Product Management During Conceptual Phase
From Product Management School
As a Product Manager,a big part of your role is to know your customer and the market. One of the effects of this is that you are in a position where new ideas and new opportunities appear frequently. This is something that you want to foster, proactively encourage and manage well. In fact, Product Managers play a key role in the Conceptual Phase. It is the Product Managers role to lead a cross-functional group through all the stages of the Conceptual Phase as well as to document the process keeping an up to date repository of the ideas.
The volume of ideas that emerge can be extraordinary so it is very important to have a process in place that deals with all of the ideas in an efficient and methodical manner. The Conceptual Phase can be broken down into four stages that the Product Manager controls:
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Generation and Classification of Ideas
The generation of ideas is known as ideation. As many sources as possible should be exploited for ideas. For instance: the voice of the customer process; cross-functional brainstorming sessions; suggestion boxes; contests; environmental scanning; market research; and market segmentation. As ideas come in they need to be entered into the repository and be classified. Classification should be done by criteria such as the type of idea (new product, new product feature, product enhancement) and who or what generated the idea. The reason for this classification process is that it will make it immediately obvious which ideas should be considered of higher importance. For example if the idea is for legal and regulatory purposes, it may not be an income generator but required compliance makes it high priority.
Evaluation of Ideas
The evaluation stage is carried out in review sessions. These review sessions are led by the Product Manager with a small cross-functional team. In order to complete a thorough review input is required from the following functional areas; marketing; development; product management; and strategic planning or finance. Each idea will go through three different types of evaluation. Each one must be completed in full in order for there to be enough information for the selection process. Initially an opportunity statement should be completed that accurately describes the ideas characteristics. A value proposition needs to be undertaken to ascertain what benefits the idea brings to the customer and what proofs are there to back this up. Lastly, a positioning statement should be completed detailing the needs that the idea meets, the benefits of this idea, the differentiation, and competitive analysis.
Selection of Concepts to Move Forwards With
A rationale needs to be in place for the decision making process. The decisions cannot be made using gut feeling alone. The cross-functional team should come together and look at the opportunities based on the review carried out. In order to bring some focus and structure to the process the use of decision matrices is encouraged. To form a decision the opportunity should be reviewed against criteria like cost benefit/financial viability, customer needs, validated market segmentation, strategic vision, complexity, and so on.
Of course, the matrices should not be the sole reason for making the decision but they should guide the conversation and rationale behind any decision made whether it is approval or rejection.
Planning and Seeking Support for the Concept
The final stage involves making sure that any concept that is marked for approval can be planned for and scheduled. Seeking support to move the concept forward involves presenting all of the information and recommendations to whichever body the organization uses to green light projects moving forwards to the feasibility stage.
