Great Products Consulting

Tag: product management

  • Looking for an idea for an online platform or mobile app?

    Looking for an idea for an online platform or mobile app?

    Ideas come easily to some – but for others, it’s seems like every idea they come up with has been done already. So, if you’re looking for a platform or app idea, or even if you want to create a product or service of any sort –  but you’re not sure what to do, then this article will give you some areas to look at.

    Contrary to popular belief, most ideas don’t just land on your head.  They come about because you’ve made an active choice to look for them. In product development, the activity of looking for ideas is called “ideation”. Yes, there’s a step out there where you commit some time to come up with ideas.   

    As you start brainstorming for ideas, you need to remember two key things:

    1. In order for a solution (or product) to exist, there has to be a problem to solve, a need to address, or a goal to reach. If there’s no problem, there’s no product.
    2. The problem has to be painful enough, or the need or goal big enough for people to seek out solutions for it. If there’s no pain, there’s no product.

    So, let’s get started.

    The best places to look for ideas are in places that you know.

    1. Look at your current business or organisation

    I doubt there are any perfect businesses out there, so this is a good place to start. Whether you own your own business or work for someone else’s, think about its weaknesses or anything that might threaten its success. Are there any areas that might have a big enough problem for you to solve?     

    Also think about the opportunities in the business. Is there something going on that you might be able to leverage into something bigger? Think about all of those tools that exist to automate things or to make things more efficient. Is there an untapped market out there as it relates to your business?

    2. Look at your industry

    Next, look at the industry that you operate in. Are there any significant problems or challenges that you face? Are there any political, economic, social or technological trends that may either threaten or create opportunities for you?

    What are your direct competitors or alternative competitors working on? Is there an opportunity to do something better than them? Are there weaknesses that you could exploit?

    Look at your indirect competitors. Are there industries that are different from yours, but may be structured in the same way? What are they doing and what can you learn from them?  

    3. Look at your job role and those around you

    There may be ideas in your job role, or in those around you. As a business owner, could you leverage your strengths to create a new product or service? Maybe there are areas that you find challenging or hard to do well?   Are there other roles in your business that you’ve found problematic?  Maybe it’s hard to find good people? Or maybe the role itself has challenges? What kinds of tools could be created to make life easier for you?  

    Those in corporate land also have an opportunity to find pain points in their own roles and in those around them. Talk to other people that have these roles and find out what keeps them up at night. Is it the same as you?

    In my first article for this blog, I told the story of how I started out. I’ve worked in tech for a long time, and my idea for Great Products Consulting came out of challenges that I faced in my roles as a business analyst and a product manager. If I had these challenges as an expert, I could  imagine what it would be like for people that had never done this before. 

    4. Look at your personal life

    What problems do you face in your personal life? Maybe you have a need to fill or a goal to achieve? Think about a typical day or week, and all of the things that you do. Are there any areas where you get stuck? Are there services or products that you use that don’t work the way that you need them to? Have you had any recent experiences that took up more of your time than you thought it would? Maybe there was a particularly difficult experience that could have gone better? Conduct surveys with people you don’t know. Find out what their needs, problems, and goals are in a particular area of interest to you, and find out whether the results align with your ideas.

    5. Look at what else is going on in the world around you

    If all else fails, look in general at what’s going on in the world around you. Maybe there are some social or technical trends that you could capitalise on? Is there something going on in the economy that needs a solution? Maybe changes in the political environment have opened up an opportunity for new product ideas? This category is probably your last resort because you may end up with ideas that aren’t as appealing – simply because they’re not in your area of expertise or experience.

    Keep on looking…

    Don’t worry if your initial list of ideas sucks – or maybe something that initially sounded like a good idea, ends up being a dud. This process of looking for ideas will actually spark your creativity. You’ll find yourself coming up with more and more ideas – as long as you continue to probe into these different areas. Think of this first attempt as a warm up exercise for the real deal. You’re now looking for ideas, rather than hoping one will miraculously appear – and that will make all of the difference. Good luck and happy ideating!

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  • Intro to Product and Software Development and Product Management (part 4 – launch and beyond)

    Intro to Product and Software Development and Product Management (part 4 – launch and beyond)

    You’ve finally made it! You’re ready to launch your product – but what does that mean? In the last article of this series on product development, software development and product management, I’ll talk about the “Implementation” and “Launch” phases. If you missed the other parts in this series, you can find part one (intro) – here, part two (beginning) – here, and part three (building) – here.

    Product Development

    In the “Launch” phase of product development, you introduce your product to the world. You execute the launch activities that you prepared during the “Develop” phase and your product is now ready for people to use.

     A few weeks after your launch, you should perform a review of your project to see what learnings can be gained. This will allow you to improve your product development processes as you continue to grow and enhance your product. From a product development point of view, you’re done for now and the product management part kicks in.

    Software Development

    “Implementation” is about installing your app wherever it needs to go (e.g. making it available on the App store or Google Play store, installing the code on the host, etc). Your developers will also tidy up their work so that they’re ready for the next project.

    There are situations where you may choose to not make your app available to people right away.  This might happen when you break down a technical project into multiple parts and spread out the delivery over several phases.  Alternatively, you might complete the implementation but delays to your marketing or other launch activities may prevent you from making your app available.

    Once the app has been launched (a.k.a “gone live” or “in production”), your technical team should be around to support it in case something goes wrong. You’ll need to spend some time defining some processes around this so that everyone’s expectations are clear on what needs to be done.

    Product Management

    Finally, the product management component comes into play!  Now that your product has been launched, you start to manage it through its lifecycle. Initially, you focus on the “Introduction” phase.

    Notice that things start slowly – don’t expect a big rush of sales on Day 1! This is where you wear your marketing and sales hats to make people aware of your product and to build their trust in your business. Ideally, you’ll do some prelaunch activities to start the awareness process.  You might leverage your email lists and social media platforms to get your first customers. When you’re a team of one, creating awareness takes time, and often some money, as you don’t have a team of people to help with all of the work.

    After your initial sales, you’ll be monitoring the progress of your marketing and sales activities, getting feedback from customers and looking to get yourself to the “Growth” stage. This (most likely) will include adding more features and functionality to your app. This is where the product development and software development processes kick in again. First, you talk to your customers, watch competitors and research the market to see where changes need to be made (ideation). You then decide which ideas to pursue (analyse). Next, you document what you want build (define and requirements) and you build the changes (develop, design, build and test).  Finally, you make the changes available to your customers (launch and implement). This development cycle is ongoing – so be prepared to continually invest in your product. 

    In the “Growth” phase, you’ll often see a lot of sales without having to invest a lot of money in marketing, sales and new app changes. Eventually though, this high-growth stage ends and you hit the “Maturity” phase where your sales will level out. You can choose to extend the Growth stage by looking for different ways to enhance your product. Alternatively, you can also look at targeting new customer segments or add features and functions that generate revenue from an entirely different source. You may also decide that you don’t want to continue to invest in the product and look to sell it.

    Eventually though, all products make it to Maturity and into “Decline”. Decline is where sales start falling off and your product starts becoming less profitable. During Decline, you look at how to manage your exit from the product and even remove it from the market.

    Wrap Up…

    So there you have it – this is the end of my 4-part series on product development, software development and product management. I hope it’s given you a good overview of what is involved in building a web platform or mobile app.

    Don’t worry if it all sounds a little overwhelming – you’re just getting started! You didn’t just wake up one morning and start walking – it took some time to get there. Think of building your web platform or mobile app in the same way – take it one step and at a time and you’ll find yourself learning as you go.  

    If you have questions about this series, then please leave them in the comments below.

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  • Intro to Product and Software Development and Product Management (part 3 – build your app)

    Intro to Product and Software Development and Product Management (part 3 – build your app)

    I hope you’re starting to get a feel for what’s required to build an app. I’m now onto part 3 of my series on introducing concepts in product management, product development and software development. In part 1, I provided a general introduction to these concepts and in part 2, I looked at what happens at the beginning. In this post, I’ll cover what it takes to bring your product to life by focusing on the things that are involved in actually building your app.

    Product Development

    In product development, building your app involves “Develop” and “Test” activities:

    “Develop” involves designing and building all of the components required to deliver and run your product. This is the fun stuff! Here, you take all of your requirements (what you want), you find a solution for them (how it works) and then you build it. This should not only include the technical bits for your product (see below under software development), but all of the manual processes required to support your product (e.g. customer servicing, accounting, etc) and the “administrative” things required to run a business (e.g. logos and branding, bank accounts, business registrations, terms and conditions, privacy policy, etc). These non-technical pieces are just as important as building your app – so please don’t forget about them! The develop phase includes planning your testing activities as well.

    “Develop” activities also includes thinking about how you want to launch your product and to whom.  This will allow you to prepare things like content and advertising ahead of time. You should come up with a plan for your launch; including your launch activities and the tasks required to execute your launch. You may also want to start some prelaunch activities to get the attention of early customers.  Launch activities should not be limited to marketing and PR.  They should include all of the bits and pieces needed to get your business up and running as well (e.g. starting insurance, etc).    

    After your product and operational processes have been built, you need to make sure everything works the way that you want it to and the way it was designed to. This is what “Testing” is all about. You not only have to test “normal” scenarios but also what might happen if things go wrong. This is an important step because you don’t want your new customers to have a bad experience when using your new product! Creating and developing a proper testing process will help you to ensure that nothing gets overlooked and forgotten.

    Software Development

    In software development, building your product involves three activities: “Design”, “Build” and “Test”:

    First though, you’re going to have to find a developer. This involves deciding how they’ll fit into your team (e.g. employee, freelancer, co-founder, etc), finding the right people and getting some estimates (or negotiating a salary or equity). You may also choose to hire a UX (user experience) designer to create the screens for your app.

    The “Design” phase is about coming up with the technical and functional solution for your product. The final look and feel and layout of the screens will be determined. Solutions will also be defined for the processes and functions in your app. Some other technical things will probably also be done to prepare for your app to be built – like finding a hosting site, setting up a code repository, creating developer accounts for mobile apps, etc. 

    It’s important for you to make sure you review and approve your solution. You want to see what you app will look like and understand how it will work.  It’s easier to adjust things at the design stage rather than waiting until after your app has been built!     

    After your app has been designed, you get to the actual “Building” (finally!) Here, the developer codes your app and performs some testing on the code components. You’ll probably be required to provide the content that your app requires and if you’re building a mobile app, you may want a separate website as a marketing tool. It’s also during this phase that you’ll take your solution and determine how to test it.  

    In large corporations, the “Test” phase is broken down into different types of testing. The technology team covers “systems”, “integration” and “performance” testing, while the business team will organise “user acceptance” and “beta” testing. A summary of each type of testing is below:

    • System testing is about making sure everything within the app works correctly from a features and functions point of view.
    • Integration testing is for making sure that the app talks with all other applications (think payment gateways, email automation, CRMs, etc) correctly.
    • Performance testing is used to check the speed and responsiveness of the app under different conditions.
    • User acceptance testing allows the business (e.g. you) to check that the app works in the way that they expected it to.
    • Beta testing puts your app in the hands of “real” users so they can put it through the rigours of everyday use.

    Unless you hire a full-service agency, it’s a good bet that you’ll end up doing all of the testing for your app – except for performance testing. Testing involves a different skillset from coding, so you’ll find that many developers won’t be able to do this properly.

    As the business owner, you’ll need to keep an eye on your development team during these activities.  You’re the “project manager” for your project which means you’re responsible for making sure your product gets delivered! Your development agency may provide a project manager – but that will only be for the technical components. You’ll still have to oversee all of the activities required to build your app – even managing your project manager!

    “Design”, “Build” and “Test” activities can occur simultaneously as your product is broken down into pieces and each piece is completed before going onto the next piece. This collaborative approach often allows you to develop product components a lot faster as team members are working on something together which reduces the amount of back-and-forth time and decisions are made more quickly. However, it does require some experience with the software development process to work this way and you’ll have to be a lot more involved in the day-to-day project activities.

    As you can imagine, there’s lots do here – not just on the technical side, but also on the business side.  It’s easy to feel overwhelmed.  Knowledge is power though – and if you know what to expect, you’re one step ahead!    

    Product Management

    You still haven’t launched yet, so there’s not much managing that you need to do. As mentioned previously, you’ll have to put together a launch plan so that you can get those early customers on board.

    …. and you’re ready for lift-off (almost!)

    So there your have it – you’ve built and tested your app. You should be comfortable with the way the app is working and you have completed all of the preparation activities for your launch.

    In the final article of this series, I’ll look at the last phases in software and product development – the implementation and launch of your app. I’ll then explore what happens next.

    [last updated: April 20, 2018]

  • Intro to Product and Software Development and Product Management (part 2 – at the beginning)

    Intro to Product and Software Development and Product Management (part 2 – at the beginning)

    In my last post, I introduced you to the concepts of product management, product development and software development. In this post, I want to bring it all together and explain what it means to a non-technical person starting on their app development journey. This all might seem a little daunting, so for now, here’s what you need to know:

    Product Development

    “Ideation” and “Analyse” are the most important parts of product development. In these phases, you need to be able to come up with an idea and see if it’s worth building:

    There are lots of different ways to come up with ideas for an app – but most usually come from personal experience – either at work or outside of work. Look for problems in your day-to-day life that might need solving.  Maybe it’s something in your industry or something in your job role.  Maybe it’s something at home, while travelling, parenting – the possibilities are endless!  

    After you have an idea, you want to make sure it’s the right one to pursue.  What makes you the right person to build this app?  Where might you need help? How big is the market? What’s the competitions like? There are lots of ways to evaluate your idea.  If you don’t validate your idea, then the rest of the process is really irrelevant. Validating an idea is about making sure you don’t want to waste your time and money on building an app that doesn’t allow you to achieve your goals.

    The product development process has natural “gates” that give you permission to stop what you’re doing and to go onto the next idea. If you don’t think your idea is good enough, keep repeating the “Ideation” phase until you have an idea that is more desirable. In the “Analyse” phase, if the idea doesn’t pass your validation criteria, you go back to the “Ideation” phase.

    Click Here
    To learn more about idea validation

    If you’ve decided to go ahead with developing your idea, you’ll then need to “Define” your product. This is about writing down what you want your product to do. This is an important process because it dictates how your product will end up!  Spend some time here really understanding the processes that people will go through, what you want them to do, what they’ll want to do and what information needs to be captured and stored. Also, consider all of the processes that might be involved in running your app – for example, how will people contact you if there is an issue? How will you respond to them? etc.

    Software Development

    The “Requirements” phase of software development overlaps with the “Define” phase of product development, so your defined product also forms the basis for the Requirements phase. The Requirements phase in software development will focus on the actual app being built; whereas the Define phase will look at everything that’s need to deliver and run the product.

    This phase is about telling people about what you want build – which makes it pretty important! If you can’t articulate what your product should do, then you might end up with something that is vastly different from what you expect. You’ll then spend a lot of time and money trying to make it right.

    Developers use the information that you provide about your product to estimate the cost of building it. This means that you want to be very clear about what you want your app to do. A lot of projects end up costing more money and take more time to complete because new things come up later in the project.

    Product Management

    Your product hasn’t been built yet, so the elements of managing the product through its lifecycle don’t come into play yet. However, you’ll want to start thinking about who your first users will be as you enter the next stages of building your product.

    What happens next?

    After you’ve figured out what your product needs to do, it’s time for you to start building. In our next article, we’ll look at getting your app designed and built.

  • Intro to Product and Software Development and Product Management (part one)

    Intro to Product and Software Development and Product Management (part one)

    In my last post, I talked about app building being a complex process, so in this post, I want to introduce to you some of the processes and concepts that you’ll need to be aware of. Building a web platform or mobile app falls under several disciplines and it’ll help your journey if you understand a bit about each one. These disciplines are:
    • Product development
    • Software development
    • Product management

    For those of you that have known me for years and haven’t figured out what I do – hopefully this will give you an answer!

    Product Development

    Product development is all about building and enhancing products and services. This is the process that you’re going to go through to build your app. Traditionally, this process has six phases that are summarised below:

    Product development is a cycle because you need to continually fix and enhance your product in order to meet the needs of your customer.

    In product development, we look at the whole end-to-end customer experience – not just the product itself. Therefore, the define, develop, test and launch phases have to include all areas of your business; including sales, marketing, operations, customer support, security, legal, accounting, etc.

    Product development can also follow a process called “lean startup” which considers three stages in a startup business – Problem/Solution Fit, Product/Market Fit and Scale. The goal is to first find the right solution for a particular problem. You then find the right market for the product. You only start to scale the business after all of that is done. Lean startup involves completing small “experiments” that address the first two stages. This allows you to be confident that you have the right product before you try to grow your business. While taking a different approach to developing a product, the six activities in the product development lifecycle are still undertaken. However, the product is developed over a series of iterations rather than as one big project.

    Software Development

    Software contains one or more programs that provide instructions on how to execute a set of tasks. It is differentiated from hardware, which is the physical device where the software runs. These days, software is behind all kinds of everyday things – both on the Internet and in person. Software is what allows you to make an online restaurant reservation, view a video on your computer, get directions on your phone and pay for something at a store with a credit card.

    In software development, you are generally building software to allow you to do something for someone. Software development is made up of a set of activities that form a process called the “software development lifecycle”. These activities are summarised in the picture below:

    It is a cycle because after implementation, you continue to fix or enhance the software, which requires you to complete the same activities again. A project can contain one or more cycles of development.

    There is an additional activity that runs across all of these other activities called project management. This is about making sure that the cycle of development is completed on time and on budget based on the defined requirements for the project.

    Product Management

    Product management is about managing the lifecycle of a product or service from when it is first launched to when the product is no longer available. It applies to every product or service you can imagine – not just web or mobile ones. The product lifecycle has four stages, which are summarised below:

    During these four stages, it’s up to the product manager to make decisions about what should happen to the product based on how it is performing. In the case of small businesses – that person will be you! Some of the decisions that need to be made might include selling the business or removing a product early if sales are not as high as expected. Alternatively, changes or additions could be made to the product to try and boost sales. On the flip side, if a product is doing well, introducing changes to a product could extend its life by creating another growth stage. As a business owner and entrepreneur, these are some of the difficult decisions that you’ll have to make for the products that you want to sell.

    As you manage the lifecycle of your product, you decide what products to build and how you want to update and change that product through its lifecycle. The changes that you make to your product are executed through the product and software development processes.

    Product management requires you to think about all aspects of how a product or service works and how it is delivered to your customers. This means that you have to decide how to promote it (marketing), where and how to sell it (distribution and sales), how to build it (R&D, technology, manufacturing, etc), how to deliver it (operations) and what happens when something goes wrong (customer support, technical operations). All of this has to be done with the regulatory and technological environment that you operate in (security, legal, accounting, etc). In large corporations, there are other people and teams that are responsible for these things. However, when you’re starting your own business, you usually have to take on all of these roles yourself – if you decide to start a café and your cook doesn’t show up, then you might have to take over for the day!

    Fitting it all together

    Product development and software development run parallel to each other to allow you to launch new products and updates. It’s important to recognise that building software is only part of what is needed to launch and run a product – the two processes need to work together.

    Product management drives the ongoing need for these two processes. After your initial launch, you look at the performance of your product through it’s lifecycle and you make decisions about what changes to make to it. Each change will go through all of the activities in the product and software development processes so that they can be incorporated into the product.

    Over the next few posts, we’ll apply these concepts and process to building a web or mobile app – starting at the beginning.

    Have any questions about these processes and concepts? Please feel free to leave me a comment below.