Starsoft
What does it take to develop an idea and see it through its creation phase, where it is transformed into a product?
Well, it takes a LOT.
To generate ideas is not as easy as developing the idea into a desired result. It takes time, effort, money, and professional teamwork, to transform ideas into realization.
First of all, not all ideas are worth creating and developing.
Secondly, the ideas worth creating need to go through a lengthy process of product creation and management.
This article will act as a guide and will walk you through:
- The meaning of product management
- Importance of product management
- Product management processes
What is product management?
Product management is the process of building and developing an idea into a new product. To build a product from an idea, there needs to be a collaborative involvement of the core
teams in your organization; the production team, the marketing team, and the sales team.
Product management in every organization goes through the same or similar cycle from idea development to testing the feasibility to experimenting to mapping out the development process, and finally, to building the product.
The result of building an idea needs to tick three boxes:
- Proffer solutions to customers’ problems
- Meet and satisfy customers’ needs
- Generates profit for your company.
With all the above, the product management process looks evident and straightforward that nothing could go wrong, right?
Not quite.
The product management process is not as easy as it looks. This article will serve as an informational guide regarding the process.
Before we move on to the product management processes, let’s look at the benefits of product management.
Importance of product management
- Predict the product’s fate
- Maps out development stages
- Solves customers problems
- Maximize the product’s success.
Predicts the product’s fate
Product management helps to predict the fate of your product, even before development. The process allows you to screen out ideas based on their feasibility.
If a product will do excellently well in the market and amongst your competitors, or if it will fail tremendously and still not even recognized by your target audience, product management will tell. It can predict the product’s fate and success through its processes.
Maps out the development stages
Product management maps out the idea development stages, from the moment you build an idea to the moment the idea reaches creation. This way, it gives you an insight and a guide on what to do and how to follow a procedural step without skipping or omitting any crucial steps.
Solves customers’ problems
Another importance of product management is the ability to solve customers’ problems. As I mentioned earlier, for an idea to be successful in the market, it needs to solve the issues and satisfy the needs of prospective customers.
On the other end, your idea now adds value to your market audience because it can eradicate a part of their problems that needs solutions.
Maximizes the product’s success
As product management can predict a product’s fate, it can also outline and maximize its success in the market.
Once an idea is vetted to be introduced into the market, product management thinks of ways that the idea(product) becomes a success and finds ways to maximize its success.
This could be through the services rendered by the product or its unique features from other existing products with the same function in the market.
How does product management achieve all the above functions? Simple, through its various processes. And that’s why the next on the list of things to discuss is the product management processes.
Product management processes
The processes involved in product management include:
- Idea sourcing/generation
- Defining specifications
- Identify your target market
- Road-mapping
- Product development
- Testing and vetting
- Continuous maintenance
Idea sourcing/generation
This is the first stage of product management, where an idea is just being sourced for or generated. You can come up with multiple ideas in this stage; it could either be through brainstorming with your team members or through research, or it might just pop into your mind( or your team members) at random moments.
Then, from here, all the ideas that were generated go through the process of collection, storing, and sorting out. Out of all the ideas, you need to pick the best that fits the following description;
- Solves people’s problems
- A product in demand
- Ability to generate profits.
Using the above criteria helps you pick the best idea worth pushing to the next stage.
Defining specifications
This next stage is where the term “feasibility” comes into play. The idea that you chose in the first stage, how feasible is it? Can it be achieved? In what ways?
This stage helps you define the specifics of the chosen idea and all the different tactics that would guarantee its success when it finally hits the market.
You need to determine the aim of the chosen idea and the best way to achieve it, the value it adds, the method of developing the idea, who can best provide the desired results for the idea, the project kind that the idea would implement, and many other aspects like that.
This stage in the process helps you determine achievable and realistic ideas.
Identify your target market
After defining the specifications of your idea, the next stage is to identify your target market; who does your idea (product) cater to?
To effectively identify the target market, you need first to explore your product’s field. Take note of how large or small your target market is and figure out how to get across to them.
Then, you need to explore the existing products in the same niche as your idea and find out everything about them, ranging from what they do best to their challenges and weaknesses.
After this, all you need to do is figure out how to oust these other products by tackling and integrating the solutions to their challenges in your development. This way, it gives your product a bump ahead because it has what other existing products don’t, which solves the customers’ problems.
Road-mapping
This step is the one you take before the actual development process, and it is quite as important as the development process itself. Road-mapping, as its name implies, points you in the direction that you intend to go through.
Road-mapping eases and simplifies the development process before it commences. How?
It is like a realistic plan that guides the development team. It is a tool that acts as a framework/foundation for the idea to be developed. Road mapping contains and defines; the features of the product(idea), product requirements, market needs, product goals, and key performance indicators (KPIs).
Product development
This is the stage where your idea is brought to life. It leaves your minds and paper and gets developed in real life.
In this stage, you will implement all the vital information you gathered on your idea from the beginning of the product management stage.
The end product of the stage is to produce a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), which is an essential representation of your idea as a product that contains all the critical features and functions but is not in its perfect form. It just needs to possess the value that it requires.
The above is important because many think that whatever you produce at this stage must be flawless. Well, no. It mustn’t so don’t focus too much on that.
Instead, please focus on developing your MVP and the value it adds.
Testing and vetting
This is the stage that comes after product development. Here, you are to test and get your Minimum Viable Product(MVP), resulting from the product development stage.
Firstly, the product would be tested amongst the team members before it is deployed to the target market for use.
The users themselves would carry out the next stage of testing and vetting. The feedback, complaints, comments, and point of view that you gather will be implemented into your product. This is where the perfection phase comes in. You’ve seen and heard what the market wants and desires, so all you do is restructure by adding and subtracting, where necessary, to complete the product’s look, function, and appearance.
Continuous maintenance
You must have thought that the testing and getting stage is the final stage in the product management, but trust me, you couldn’t have been more wrong.
This stage would determine the sustenance of your product in the market. You can’t just develop a product and abandon it in the market forever because you believe you’ve completed what needs to be in effect.
Your product needs to evolve with the evolving changes in the market and the needs and desires of your target audience. Their needs don’t remain the same for long. So, this stage makes sure that it stays on your customers’ radar till you don’t produce them anymore.
This stage continues throughout the product’s lifetime, and you continuously maintain it for your customers’ use.