The 'Product' term is widely used, defining all sorts of physical & tangible products such as a toothbrush, keyboard, handbag, Facebook, Google Search, and many more. Yet, I think of products as a means to an end and a new beginning, or a means to becoming more efficient, providing a more feasible service, retaining customers and ultimately generating more revenue.
A product MUST provide benefit to an individual or to a company in order to be successful. Successful products are typically constantly required by their customer base and would somehow need or ideally have a competetive edge when compared to other similar products.
Here, we delve into what I refer to as the Product Journey, the different stages that come into play when creating and enhancing any form of digital Products.
Understanding business challenges and business processe across the different business units is the first step to every future solution. This requires the PM to become and act as a team member, spending time with all relevant stakeholders throughout the business process to fully understand the current end-to-end solution and their pain points/business challenges.
When the PM has understood the business process and pain points, the PM is now able to understand and appreciate their vision. This is where the feasibility study workshops are held with key stakeholders, thrashing out the current AS IS model and business challenges as well as understanding the end objective. Defining what is success? What is it that we are going to be solving and why? Risk vs Reward!
Concluding all feasibility study workshops (usually made up of flip charts and notes), the PM typically jumps in a Business Analyst role, documenting all that has been defined in a structured Business Requirements Document. This document would typically define the business challenges as well as the business objectives, together with HOW the business objective is to be achieved and why.
Finalising the first draft of the Business Requirements document (provided all key stakeholders have agreed on the way forward), the engineering team are brought into the picture, having all necessary discussions on what I like to call 'The Big Elephant', breaking it down into small chunks. The objective here is to define the effort in days and the associated total investment required for the solution.
Having in hand a well defined requiremetns document coupled with the investment cost, the PM may jump back into a Digital Transformation Consultant role to meet up with all key stakeholders. The objective is to prioritise the initial investment on the MUST Have features, able to get to market & receiving client feedback sooner.
The PM is now in a Product Managerial role! The prioritisation has been done, decisions have been made, development gets going, Sales & Marketing are engaged - Turning the concept into a reality, building a baby elephant with the intention to live a long and healthy life - which in the end, as nature has it, paves the way for new, more improved baby elephants (solutions).