product management playbook product inception to launch

THE PLAYBOOKPRODUCT INCEPTION TO LAUNCH

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What I believe…There is work, then there is fulfilling work.

The kind of work that has your fingerprints all over it. The kind of work that you’d never compromise on. That you’d put your heart and soul into and that fulfills your spirit. The kind of work that makes a difference.

You can do that work here.

Don’t join my team to play it safe. Don’t be afraid to take a risk, a leap, if you believe it. Swim in the deep end with me.

Then, your work will add up to something. Something big, something that could not happen unless we made it so.

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What I also believe:

VISION WITHOUT TECHNIQUE…IS

BLIND

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Agile methodologies need to tie to businessBoth the business and the development teams need to move quickly

Much has been said about Agile development methodologies, both good and bad. Much of the negative comments lean towards the inability for a Product organization to keep the development team accountable to the end outcome. My assertion is that any good development methodology needs an product management framework to keep up with the development streams and coordinate the right work

…This is that methodology.

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The Product Strategy PlaybookThese are the key elements of the Product Strategy Playbook

The Price/Value Map – Defines both the pricing strategy and determines and organizes the roadmap to ensure success in the market01

The Offer Mix Scorecard – measures the health of the product line by market and focuses the business on the key elements that need to be rectified to establish success. 02

User Story Assessments – the key mechanism for gathering customer requirements in an Agile development world.03

Release Process Workflow – The key responsibilities of the players in any software release. 04

LEAN Canvas – focuses the product launch efforts into a set of key points about the product and how it solves for the business outcomes the user is seeking. 05

Blue Ocean Analysis – Strategic planning tool that helps define areas to extend from competitionA

Category Power Analysis - Defines areas in investment within Horizon 1, 2 or 3 events for mature businessesB

Competitive Matrix – keeps track of the competitive analysis in internal termsC

Primary Tools

Secondary Tools

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The Price Value MapPrimary Market Assessment tool and Strategic Decisioning Tool

The Price Value Map is the base tool to the

framework. It is, essentially, a market map from which

to base:

• Pricing Strategy

• Product Strategy

• Market Position

• Future Potential Growth

The tool measures “Percieved Customer Value”

against “Market Price” to determine where your

product/service compares to competitors

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Price Value Map DetailsMeasuring Perceived Customer Values

The Price Value Map measures how customers perceive the solutions in the market place based on a series of weighted attributes that include both Core and Product Attributes. These include:

Core Attributes (in every PV Map): • Customer Service: how well the product is

serviced by the company.• Channel Effectiveness: Effectiveness of the

sales channels• Channel Reach: Breadth of the sales

channels• Brand Equity: Measures Marketing

effectiveness• Ease of Use: how easy the tool is to utilize

by the customers

Functional Attributes (varies by product): • These describe key attributes that the

market determines the product must have vs. the competition.

• Examples include: – Reporting & Analytics– Integrations– Key product functionality

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Example Price Value Map

4.25 4.75 5.25 5.75 6.25 6.75 7.25 7.75 8.252.75

3.25

3.75

4.25

4.75

5.25

5.75

Web Decisions

Experian

Acxiom

Epsilon

Solution Set

Merkle / Cogni-tive

InfoGroup

Printers

Price/Value Map

Web DecisionsExperianAcxiomEpsilonSolution SetMerkle / CognitiveInfoGroupPrinters

Perceived Customer Value

Pri

ce

This example details a market that is commoditizing and low cost leaders are coming in to gain share. Bubble sizes represent current revenue for the product line.

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Mapping High Impact

Requirements to the market

Requirement collection and prioritization

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Writing Value Based Requirements

• People often jump to conclusions about features without understanding consequences

• Value Based requirement allow for better review and thought around the feature set to satisfy real requirements

• Solves the “Need” not the “Want”• Drives to the Value Proposition• Empirical evidence to support

roadmap

If I had listened directly to my customers…

…I would have bred a faster horse.

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Value Based Requirements vs. Feature Requests

• Increase visibility into my data• Decrease the time it takes to obtain

reports• Increase ability to segment and select my

customers post-merge• Decrease the time it takes to execute data

hygiene processes• Increase visibility into which processes

need to run• Decrease human intervention into Data

Management efforts• Increase the ease of running processes

I want a reporting tool

I want a dash-boarding tool

I want to run queries and counts

I want to select customers

I want to automate processes

I need access to my data

I need another report

Buy Alterian

I need another widget

Value Based Requirement Feature Request

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Value Based Requirement Guidlines

• Independent: avoid introducing dependencies – Leads to difficulty prioritizing and planning

• Negotiable: stories are not written contracts. Too many details give the impressions that there’s no need to talk further. Need some flexibility so that we can adjust how much of the story gets implemented.

• Valuable: Stories must be valuable to either users and buyers• Estimable: detailed enough to provide an indication of effort• Small: split compound stories along operational boundaries (CRUD…)• Testable: acceptance tests. “Test with…”

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All Requirements are then ScoredTwo values, scale of 1-10, 10 being the highest

Importance Satisfaction

• Devises the impact that the improvement would have on the business outcome

• Answers the question, if I solve this problem, what impact would it have on your business?

• Can be expressed in Quantitative forms (rather than subjective)– Total Revenue impact– Total Cost Impact

• Devises how well this problem is solved today with current solutions

• If a decent work around exists, it will minimize the impact of the outcome

• Is an accelerator or decelerator to the opportunity score

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The Opportunity Score

Opportunity = Importance + MAX(Importance – Satisfaction,0)

• Highlights both underserved and over-served requirements

• Allows us to quickly asses and compare key business outcomes

• Business outcomes are built into requirements by the PM group.

• Opportunity is an empirical measure that can be easily ranked to help focus Product Efforts

Importance

Satis

facti

on

Over-served(customer sat)

Appropriately Served

(revenue Protection)

Under-served(revenue

generation)

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Requirements are also Categorized

As an [actor] I want [action] so that [achievement]

3/8

Importance / Satisfaction

BU CBuying-Using-Vision-Competitive

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evidenceAnalytics

Price Value Category

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Now, we apply economics to determine priority

Priority =Impact

(Opportunity)

Level of Effort

Additional Considerations:• Market Evidence (how many times the feature is requested)• Strategic Client Requests• Competitive Pressure (should be market validated)

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Per Release, we can then measure impact

Planning &

Budgeting

Optimization

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Analytics

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Cross

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Product Release

Ensuring a highly collaborative rollout

to market

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Product Releases depend on positive exchanges of key informationFor speed, it must be consistent and comprehensive

Pre-Dev

T-Minus

03

T-Minus

02

T-Minus

01

T-Minus

.05

Product Planning

LEAN Canvas

Market Needs

User Personas

PV Map

Org Readiness

Assess organizations

ability to adopt:

• New Tools

• New Processes

• New Outputs

• New Positioning

• New

Language/Terms

Productization

Packaging & Naming

Pricing Strategy

Contracts & Billing

Begin Collateral

Creation

Org Readiness Training

Sales/Client

Management Training

Client Delivery Training

Marketing Promotions

begin

External Promotion

Update Website

Blog Posts

Press Releases

Lead Gen Activity

Case Studies

LAUNCH!

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LEAN Canvas is the primary control document for release

• This document holds all key information regarding the value of the release• Almost all client facing activity can derive from this document• It is a living and breathing document that is updated as new information

comes to light• Shared by all key groups, but built by Product Mangement

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Lean Canvas:An Example

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General Overview – TruReport 4.0 (MVP)Problems that the Business (TE) or Clients are currently facing and the proposed solutions

• Problems TE is currently facing• Do not have effective, efficient and scalable way of producing reports for clients

• Too many custom requests and custom reports being created

• Reports aren’t showcasing Trueffect’s 1st party differentiator and performance recommendations effectively

• Too many different processes and tools being used to generate reports

• Report builder is being over utilized due to lack of campaign standards

• Solutions that TE needs• 1 streamlined process and 1 reporting tool the does the following:

• Produces a set of standard reports with configurable options

• Solves operational inefficiencies

• Showcasing TE’s true value differentiator (1st Party Advantage)

• Helps clients sell as many products/services at the best possible media cost

• Inspire users to take action and optimize their media spend & strategy according to results

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Strategic RationaleHigh-level reasons, goals, and predictions for the project/product

• Company Vision (Super high-level long-term effect that the business wants this product to have on the industry)

• To create a new perspective for advertisers by offering accurate and actionable 1st party advantage reporting that justifies TE’s unique

value and inspires advertisers to proactively innovate and enhance their media buying strategies across multiple channels.

• MVP Goal (Main goal that the business wants to achieve with this MVP)

• Create a standard and scalable reporting set that acts as the foundation for Truadvertiser 4.0’s analytics and reporting offering

• MVP Hypothesis (The projected outcome of the MVP’s existence)

• By creating standard reporting sets, TE will reduce the time it takes to service managed clients and increase product usage demand

from existing and new self-service clients resulting in longer-term partnerships and additional revenue

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Lean Canvas Exercise - Business CanvasBusiness Canvas Card elements in prioritized order

Problem:1. High operational inefficiency

Internal + Clients (including sales)

2. No automated budget allocation recommendations

3. Not effectively and efficiently showing our differentiator (1st party)

4. No timely output of performance improvements overtime (Weekly Trends)

5. Using too many tools to product reports

6. Too many custom reports7. Too many separate

processes, procedures, and tools (Excel, MS, PPT)

8. Clients are demanding too much

Solution:1. Standard set of actionable

reports (w/ recommendations)

2. Standard report configuration

3. Showcasing differentiator via reports (1st party)

4. One tool w/ export for client5. Only one tool being used6. Streamline report generation7. Import more media buying

data from vendors (averages of transactions…comparing)

8. As real-time as possible

Unique Value Proposition: 1. 1st Party data representation

(Audience Segments & robust measurement)

2. Effective media spend3. Lots of robust data4. Client’s data isn’t leaked

Unfair Advantage: 1. We use client’s 1st party data

(Audience segments) 2. Help spend money more

efficiently than others using more accurate data

3. Client’s maintain control of their data

Channels• Existing clients (Self &

Managed)• Sales (New Clients)

Hypothesis:• Reduce time it takes to service

managed clients• Increase usage demand for self-service

clients• Long-term partnerships

Business Intent1. Parity2. Showcasing TE’s value prop

(1st party advantage) 3. Grow sales (increasing &

New) 4. Improve client support by

solving our internal reporting inefficiencies

Cost Structure• Development Time• Data Storage• Client Services time• Microstrategy Licenses

Revenue Stream• Standard – Free• Advanced - $• Custom - $$• Analytics - $$$

MVP Goal:• Create a foundation for Truadvertiser’s

analytics and reporting offering/features

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Lean Canvas Exercise – MVP Product CanvasProduct Canvas Card elements in prioritized order

Name:• MS Reports MVP

Customer Segments (Personas)1. Delivery/Account/Campaign

manager (including Media Buyer)

2. Director of Marketing/Digital3. Data Analyst

Key Activities/Features (MVP Scope)• Enhance Performance Tab• Add Standard Reports Tab

• Multiple categories of standard reports

• 1 report per each category

• Standard set of dashboards

• custom reports tab enhancements

Success Criteria:• Decreased time generating reports• Build standard report that satisfies 80%

of mid-tier clients• Increased adoption of 1st Party

participation • Effectively used in sales demo (increase

sales) longer partnerships • Fewer report requests (mid-tier clients)

Product Design Requirements• One template UI• Microstrategy design elements• Updated visualizations

Vision:• Uniqueness, showcase unique value, create new perspective in ad industry, drive efficiencies for clients, justify actions/recommendations via more

accurate data, transparency, inspire to take action innovate w/ media strategies/buying/

User Journeys (Epics) As a user I want to see…(STI = “So that I…”)1. …site tag activity, STI can see which publishers are creating activity2. …content (creative) performance, STI know which creative to show more frequently3. …daily advertising results, STI can make sure I am driving towards established KPIs (Trending differences)4. …my audience segments, STI can verify I am getting what I am paying publishers to do (1st party adv.)5. …how many of my site visitors am I finding in my retargeting but, STI can see if I need to buy more retargeting

(Retargeting Only)6. …how many times I am serving the same ad to the same person, STI know when to add/adjust Freq cap (Frequency)7. …how many people are seeing my ad, STI know what publisher I need to increase/decrease reach with (Reach

Metric)8. …how many publishers are serving my ads to the same person, STI know which publisher I am wasting money with

(Overlap)9. …Geo/Device/Brower my ads are being served to/on, STI know which GEO/Device/Browser are most successful10. …which content/publisher is selling my product mix the most, STI know which content/publisher I need to change11. …what my previous KPIs were for a given month/campaign (KPI history), STI know what my new ones should be12. …a list of my tactics and their performance, STI know which tactics are most successful

Tech Design Requirements• Microstrategy platform

Risks: • Limited to Microstrategy features and

functionality and design• Legacy data structure• Scope creep

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Performance Tab

The Performance tab provides a

concentrated snapshot of common

performance metrics related to

their active campaigns and

improves their ability to quickly see

at a high level if they are achieving

their KPIs including cost.

MVP Feature / Benefits StatementsList of the main features and the value they create for our users

Standard Reports Tab

Standard Reports act as the

foundation for helping the user

decided how they are going to

optimize their media budget and

spend. They will be organized by

category. Each category may

contain multiple reports that can

be manually generated based on

the configurable metrics and

attributes the user selects to

include.

1 2Custom Reports Tab

Custom Reports accommodate

unique customer reporting

requests. This is an additional

service that TE offers to help cover

specific analysis, insights, and

recommendations that are not

available in standard or advanced

reports.

3TruPath Reports Tab

Advanced Reports are an

additional layer of analytics added

on top of standard reports that

further assist users with their

budget and spend. Users can

purchase advanced reports as an

additional product. These reports

will contain proprietary information

that is unique to TE’s patented 1st

party advantage technology

4

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Update User Permissions and Access

The system will automatically

select the user’s “agency” and

show the list of relevant

advertisers based on the user’s

log in. This will allow users to only

see their data in all of the reports

without having to run through

timely steps an tutorials.

MVP Feature / Benefits Statements continued…List of the main features and the value they create for our users

Updated Login & Navigation

This will allow the users to easily

login and navigate to the various

different types of report categories

that they want to access inside

one combined solution

Dashboard Tab Reports

This will allow the users to see all

of the current dashboard reports in

one spot. The Dashboards will be

shown via the current layout with

the three tab system (No changes

to the dashboards are necessary

for MVP)

Summary Tab Reports

These reports will allow the user to

see a global snapshot of their

campaigns so that they know the

overall health of an advertiser

5 6 7 8

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Pacing Tab Reports


see the status of their budget so

that they know how effectively they

are hitting their campaign goals


Media Tab Reports


see how their publishers are

performing so they know

where/who to spend more or less

budget with

Creative Tab Reports


see how their creatives are

performing so they know which

creatives to spend more or less

budget with

Trends Tab Reports


see their historical campaign

results so they know what

projections and expectations to set

for future campaign planning

9 10 11 12

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Events Tab Reports


see their associated and

unassociated website activity so

they know how effective their

online display advertising

campaigns have been


13Daypart Tab Reports


see if their ads are being served to

the right target at the right time so

they know which publishers to

make changes with if necessary

14Consistent Report Design and Functionality

The navigation and report

functionalities for every report will

have a consistent look and feel

convention and contain export

functionalities when relevant

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Market OutlookMajor industry topics, trends, issues, and forecasts related to our product

Parity, Intuition & Real-time: Vendors such as Google and Media Math have set the UI

design expectations for data visualizations and layout in which TE will need to meet to

stay competitive in the marketplace, but additionally there is the opportunity to

differentiate by offering a level of intuition through the platform that assists advertisers in

taking action and optimizing their media campaigns and spending during flight using real-

time 1st party data

1

1st Party vs. 3rd Party Reports: Our main competitors in the marketplace all have

reporting and analytics/performance dashboards that contain visualizations and rich data,

but their performance metrics are all derived from 3rd party data that isn’t as robust as 1st

party data. This makes their media budget allocation recommendations more inaccurate

for their clients than if the recommendations were based off of 1st party data.

2

Budget Allocation: Because of the 1st party advantage that TE has, they have a big

opportunity to create an impact in the marketplace by providing more accurate media

spending recommendations based on 1st party data. The ability to offer meaningful budget

recommendations helps establish longer-term credibility & partnerships w/ clients

3

Multiple Media Channels: Online display is the first of many channels that advertisers

are looking to sync up with their overall marketing ROI strategy. Building a platform that

tracks the ROI across multiple channels would prove to be extremely valuable to any

brand/agency

4

Pricing: Deciding what report functionality is included as being a TE Client and what is

considered extra cost will have an impact of where TE would like to position themselves

on the price value map

5

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TruReport 4.0 Roadmap & Release PlanRemaining Product Management process milestones prior to Development Phase

Product Acceptance

# Version Release Name High-level Features

1 4.0 Anakin• Update Login Screen• Update Navigation Bar• Update Performance Tab Reports

2 4.0 Boba • Standard Dashboard Reports

3 4.0 C-3PO • Standard Summary Reports

4 4.0 Chewy • Standard Pacing Reports

5 4.0 Darth Vader • Standard Media Reports

6 4.0 Darth Maul • Standard Creative Reports

7 4.0 Han Solo • Standard Trends Reports

8 4.0 Jabba • Standard Events Reports

9 4.0 Luke • Standard Daypart Reports

See RM & RP Doc here

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1msQEAaxlQ1iOeMHfDXCv5vtO_dErL5GGku7Jpx7gYrk/edit#gid=1629507040

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TruReport 4.0 (MVP) Project MilestonesRemaining Product Management process milestones prior to Development Phase

3/17/15 3/17/15 3/18/15 & Ongoing

3/24/15 3/24/15

Initial Backlog

Product Manager will

gather the initial MVP

scope (Epics) and start

to create an initial

backlog in prioritized

order.

UX Designs

Design team will create

Hi-fi wireframes, the

Style Mood Board,

Screen Tree, and

any/all necessary

design deliverables that

we all will review and

approve together.

Day 1 of Development (Backlog Grooming #1)

After the visual designs

have been approved,

Product Manager and

the team will update the

backlog via backlog

grooming and provide

high-level estimates

that will inform the

product roadmap and

release plan.

MVP Backlog

The backlog will be in

prioritized order and

contain high-level

estimates and be ready

for development.

Product Roadmap & Release Plan

Product Manager will

create the initial

Product Roadmap &

Release Plan based on

the high-level estimates

that the team has

provided in the initial

prioritized backlog. This

doc is to be updated

weekly.

Development & Visual Designs

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Measuring the Release

Ensuring success

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Post Release we measure success

Growth comes from constant improvement in key areas

We measure our selves on a monthly basis to ensure constant improvement

Highlighting key projects designed for improvement

We call this the Offer Mix Assessment

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Post Release MeasurementThe Offer Mix Assessment Template

Δs in Market

Δs in Competition

Key Product Trends and Opportunities

Offer Mix Scorecard

4Q11 1Q12 Comment

Channel

Promotion

Positioning

Price

Product

Service & Delivery

Total

Legend: 1-Poor, 2-Adequate, 3-Good, 4-Excellent

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Example Offer Mix Assessment

Δs in Market• The desire for real-time data integration continues to grow• Desire for limited data matching and linkage (ie: email only data)

for integration into data warehouses is significant.• Desire to include new data such as web analytic partner identifiers

to drive matches is starting to emerge.• Facebook recently shut off access to public data via Open API.

The climate for obtaining FB data will be tenuous in the near term.

Δs in Competition• Traditional competes are not offering anything new to challenge

our traditional CDI offering. • Primary threats are from digital linkage outfits claiming to be able

to link across channels.

Key Product Trends and Opportunities• Primary threats are from digital linkage outfits claiming to be able

to link across channels.• Nimbus linkage engine to eventually replace current Truvue-only

pinning. Will take time (est. 9-12 months) for maturity of Nimbus to match that of core Truvue.

12/11 1/12 Comment

Channel 2 3

• Close three sizeable CDI deals for AMEX and Dow Jones and Volkswagen, total contract value $750,000

Promotion 2 3

• Special pricing promotions that has been rolled out to sales and account management to sell data quality products

Positioning 2 2• Despite several big wins we have not

expand our footprint as expected.

Price 4 4

• Traditional pricing continues to be competitive, no issues

• Price for utility offering is under analysis

Product 3 3• Initial prototype of CCL being

developed

Service & Delivery 4 4

• No new product releases• No known issues in delivery our

products today

Total 17/24 19/24

product management playbook product inception to launch

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