Product Management in Brief

What is the aim of releasing a product? To meet client goals and to help in business realization, right? Through correct product management techniques, it is possible for a company to align itself with client goals and aspirations. So what is Product Management? It is a paradigm function that aims to drive a new product into the market with clever strategies. It should be aligned with customer demands in order to achieve market clarity. Product Management may be a fancy term now, but companies were doing it for a long time ago. Even before this term was coined, companies used to assemble talented people to identify the market requirement or to address a pain point. Once proper brainstorming is done, a product will be released into the market after a few iterations and tweaks. A product strategy would be introduced whereby the company’s business goals would be realized. 

A product management strategy would address the following aspects: 

1. How prepared is your product to meet the different requirements of your target segment? 

2. What steps you need to follow to make a punch release? 

3. What about the pricing and licensing details of the product? 

4. How are you going to position the product in the market? 

Pillars of Product Management

Here are seven main steps that would ensure you have good product development and release. 

1. Idea Generation 

Every big thing happens with a germ of an idea. Similarly, before each product is released into the market, you need to have an idea of the product. This idea is then whetted and grown through several brainstorming and discussion phases. The viability of the product would be tested through a SWOT analysis. SWOT means analyzing the Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats concerning various possibilities. While analyzing SWOT, consider the current market trends as well. 

2. Idea Selection 

You have a plethora of ideas, many of them really good. As it is not possible to go forward with all the ideas, the next would be to screen them all and go with the ones that would seem best under the circumstances. Considering the market potential, affordability and the ROI are important aspects. 

3. Roadmapping 

A product roadmap is the next important step in product management. It is like a visual document that would contain all the details of your product, the direction it is moving and what you expect to get from it in the end. Roadmap will contain your product strategy and how your product would come out in general. 

4. Development 

This is of course, the product development stage where a prototype of the product would be created and passed on to the technical and marketing department for their approval. Based on the prototype, the marketing team would devise a strategy that would be ready to go by the time the product is ready for release. Agile methodologies and coding are followed here. ‪It is also a fact that developers now deviate from the traditional project management methodologies ‬to adopt agile practices where the focus is on different aspects of the program, in different iterations. They also introduce the art of coding to their development work to ensure it is easy to read, understand, modify, maintain and enhance. 

5. Testing/Quality Analysis 

Once the product is developed according to the prototype, it needs to go through stringent testing and Quality Analysis programs. Testing will also involve the actual product as compared to the prototype. This process is very important to refine the different elements of the product right to the stage where you need to position it for marketing. 

6. Launch 

Just prior to the launch phase, the people behind the product work in close alliance with the engineers, developers, marketing team and customer support team to ensure the product meets specifications. And once the coding is perfect and there are no more bugs or errors, the product would be ready for launch in the market. 

7. Customer Feedback 

The entire product development stage faces fruition only when you receive customer feedback. Customer feedback might bring attention to any shortcomings that you’ve missed during the product development stage. Thus it is a valid step for validating the quality of your product in the market.