Chapter 7
Before the Product development –
turning order into work
Words to remember
„The problem always
comes first”
Sources of ideas
• Your stakeholders
• Helpdesk staff and the support tickets
• Client interviews
• User comments
• News/blogs/website research
• Competitors
• Company/Team brainstorming sessions
• Hackatons
Client requests and reactions table
Small clients Regular clients Key clients
Agree and put on road
map with medium
priority unless someone
Don't agree unless client Don't agree unless client
is eager to pay and
One time request is willing to pay 2x for is willing to pay
compensate from the
development development
losses that come from
changing your original
plans
Agree and put on road
map with medium
priority unless someone
Consider putting it into
is eager to pay and Why haven't you reacted
Re-occuring request roadmap with low
compensate from the already?
priority
losses that come from
changing your original
plans
Words to remember
„You need to know
where you stand on
your market”
Different market spaces for new products
• Product, that is the first one to solve a problem
• Is there a need for such product?
• Did someone tried that before and failed?
• Product, that is entering an unsaturated martket
• Is there enough clients to support my business?
• How do I differ from the competitor?
• Product, that is entering a saturated market
• Can I create a disruption that will allow me to survive?
Get to know your competitors
• Who are they?
• Are you able to identify the size of their client base?
• Can you list the value proposition that makes your product
superior to your competitors?
• Can you identify competitor key features? How do they
compare with your product?
• Can you beat their price while maintaining a profit? Can
you affort working without one?
Words to remember
„As clients are your key
stakeholders, you need
to understand them and
their needs”
Client interviews summary
• Focus on listening, not moderating.
• Use open ended questions
• You need to avoid influencing your interviewee
• Be patient, focused and engaged
• Keep the conversation open and allow emotions
• Try to aim at 30-45 minutes call, but allow it to take longer
if client has still things to say
• Don’t be afraid to talk to ex-clients
• Remember that this is just an inspiration source
Example open questions
• What do you think of our product?
• How can we improve our product?
• If you were in charge of this product what would you
change?
• Now that you have this product, what’s the #1 thing you’re
able to do that you weren’t before?
• How would you feel if you could no longer use this
product?
Example open questions
• What should we stop doing?
• Why, or Why not?
• What other solutions have you considered?
Source: [Link]
Words to remember
„You need to think
about the unthinkable
and predict the
unpredictable.”
Benefits of strategic thinking
• You can inspire your team and company
• You are ready for less expected challenges
• You always know where are you heading with your
product
• You secure your comapny’s future
• You prove you understand your market very well
Steve Johnson from under10 consulting
„Roadmaps are
evidence of strategy.
Not a list of features.”
Roadmap summary
• Don’t be too date specific in your roadmaps. It’s mainly
about communicating your goals
• It’s your high-level plan
• Make it easy to undestand by your stakeholder
• Roadmaps are not set in stone, but help to show
stakeholders you are in control
• Be sure to prioritize value opportunities
Roadmap summary
• At the same time, be wary that not following a roadmap
might upset stakeholders and hurt your position
• Consult the roadmap with the team before making it public
• Make sure your roadmap is product, not tech driven
• Spend a lot of time on your roadmap, make sure it’s as
good as possible
• Make the roadmap easy to access and reference it often
Roadmap presentation
• It’s a good opportunity to recall your vision and strategy
• When showing your roadmap, try to supplement it with
early designs and/or analysis
• Try not commit to KPI improvements
• When showing plans for many teams, split the roadmap
into smaller roadmaps for clarity
Example roadmap
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Payment process Snooze option
Additional
Login with google
ringtones
Alternative payment menthods
Play and App store optimizations
Words to remember
„While hardest to
estimte, value is the
core KPI to pursue”
Value summary
• Value can mean a lot of things, but it’s up to PM to be able
to quantify it and use effectively
• Look for initiatives that will grant you most value with the
least amount of resources
Value/effort chart
Value
Let’s consider those
JUST DO IT! and plan carefully
Perhaps soon Not going to happen
Effort
Abbreviation to know
P–O-C
Proof Of Concept
When to use POC?
• Before commiting money into a product – making sure it
possible to create it
• To create a pitch to stakeholders
• To gather technical knowledge
• To create an internal technical version of a planned
development
Abbreviation to know
M–V–P
Minimum Viable Product
MVP Summary
• MVP is a version of your product that has enough value to
show to users and find out if the road taken should be
continued
• MVPs take different forms, not necessarily of a working
software
• When building an MVP, don’t make it obvious to the user
• Try not to anger users with your tests
MVP Summary
• Test the riskiest MVPs on a smaller group of users and
grow the audience in time, if nothing bad happens
• Alternatively, try to dedicate your MVPs to users open to
try them knowing the risk
• Make sure you and your team understand the concept and
value of an MVP on a per initiative basis
Questions MVP can aswer
• Did metrics improve?
• Is there an audience for your product/feature or update?
• Are people willing to pay for it?
• What’s the users’ opinion on the direction you wish to
take?
Demo MVP
Effort: 5/5 Data: 4/5
Wizard of Oz MVP
Effort: 3/5 Data: 5/5
Dummy MVP
Effort: 2/5 Data: 2/5
Error MVP
Effort: 1/5 Data: 2/5
Poll MVP
Effort: 1/5 Data: 1/5
Landing page MVP
Effort: 1/5 Data: 3/5
Email MVP
Effort: 1/5 Data: 1/5
Social network MVP
Effort: 1/5 Data: 1/5
Crowdfunding MVP
Effort: 3/5 Data: 5/5