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A Process for Product Management
When we talk about product management, we usually look at frameworks and methodologies to help us build better products. This is done either through a more robust product strategy or by taking a different look at key components that constitute digital products.
Today, I want to talk about a more fundamental aspect of product management. An aspect that’s essential for companies looking for scale — especially as your product organization grows. I want to talk about the processes that exist around good product management.
In this article, I want to discuss how to establish a product management process that will work at scale. This will help organize your teams along the same cycles — and thus drive efficiencies.
The Key Phases
I will walk you through a model that I found helpful to structure product management processes. This model breaks down the process into a few key phases which take us through the lifecycle of a product.
It’s important to note that your team members will work on various ideas and initiatives at the same that are in different phases of this product management process.
The key phases of this process are:
- Intake
- Prioritize
- Build
- Test
- Launch
- Iterate
- Retire
Intake
The intake phase is the first step in the product lifecycle and the first phase in our product management process. This is the phase where ideas get in, and things get started.
One of the key goals is to define the problem statement. It describes the business issue or opportunity that’s been identified, but it should not articulate a solution at this stage.
It’s during this step of the process that your product team should also conduct the first level of triage. By triage, I mean sorting out the ideas at a high level. Keeping in mind your product strategy, your team should be able to sort the ideas into three broad categories: will do, parking lot, and won’t do.
- Will do: ideas that are aligned with the strategy and will likely be executed in the next 12…
