A product launch is a business’s planned and coordinated effort to debut a new product to the market and make that product generally available for purchase. A product launch serves many purposes for an organization and helps it to build anticipation for the product, gather valuable feedback from early users, and create momentum and industry recognition for the company.
I’ve worked on several product launch projects as a project manager, supported by a solution manager and a marketing manager:
A successful product launch requires the coordinated effort of many teams and departments across the company, not only product management and development, but also marketing, sales, customer support, finance, PR, etc.
What I learned from my experiences is that it must at least include to the following steps:
- Strategy – My first move is always now to list all the stakeholders and understand what they’re expecting and what is their MVP (Minimum Viable Product). I once arrived after the list of requirements was already produced and we had great surprises
- Develop the smoother user journey and processes (buy, use, change, cancel, …) – It’s better to have a simple but very efficient scope rather than trying to do everything in a bad way. Using feedback and experience will help find the best way to do more.
- Short development circles and tests – The sooner it can be experienced and tested the better. Puting the under development product in project teams hands (marketing, sales, …) and having the more agile possible development process is a good way to avoid wrong paths
- Train sales and support teams – Appropriation is key. A good product that frigthen sales, and a bad financial incitation and, even with the best product, you won’t meet your sales target. A good documentation to limit support team solicitation and a good training will avoid bad buzz on your product.
- Track your users behavior – The customer is always right, that’s why it’s important to understand how he/she uses your product. Time to use this feedback and loop with marketing to know what are the next moves.
- Follow you KPI – Time to give feedback to all the stakeholders, challenge the strategy, do a post mortem and go beyond first expectations