tools is what builds the company. One needs a strategy, information about the development and implementation of that strategy, and a clear understanding of what their customers want to “do.” The reasons for product failure are contained in one or more of these areas.
Problem-Solving Exercise 1
Course Manual 2: The Six Keys to Product Success
The Six Keys to Product Success are:
1. Strategy
2. Process
3. Information
4. Customers
5. Employees
6. Systems and Tools
Or a good mnemonic is SPICES. And, by the way, the name of the company that have developed these workshops.
“Success is a side effect of doing the right things in the right time” – Andre Hawit
1. Strategy (Product Market Strategy)
Every product should have a strategy, and a plan. The strategy should be mostly done before the development begins.
Many simply make the mistake of just identifying a few parts of the strategy and then jumping into development. Only later, when the product is being announced or even after the product is in the market and does not sell, does the organization go back and try to figure out the strategy.
This approach of “ready, fire, aim” leads to many product failures.
It is far better to “ready, aim in the general direction, fire and refine.”
A strategy or a plan for your product for a specific market or markets is what I call a “product market strategy.”
A product market strategy is essential to product success.
Product Market Strategy Checklist
Getting Started:
• Values, Vision/Mission Statement
• Decision Making: DACI or RACI Chart
• Schedule with responsibilities
Discover
• “Do”
• Innovation
• Problem Scenarios, Use Cases, and Outcomes
• Opportunity and Risks
• Prioritization
• Value Propositions
• Personas
• Market/Competitive Research and Analysis
• Market Status and Adoption
• Technology Insights
• Product Positioning
• Market Size, Segments, and Target Market
• Total Available Market
Plan
• Product Market Vision, Opportunity, and Description
• Competitive Environment
• Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT)
• Product Features, Advantages, Benefits and Problems Solved
• Pricing Strategy
• Market Penetration Strategy
• Channels, Partners and Affiliates
• Training for Sales, Marketing, Distribution, Channels, Partners, Affiliates, Operations, Support and Service
• Cost and Pricing Strategy and Business Model
• Basic Data Analysis
• Sales Forecasting
• Budgeting, Expense Control and Return-On-Investment
• Metrics
• Intellectual Property
• Product Road Map
• Product Portfolio
• Budget and Return on Investment
2. Process
Importance of Process
“If you don’t have a product lifecycle process, you end up having a culture of blame” – A VP of product management in Silicon Valley
Do you have a repeatable, mature, and optimized product lifecycle framework with a process?
Without such a framework — that includes who makes what decisions, who needs to be informed/consulted, and who is driving the product — you will not only enhance your chances of failure but also will develop a culture of blame within the organization. This is because of the nature of some humans to blame others for failure.
A product lifecycle framework that everybody agrees to stick to will enhance the chances of success, reduce duplication of effort, and nearly eliminate rushing a product to market before you are ready.
The Spice Catalyst product lifecycle framework takes into account the digital transformation businesses are being forced to do today to remain competitive and the customer journey (which requires focusing on all stages and not just the purchase, agile, innovation, social media, messaging derived for products that were designed from the beginning to provide value). It also considers compassion for the customer and reward for their loyalty when the product they love is brought to its end of life, and an understanding that operations, support, service, and training are contributing more and more to the customer believes that a product is truly an insanely great product.
Unfortunately, other frameworks from the most popular training companies mostly fail to consider what is listed above — thus, if followed, their frameworks enhance the chance of product failure.
“Why is it they would be pushing a framework that is going to hurt and not help?” you might ask?
It’s because they just want to repeat, “That is the way it has always been done.” They do not want to think through the impacts of organizational and interpersonal behavior.
I looked in-depth at their frameworks to assess them from the standpoint of completeness and currency. I am uniquely qualified to evaluate these frameworks since I have had personal experience with each – either by teaching or taking classes from all of them. In addition, I have experience in conducting extensive analyses of several companies’ processes and providing senior management with a report as to their strengths and weaknesses.
Agile Product Lifecycle Process
While each has its own set of strengths and weaknesses, they all suffer from these eight key aspects:
1. Digital Transformation: Changes caused by digital technology are not reflected.
2. Customer Journey: Product managers and product marketing managers have to be concerned with the entire customer journey – not just bits and pieces.
3. Agile: A real integration of Agile product management is needed. Most briefly cover agile as a form of product development, but it is typically just bolted onto an existing waterfall framework or ignored completely.
4. Innovation: Generally, it is only cursorily mentioned in the product description or requirements documents, which seems odd. So does that mean the product manager has nothing to do with innovation, even though most authors of the frameworks say the product manager is the “voice of the customer?”
5. Social Media: Not mentioned even though in the past five years, it is the fastest and becoming the most important part of the marketing mix — not only to get the message out, but also to monitor what the market is saying about your product. This is a huge failure. I cover social media marketing in Marketing Insanely Great Products.
6. Messaging: It is derived from the value propositions by persona and positioning, which incorporates your competitive and market research.
7. End of Life: Many companies ignore maintaining customer loyalty when they bring a product to its end of life.
8. Operations: Support/Service/Training: Many companies fail to plan for customer support, service and the training of them and the channel
Part of the reason for what I outlined above is because the latest version was done in 2011, before the concepts of the digital transformation, customer journey and social media leaped in the product process mix.
Many of the reasons why products fail are a direct result of the limitations of the frameworks being used and promoted. Failed frameworks = failed products – it is as simple as that.
Another part of the reason these frameworks are flawed is the background and experience of the folks who put them together. Many are just plain lazy. Quite often, one framework is merely a copy of another. Additionally, two “current” frameworks actually date back to the 1990s – which was significantly before there was any consideration of the eight factors listed above.
While several frameworks have been published publicly as innovative, they do not reflect any current improvements in process or procedures from what has been done for decades. One framework strongly reflects the author’s’ experience at one company, which has ultimately failed. How is that helpful? Most are neither “complete” nor “optimal” (beware of false advertising). Furthermore, the most studied framework reflects nearly three years of work from nearly 60 people. Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, it too misses the mark since, for the most part, the eight factors for success are largely not taken into account.
After hearing Marshall McLuhan (Canadian professor, philosopher, public intellectual, and one who is viewed as one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory), the statement occurred to me:
“The medium is the message.”
I believe there is a corollary:
“The process is the product.” – David Fradin
Because if there is a flawed process, one ends up with a flawed product. If the process is good, the product is almost always consistently good.
Product Management Lifecycle Framework
Spice Catalyst Product Management Lifecycle Framework
According to the Gartner Group, you also will not be able to move up the process maturity curve from having operational problems, to being aware of the process, to internal and external control and automation, to enterprise goal driven control, and then to agile innovation.
Process Maturity Curve
The Six Phases of Business Process Maturity (BPM) Courtesy: Gartner.
A modern framework and strong, clear processes will build a “can-do” culture – a culture of success.
Assess Your Product Lifecycle Process
16 Questions to Assess Your Product Management lifecycle
Now that you know the Six Keys to Product Success and the need to have mature, repeatable processes that follow a modern framework, the question becomes, where is your organization in terms of keys to success, process, and framework?
Over the years, I have developed 16 questions you can ask in order to conduct an assessment.
They cover all the interpersonal and inter-organizational behavior questions that are key to understanding what is working well, what is not, and what your team should suggest being done to improve. The questions and their resulting answers also cover asking about the inputs that will help your team get the job done and what competencies they need to actually do their job. The questions also help you get a feel for how well your team understands your company’s culture and whether or not the culture is enhancing success — or encouraging failure.
Here are the questions to assess your process:
Assessment questions:
1. What is your role?
2. Who owns the overall responsibility for the product’s success?
3. What is your process for gathering and prioritizing requirements and feature requests?
4. What deliverables do they own or greatly contribute to?
5. What is working best?
6. What is missing?
7. What are your biggest challenges?
8. Where are the biggest bottlenecks? What slows you down most?
9. What changes would you make?
10. Are there things that you have done or seen at other companies that worked better?
11. What tools and software do you use today?
a. What is good about them?
b. What could be improved?
12. Specifically, what information about your customers and your product is available to your product managers and product marketing managers that helps them do their job?
a. What additional information do they need?
13. How do you go about assessing the competency of your product managers and product marketing managers?
a. What are your plans to improve those competencies?
14. In your words, what is the vision of your company?
15. What are the values of the company?
16. Please describe the company’s culture.
3. Information
To manage a product effectively, one needs to have information and knowledge available before decisions are to be made in order to track and make corrections.
This information includes all of the information necessary to pull together a product market strategy, up-to-date information about how well the marketing is working, how well sales are going, and what is happening in all aspects of operations.
Without it, managing the product is flying blind.
The questions you should ask are:
● What information do you need?
● How are you going to get it?
● In a digital world, how are you going to stay on top of it?
“There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge available to us: observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination. Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common.” – Denis Diderot
4. Customers
• How well do you know your customers?
• What are you doing to be sure you keep them happy?
• Does your product and your company help your customers “do” what they want to do?
• If your product and your company truly help people do what they want and need to do, then you will be wildly successful. If not, then you will know the impact of the consequences.
In turn, by generating your value proposition based on innovation for what people “do,” and positioning statements – which in turn will drive your marketing, messaging, and media efforts – everything becomes more effective and easier.
Generating your value proposition becomes easy if you start with what people “do.” Likewise, after doing competitive market research, the combination of information from the innovation and customer value makes positioning easy, too.
As a result, messaging and key selling points quickly fall by the wayside.
“Business is not just doing deals; business is having great products, doing great engineering, and providing tremendous service to customers…” — Ross Perot
5. Employees
Alfred Sloan, the Chairman of General Motors, codified business accounting principals with such things as people as “liabilities” and inventory as an “asset.” The principles are followed today by most MBA-trained leaders and the financial community. As society evolved from an agricultural to an industrial one, Sloan developed this “modern accounting system.” Even though we have gravitated from an “industrial” society to an “informational” one, Sloan’s system affects most corporate decision making and it is causing problems. Sometimes it drives decisions that are not always in the best interest of the company, its employees, its shareholders, and most importantly, its customers.
Let’s discuss these two concepts.
“Train everyone lavishly, you can’t overspend on training” – Thomas J. Peters
Inventory is a Liability, NOT an Asset
Inventor
For example, during the great recession of 2008, General Motors had over 1.5 Million cars they could not sell. If you do not have customers, your inventory is worthless. Using Sloan’s principles, those cars should have been very valuable, but instead they were a major liability.
HP didn’t strongly believe in Sloan’s standard accounting methods as a means of strategic management of the company. How do I know? First of all, I was there. In addition, the history books show how HP helped pioneer the field of “just in time” manufacturing (maintaining minimal inventory) and helped teach the Japanese how to do it (which has evolved into “agile” these days).
David Packard wrote and spoke frequently about the issue. There was also an attempt in the 1980s by the Association of Accountants to change the practice, but it failed and we still use Sloan’s principles today.
People are an Asset, NOT a Liability
People
When a downturn occurred, HP knew that its people were the most important asset, not a liability, as Sloan’s accounting methods articulated. On occasion, when there was an economic downturn, employees volunteered to work less, so that all could work. They would work nine out of every 10 days. The result: when the recession ended, the company didn’t have to go to the expensive cost of finding and training new people.
HP also doubled down and invested more during a recession, doing product research and development. It was the same thing Steve Jobs was quoted as saying in 2008 about doing at Apple – he probably learned that from David Packard. Hence, we are seeing the results now of that strategy. Apple doubled down on new product development during the great recession, and as a result, by 2012, it became the most valuable company in the world. Inventory is a liability and people are assets, not the other way around.
6. Systems and Tools
You need to have the systems and tools in place to meet the challenges listed below. I discovered them by researching, watching and interviewing those who are responsible for managing products.
“Give us the tools, and we will finish the job” – Winston Churchill
Challenges of Managing Products
The Challenges of Building Insanely Great Products
One of the many significant challenges we have in building insanely great product is managing its product lifecycle. We did interviews of five dozen managers of products around the globe and across multiple domains.
These are the challenges we found:
• Process / Methodology: The first major challenge is the process. The process doesn’t ensure success but can help reduce the failure rate through checks and balances and repeating what works vs. what does not work. This means that process maturity is key. As a result, organizations must give serious thought to which process might or might not work for them.
• Enterprise Assets are being stored as Personal Assets (information on personal computers, for example): Most are using “point” solutions such as Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Email) for word processing, financial analysis, presentations, and communications. The resulting artifacts, such as competitive analysis, vendor analysis, and cost analysis, are also stored on personal desktops, making it difficult for others in the enterprise to access – especially when the knowledge worker is traveling.
o Collaborative tools like Wikis, SharePoint, and Google Docs are beginning to be used. With these, there are risks of data loss, critical human resources going on emergency leave, or human error.
o Organizations need to make sure these assets that form the knowledge base of the product are available, created, and easily accessible by those who need it, and at the right time.
o In addition, that information needs to be the right information and be current and up to date.
• Unstructured data: If it is left to individual intelligence on how product information is organized, then the artifact structure can become very complicated. Each will create their own structure, while others within the organization will have their own standards and conventions. Given the fact the information is distributed in various ways, either they will end up wasting a good amount of time to keep the information structured, or let an unstructured format take precedent. This results in wasting time looking for information, including finding the most up-to-date information at the right time.
• Collaboration: There are many options teams can use day-to-day to work together. Chat, Phone, Video call (Skype/Google Hangout), Slack, Jive and Webex/GoTo Meeting are all popular in 2016. On top of these tools, teams often have their own collaboration platform, which means that collaboration on the chat, phone, and other spaces are not necessarily stored in the collaboration platform. Without close and timely collaboration between all the stakeholders, the odds of product failure increase.
• Communication, Task Assign, and Tracking: Email is still the number-one tool used to communicate. There have been studies on the side effects of overusing email that enables critical communications to be lost or overlooked. Despite the many issues, organizations rely on this tool, given that stakeholders are accustomed to it. Email is sometimes used as an action tracker system for tasks that email was not generally designed to accomplish. As a result, it is difficult to prioritize tasks and track their status. Furthermore, the rich history of information sharing and decision-making is buried in email threads that are hard to find, especially in a timely fashion.
• Visibility: Managers, directors, and VPs must have effortless visibility on what their team members are working on. How much visibility do all product team managers have on their related areas of product development and go-to market activities? Many are perhaps working on quarterly deliverables with monthly reviews, which may not be frequent enough for agile, mid-course corrections. For example, product managers might create market research that may contain errors, only to be found when being reviewed and after the errors have been disseminated. These product managers, as a result, may not have had an opportunity to seek the input of their team in order to maximize the research project. As a result, strategic decisions might sit in wait mode while these reviews happen. Since business dynamics are so fast, more visibility and transparency are necessary to make it easy for organizations to adapt to rapid change and thus be agile.
• Lack of Authority: Influence is the key to overcoming this challenge. But what else can product managers do to enforce a viable work product? RACIs or DACIs document the concept initiation stage and make cross-functional teams clear on roles and responsibilities. It might have to be revised when required. But many teams do not use this technique. Maintaining a structured way of working along with all team members, knowing for sure the extent of their responsibility and authority, is key. Doing so would be proactive, forcing cross-functional team members to respect the product lifecycle workflow and help avoid counterproductive political issues.
• Thus, one of the keys to building insanely great products is to have the systems and tools in place to do word processing, financial analysis, presentations, communications, collaboration, process management, task management, and document control (storage, search, retrieval, access, version management, and organization), reporting, and decision management. Now with this list in hand, you can go out and look at the available systems and tools and select the ones that make the most sense for your organization.
Problem-Solving Exercise 2
Process
Information
Customers
Employees
Systems and Tools
b. What are the key process steps needed in the context of the products listed above?
Identifying un-met needs of the end-users
Market validation of a new product feature
Preparing for launch of a new product release
Setting-up support desk for newly launched product
c. How companies like Netflix have leveraged data (Analytics)? What data helps them to make next movie to watch recommendation?
d. What are the benefits of investing in developing insanely great user experiences for a product enterprise?
e. What are the critical responsibilities of a agile product owner? Which are the stakeholders a typical product owner needs to engage & why? Which information contained in the deliverables of product owner is consumed by a business analyst?
f. What are the digital tools used in agile product development? Compare MURAL and Miro collaboration platforms.
g. Make a list of different strategies under the following strategies:
Feature prioritization & market alignment
Product testing
Product differentiation
Product sales channels
Listening to voice of customers
Listening to employees for product innovation
Building relationships with channel partners
h. What can we learn from failed strategies?
i. What are the popular techniques/ frameworks used to arrive at product strategy?
Course Manual 3: What Is a Product?
What Is a Product, a Product Manager and more on the Keys to Product Success
A product is an article or substance that is created or refined with the intention of being used. Typically, it is marketed to be sold and/or delivered. A product usually is tangible. Even though one cannot touch software, it is considered to be a product too, because people interact with it through their computers or other devices.
A service is an intangible product.
Therefore, the services that are developed and/or delivered by commercial or non-profit organizations, including government, are products too, and the foundations discussed in this workshop also pertain to them.
Who Is a Product Manager?
In many organizations, the person or persons responsible for the success of a product has the title Product Manager or Product Marketing Manager. However, they also some- times go by different other titles—perhaps as many as a few hundred more titles—but they pretty much do the same things (or a subset of the same things) and need to have the same competencies. In information technology, they are also called Business Analysts, but they only perform a portion of the responsibilities that have been discussed in Module 2: Product Market Strategy.
The concept of a Product Manager (which we will cover in more detail later) started in 1932 at Procter and Gamble (P&G) and spread, based on my research, from P&G to Hewlett-Packard, to Apple (and others) and then to many companies in Silicon Valley and around the world. This includes such places as Australia, Sweden, and recently Germany, Portugal, and India.
Nonetheless, a sizable number of organizations in many countries (such as Singapore, India, China, and parts of Europe), generally believe they do not need Product Managers. The rest of the world has little recognition of the role, but some of the techniques of entrepreneurship (which is a subset of all of the competencies required for product success) are just beginning to be deployed in such places as Africa and Pakistan.
Further, many organizations that currently offer services, such as the huge outsourcing IT services industries in Singapore, India, and the developing one in China, also widely do not understand that what they are providing is a product as well. And that if they want to shift from a product management model, based on their domain knowledge, to sell their service to others beyond the original contracting client (thus producing sustainable, repeatable, and longer-term revenue with possibly higher margins), they need people responsible for over 130 competencies necessary for product success.
Failure to learn and deploy people with these competencies will be at their own risk, and significantly increase their chances of failure.
Product management and product marketing management have been the keys to Silicon Valley’s long-term success. It has spread principally from Santa Clara County to San Francisco, and now the rest of the Bay, including the area between Palo Alto and San Francisco, to Oakland, and more recently to Fremont and the Livermore Valley.
However, in its transition from P&G to HP, it lost what P&G’s brand managers had, which was the authority over the product’s budget to develop the product’s market strategy and do its marketing. This has resulted in the Product Manager today having all the responsibility, with no other authority than their persuasion and political skills. In such cases, the senior management of organizations can learn to do what the management teams of Apple, Google, Facebook and others have done, leading to their tremendous success.
Over the past dozen or so years, the Sales Vice President in these organizations has been renamed the Chief Customer Success Officer. On a similar note, I advocate that the time has come to start calling the people that are currently called Product Managers or the like, as the Product Success Officers. Their group director would then have the title of Group Product Success Officer and the Vice President or Executive (or Senior) VP would be called the Chief Product Success Officer.
But how can we ensure that we make more effective products and why do so many products fail? Could we use the same techniques that reduced airplane accidents, to reduce the level of product.
What if other companies and organizations also could do things that an organization like Apple does well, and build a company the way Steve Jobs did (with a ton of help from many others), that changed the world? Making effective products can truly change the world and help many more beyond just those who purchase Apple’s products.
Throughout this course, we will understand in depth the various reasons for product failures and what key things can be done to reduce the rate of failure, and as a result, reduce waste and increase the productivity of research and development.
In this context, it is important to remember that the success of the product or the responsibility to make a product successful does not lie only with the Product Manager.
While the Product Manager plays an important role in planning and implementing this initiative, it is ultimately the responsibility of the entire management team, and the organization as a whole, to work cohesively to create a customer-centric Product Management culture, which ultimately leads to the success of a product.
In this introductory module, we will get a bird’s-eye view of the key steps that organizations or Product Managers need to keep in mind to plan, develop and manage successful products. The other modules in this program will elaborate on these steps and help you develop the skills to work on each of these stages.
Six Keys to Product Success
My studies have found that causes for product failures tend to fall into six general areas. In this session, we will give you a high-level overview of these essential keys to averting failure and enhancing the chances of product success.
The following are the six keys to product and organizational success—in short, SPICES which we covered in an overview.
We will now go into further detail about the strategy in this workshop and the rest in next workshop:
1. Strategy
2. Process
3. Information
4. Customers
5. Employees
6. Systems
Let us discuss each of these.
1.`Strategy: Strategy or Product Market Strategy
The first key to product success is to have a clearly laid out strategy—a strategy for the product, a product market strategy.
By strategy, we mean a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim.
All too often, products are developed with the process as shown in Figure 1.1.1 in mind: op
Typical Product Planning Process
Some even call it Ready, Fire, Aim—a very popular expression used by venture capitalists, angel investors and others.
I believe this process is flat wrong!
What happens if:
• What is conceived, is not solving the problems of what people and/or companies do?
• What is developed, is for problems people and companies have no interest in solving?
• Sales people swarm the masses pushing a product that people do not want or need?
But this is exactly what is done all the time. In fact, it appears this is actually a good part of the 40% failure rate of products/services and the failure of startups.
Here is what is missing:
A strategy or plan!
Since a product, to be a product, also must have a market, a product market strategy is a clearer description of a product strategy to be successful in a particular market.
The Product Management framework depicts the major stages of a product’s lifecycle. Note that product planning and product market strategy is only one of the phases. The six stages of the Product Management framework include:
• Product Planning (Product Market Strategy)
• Product Development
• Launch
• Marketing
• Operations
• End of Life
This is a framework designed specifically for products and services. Many companies have tried to adopt various other frameworks, including those for software engineering, quality control or just-in-time manufacturing, but only with varying levels of success.
Steps to Building the Product Market Strategy
Although frequently misunderstood, a plan is essentially the strategy. Sometimes, the terms get used interchangeably. For example, if my goal is to conquer a hill, one of my layouts is a plan to go around it to the left and breach a weak spot. That is the strategy—to go around it to the left rather than a frontal attack.
Figure 1.1.2 Product Management Lifecycle Framework
An organization first gets started with product planning by making sure the company’s vision and values are complete. In addition, it needs to determine who will be responsible for which decisions and a schedule is established.
Following are the key areas and questions one needs to find answers to, to put together an effective product planning strategy.
1. Discover: Do
Do you completely understand what your prospective customer does? What are the tasks they are trying to get done? What job are they trying to accomplish? What are their pain areas or challenges in getting this job done?
You learn this by observing, then interviewing, and then surveying. You come up with a hypothesis of the problems your prospective customers are having first, by observing what they do.
Then, you validate the existence of those problems by interviewing additional prospective customers that fit the same persona. Last, by conducting surveys, you can quantify the magnitude of the problem. You might iterate on observing, interviewing, and surveying until the real problem that has to be solved has been clearly defined.
For a business-to-business (B2B) activity, do you know your customer’s customer and what they do?
2. Discover: Innovate
Can you innovate? Can you come up with ideas, not for the sake of ideas, but with ideas that solve real problems you know your customers are having?
3. Discover: Market and Competitive Research
Can you do market research and/or direct someone who can?
Can you do competitive research on both the products that compete with you, and with the companies you are competing with?
4. Discover: Personas
Can you identify and define targeted personas who would be users for your products, based on your research? Can you clearly define their characteristics, behavior, their needs and what they would want to see in a product? In short, can you clearly say the product will actually do what the target persona wants to achieve?
5. Discover: Value Proposition
Based on understanding of what your customers want to do, your innovation and your tar- get personas, can you develop and write a clear value proposition for your product? Your marketing and sales people’s success would depend on how clearly this has been done.
Based on your value proposition and market/competitive research, can you come up with a compelling positioning statement, which in turn your marketeers can translate into a compelling messaging that is memorable, and enables your product to stand out?
7. Discover: Target Markets
Can you aggregate your target user personas into market segments and addressable markets and pick the ones that will give you the greatest success?
8. Discover: Product Roadmap
Can you produce a sensible product roadmap for both—your insanely great customers and for your sales team? And a roadmap that is easy to understand and will solve their problems?
9. Execute: Implementation
How well can you implement and execute? Can you get things done in a timely fashion?
10. Develop: Differentiators
If you can get any of the above things done better than the competition, they automatically become significant differentiators and will make life difficult for the competitors. The more you can do the above well, the more differentiators you have, and the better your chances of success.
11. Develop: Brand
What would your brand message be? Over time, the elements of your product strategy become your brand, or the promise of your product and/or company that sets you apart from your competition.
Case Study
Product Branding: Apple
Apple does the entire process of product planning and translating their product strategy into their branding message extremely well, and it is a major part of their success.
Problem Solving Exercise 3
