adam's notes

Improving the Product Launch Process

A Product Launch is a business decision, not a technical decision. 
Business decisions are driven by the market.

Definition

A Product Launch is a campaign to deliver a release to the market.

  • Campaign: A series of connected activities designed to bring about an accelerated result
  • Release: A unit of work that has value to the market completed by the development team. 
  • Release does not equal launch.

Current Challenges

  • Product launch expectations are unknown and not met
  • Too many surprises
  • Not enough time for effective planning
  • No clear ownership of the product launch
  • Enablement efforts are criticized and/or under-utilized

Barriers to Success

  • Awareness problems, both internal and external
  • Technical infrastructure to be able to track metrics
  • Lack of experience/knowledge and understanding the “why”
  • Competition (out of our control)
  • Inability to execute (due to lack of ownership)
  • Resistance to change, both internal and external

Components of a Successful Product Launch

  • Product Summary
    • Name
    • Description
    • Marketecture
    • Positioning Document
  • Launch Window
    • Dev works towards the launch date
    • Launch team works backward from launch date
  • Launch Strategy (What is the shortest path to success and how do we get there?)
    • Market Segment & Audience: Current Customers, Current Prospects, RoW?
    • Launch Types: Retention, Share of Wallet, Migration, Wedge, Displacement, Mindshare, Breakthrough
    • Competitive Differentiation
      • How is our product better than our competitors? 
      • How should we message/position ourselves? 
  • Launch Team & Readiness Assessment
    • Launch team validates/solidifies required launch activities to progress towards the goals
    • Readiness assessment ensures organizational success
  • Launch Goals & Supporting Metrics
    • Support overall business goals and tie each launch goals to one of them:
      • Revenue 
      • Retention 
      • Awareness/Perception
    • Focus the launch team
    • Create a sense of urgency and purpose
    • Enable performance tracking
    • Define metric, amount, time
  • Post-Launch Plan?

Resources

New Launch Process

  1. The WHY: After Product Council decisions and pre-roadmap distribution: (i.e. in the last couple of weeks every quarter)
    1. Marketecture(PMs, CM/PMM, DP)
    2. Positioning Document
    3. High Level Description
    4. Competitive Differentiation (PMM)
  2. Start Naming Process (the earlier the better; avoid engineering names)
  3. Determine launch details: window, type, and priority
    1. GTM Blueprint 
    2. Invoicing and contract implications
    3. Launch window based on LOE
    4. Launch type: Retention, Share of Wallet, Migration, Wedge, Displacement, Mindshare, Breakthrough
      1. Could have multiple launch types if there are multiple segments (i.e. HS branding for current customers vs. prospects)
    5. Beta or GA?
    6. Priority/Impact/Tier: Strategic, Very Important, Important, Routine
      1. Differences between these priorities? 
      2. Are there different steps/expectations depending on priority?
      3. Need definitions and examples
  4. Launch Goals (Product team, including data, owns first draft)
  5. Form Launch Team
    1. First Meeting:
      1. Review documentation, GTM blueprint, and product overview
      2. Solidify goals
      3. Set meeting frequency 
    2. Second Meeting:
      1. Determine specific segments (i.e. which existing customers are we going to target, who can be our first, will they make a good reference?)
      2. Create readiness scorecards
    3. Continuous feedback loop from clients between CS and PMs
  6. Launch team check-ins
    1. Stand up style
    2. Review readiness scorecards 
    3. Check ins will include whatever enablement is needed: review talk tracks, demos, testing, marketing plans, etc. 
  7. Launch Day!
    1. Define Launch Day
      1. What does it mean from an internal vs. external perspective (i.e. sales is selling 6 months in advance, what does that mean for prospects)
      2. “Launch Day” for existing clients vs. prospects
    2. Communication (both internal and external)
    3. Monitoring (product/engineering)
  8. Post-Launch Plans
    1. Retro 
    2. Hand off to Client Success & Client Marketing
      1. Continued adoption plan
      2. Reporting and any related visualizations
      3. Monitoring (i.e. proactively monitor usage data around a new feature to detect any failures or anomalies for the first (defined number of) days after launch)

End of life evaluation? > Quarterly product planning?

Reference

  • Lauren Meeks (Patientco)

Graph View

Backlinks