Product Lifecycle

Regardless of what you call it -- waterfall, agile, scrummerfall, iterative MVP -- all processes contain three main components: think, plan, act.  Time spent in each stage, artifacts produced, iterations, and success criteria may vary, but successful product lifecycles include these three steps. The key is to adjust the process to support your current context. 

Think

To have a successful product you have to understand not only what you want to create, but the why behind the effort. What is the market opportunity? What is the benefit to customers? What is the benefit to the company? How does the product advance your goals? If you focus on what and forget about why, chances are your product will fall flat.

Some common activities in this phase:

• Market Research
• Focus Groups
• Blue Sky Ideation
• Analytical Research
• Prototyping or Experimentation
• Formal Requirements Gathering
• Visual Design or Wireframing
• ROI Evaluation
• Financial Forecasting

Start with a clear definition of your goals and desired outcomes and use those to evaluate what product ideas to promote to the next step.

Plan

The concepts of MVP, rapid deployment, and fail quickly to expedite learning are not opposing forces to planning. The faster the product lifecycle, the more crucial having a solid plan becomes. 

Planning goes beyond the basic resource schedule and Gantt chart artifacts. Who are all parties involved and what are their roles and responsibilities? How will you communicate with partners, customers, investors, resources, media? What is your success criteria? How will you validate your product? What external factors exist and how will you mediate them? 

Understand that while change and disruption are undesirable, they will happen. Build opportunities for dealing with change into your plan to minimize the overall impact.  

Act

This is the production phase.  Create something, get it in front of your audience, measure outcomes, and evaluate the cycle.  Continually monitor the landscape for opportunities and obstacles. Follow your communication plan; adjust your message, medium, or frequency as needed.  

Acting can also mean putting an idea on hold or deciding to scrap a product. Sometimes the best decision is taking advantage of new opportunities instead of forging ahead. Make conscious decisions and understand the risks and impacts to keep moving forward.