Before knowing how to build a minimum viable product (MVP), let’s understand why to build an MVP? What if a product is not accepted by the customers after 2 years of development efforts? What if a product fails in the market after spending lot of time, efforts and money? What if a competitor launched similar product much earlier? What if the product is early to market expectation? What if the product has been built on a wrong architecture? What if the product is essentially built on wrong functionality? What if the product is built with numerous functional and technical defects after 2 years of effort?

In any of the above cases, time, efforts, and money will be lost with no gain. That is why building minimum viable product (MVP) is the secure way to test the product with minimum functionality which can be built with minimum time, cost, and efforts. How to build an MVP?

What is proof of concept (POC)? It is verifying how practical and potential to implement but an MVP is to verify how profitable to create. POC may not have the commercial angle. However, MVP is to check how commercially feasible the product is?

The problem

The problem which is being solved will play vital role in building MVP. Solving a problem with in a day or a week is not possible. It needs planning, requirements, and prioritization. Dividing into smaller parts is easy to build a build product. So, pick up smaller parts of the problem to build an MVP.

When you know, what should be solved? Why should be solved? And how should be solved. It is imperative to learn how much should be developed initially.

List down the features

List down all the features to be developed in the product because, to build a minimum list of features we should know the maximum list of features. To select the features for MVP, two filters have to be applied 1. List of features which has meaningful end to end functionality 2. Select the features in such a way to create viability though the functionality is small.

If possible, it is always suggestible to consider USP (unique selling proposition) to build as MVP. The USP draws customers attention and helps to convince them to use the product and wait for the full product to be launched.

Prioritization

Prioritization is majorly based on four factors, 1. Based on the estimated reach 2. Based on the level of impact in customer’s lifestyle 3. It is based on confidence and experience 4. Finally, based on the estimation. These four factors should be applied to finalize the list of features for MVP. A part from these 4, budget is another factor to be considered because the aim is to develop a product which should be minimum capable to convince customer and minimum guarantee for the business also.

Minimum resources

Essentially, minimum viable product is not a complete product, it is the product with minimum functionality which was created with minimum resources to understand the demand of the product, pulse of the customer, acceptability of the market, suggestions from the customers to incorporate. Eventually, it should strategically plan with minimum set of resources, human resource, minimum time period, minimum efforts, and minimum budget.

If the response is negative and failed to create customer confidence, it indicates that the solution must be redesigned or not to be designed. That is the reason MVP should always be created with minimum resource to minimize the cost.

Understand customer

For instance, if the business is to create an eCommerce application, how to understand the customer behavior? I would suggest creating

1. A website with basic goods or one or two demanding goods for a particular area.
2. Limit the delivery area to certain location so that one or two persons can deliver the orders without employing others.
3. Go to market with cash on delivery option so that you can avoid the compliance and documentation initially.
4. Create a website with WordPress or Drupal or Shopify with free plugins other than data security. Take care of data security from day one.
5. Buy goods based on the order rather wholesale, it may not give big profit margins but it helps to utilize the available funds to buy all goods per customer order.

Advantages this approach:

1. Over a period of time you can understand customer needs.
2. You will understand delivery and logistics.
3. You will understand where to spend and where not to.
4. You will learn money and resource management.
5. You will know the demand of brands and type of goods in demand.

So, create an MVP before kicking off the product development.

Another good read

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What is business case? Why should it get created? Does anyone do the business for lose? No, Does any business get started without knowing the profit margins and revenue? No. So, to build a profitable business we need a preliminary analysis. The outcome of preliminary analysis is business case.

Business case is a set of elements which supports necessity of a product to be developed. It contains the pro and cons of the product implementation. Business case is the high level primary document which helps to make a decision to proceed further. Business case should determine the commercial advantages and disadvantages of the product, the way of development, cost to develop, risk involved in it, approximate time to develop the product.

Business case is a high level document which gives clarity on why to develop? And how to develop? At whats cost it can be developed? And how much time it takes to develop. It is a standard document which can be prepared for building a product, executing a project, or integrating a feature. Product managers should prepare it as an initial document to present it to the stakeholders and decision makers. So, how to build an effective business case? What are the components of the document?

Problem statement

Problem statement is the statement which describes a problem in details with it’s impact. The problem which is being solved should be curated with all possible reasons. It should contain the root cause of the problem, number of people who are getting affected? the gap between current state and desired state, and impact of the problem on people and money. Essentially, it should let us know what the problem is? Why should it get solved? How should it get solved? And where should it get solved?

Solution

A problem can be solved in numerous ways, business case should describe one of the effective solutions. It could be technical or functional solution, the high level solution should be described. For instance, if it is being solved with technology, the business case should have the details of the architecture, technology stack and the implementation of major functionality. Solution is just like heart of the document. It gives an idea that how effectively the problem is being fixed.

Risk and mitigation

Identifying risks are imperative for any business, identifying them at the initial stages gives more advantage to minimize them. Risks could be from any level, from any stage, and from any department. It depends on the nature of the product. Risks could be from environmental, compliance, resources, marketing, pricing, cost involved, governance and political risks. Describing them in the business case will let the stakeholders to mitigate them.

ROI (Return on investment)

Return on investment should be determined in the business case. Number of channels that are contributing to revenue, business associations that are contributing to the revenue. Projections should be prepared with the revenue breakup by monthly and yearly. Essentially, for any business return on investment, profitability and the break even point are important to plan the financials and plan for sustenance.

Cost to develop

Primary analysis of any business has to derive the cost to construct. It may not be accurate but a rough estimation is needed to make decisions and kick of the development. Cost estimation helps in capacity planning. Stakeholders will make a decision to start if it is in their budget otherwise, they raise the funds to construct the product.

Time to develop

Timelines is one more element which decides the budget and revenue. How? The budget keep getting increased when the time duration is increased without generating revenue.So, time duration is the deciding factor and it impacts on product availability in the market, budget, revenue generation, marketing plan, market share, competition, and pricing. So, time to market is one of the deciding factors in product success. Eventually, time for development should be in the business case to decide about the business.

Resources needed

Resources and it’s availability and their cost to project is one more element which can not be ignored to start any project. They could be human resource, infrastructure, raw materiel, or electricity. If there is a gap between resource need and availability, the projects costs more, or lack of resources may stop the project. Essentially, business case should contain the resources needed.

Take Away

1. Preparing business case is initial analysis which helps to determine important elements of the product.
2. Why to develop the product? And how to develop the product are the questions which drive the business case.
3. Business case is a high level document which helps to make decision to kick of a product.
4. The outcome of the business case is to decide how viable and how profitable is the product to build.

Another good read

The post How to build an effective business case for product appeared first on Saranmok.

Switching the career from the current path indicates leaving the comfort zone, it requires new learning and new way of thinking. How to switch from software testing to product management? Testing is verifying the functionality per expectation. It indicates that the testing professionals are testing the functionality per other’s expectation, they could be from product manager or customer.

Being a team member

Being a team member testing professional knows the process of execution. Eventually, he/she is familiar with Agile methodology, participating in scrum, software development life cycle, test life cycle, product grooming, product planning, coordination between teams, following the quality process, bug life cycle, the process of CI/CD integration, using the product specific tools. So, the person who would like to switch the career from testing to product management is a process ready person.

Being a testing professional

Knows the end to end functionality of a product. He/she knows how to break the system with testing, knows leveraging the user stories to convert into test cases, knows the importance of features and their impact on the existing functionality, knows the product manager and customer’s expectation. A testing professional gets into the shoes of business user to validate the functionally, he/she knows the types of testing to make sure the product works per expectation. So, testing professional knows the functionality of the product.

Being a team member you know the process and being a testing professional you know the functionality and customer’s expectation. The other skills to be learnt are:

Designing a product requires sense of business, domain knowledge, commercial thinking, understanding customer, and product life cycle.

Sense of business

To determine why to develop a product? What to develop? one should have the sense of business. A product manager role is business facing role which should know the demand and market need, so he can produce a product which can be sellable. Business is a profession for making money by selling or producing services or products. To sell products one should know the customer/market need, which products are sellable? Which has demand? How to sell the products? Price to sell and profit making.

Domain knowledge

Gaining domain knowledge is very important to be a successful product manager. For instance, the product is related to banking. Testing professional usually has the product knowledge, but it should be extended to learn other products in the same sector, learn the processes, learn the core business of banking. What is the core business? Borrowing the money from individuals for lesser interest and lending it for businesses and big companies for higher interest. This business is involved with lot of manual tasks. A part from the core business trends, risks, and typical business problems are imperative to understand. Eventually, functional knowledge helps designing the product confidently.

Commercial thinking

Every business needs commercial and ethical thinking. Let me put it in one statement. Commercial thinking is for a business man, what am I getting out of this business? Ethical thinking is for the customer from businessman stand point, how useful and valuable the product is for the customer? Commercial thinking teaches to do self analysis on 1. Why am I building this product? 2. What is the profit am I making? 3. How useful for the customers? 4. How long can I sustain in the market? 5. How to gain bigger market share? 6. How to gain more loyal customers. This kind of self analysis ensure to build a right product. So, commercial thinking is one more skill to develop.

Understanding customer

Understanding customer behavior and need is the first thing to learn for any product manager. Being a testing professional you know specific customer expectation. However, to understand the market you need to know the customer expectation in general. Learn to analyze who is target customers and their expectation so that the product will be shaped up per demand.

Here is the article which helps to market research.

Product life cycle

Being a testing professional your role will be started from the stage of ‘development’ and limited to know the new features that are getting integrated, but product manager should know the 360 degrees view of the product life cycle because he is the owner of the product. So, get into the shoes of owner of the product.

These are the additional skills to be developed to switch from testing to product management.

Another good read

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Research & planning

A scientist would do research to invent something new/unique in his lab. It could be a problem solver but may not be a commercial success because majority of their time and efforts invest in product invention not on the commercialization. However, a typical entrepreneur should first invest his time, efforts, and money to understand how commercially the product can get succeeded. Eventually, an entrepreneur should understand the market need and its demand.

Let us assume a vehicle is a startup and destiny is the vision.

A plan is deciding a suitable vehicle to travel, defining the speed to reach, deciding to travel alone or with a set of people, preparing to travel without the help of maps and internet connection, carrying the food to survive, making friends with in the travel to understand the reality, learning little mechanism to fix the vehicle break downs to reach the destination successfully.

Deciding a suitable vehicle: It is deciding the approach to follow to establish the startup — Please recall about approach from part-1.

Defining the speed: The duration, time, efforts and capacity to travel to reach the destination.

Travelling alone: Making a decision about traveling alone or with a right set of team makes the difference of the travel.

Internet & Maps: Not every road in the world is in maps, not every place you travel may have internet connectivity. Similarly, mentor or guide can help you up to some extend. You are the better driver for your own destiny.

Food to survive: How much fund is backed up to survive the startup and the team as well.

Making friends: Once the MVP (Minimum viable product) is ready, find some customers to demonstrate and understand the need, demand, and the direction from them.

Mechanism: Management, leadership, and other skills to fill someone in their absence to keep the travel going.

Yes, it is a plan. If it is documented, it can turn into a bible after few versions of upgradation. If it is not documented and maintained, it remains as set of ideas which takes far more time to implement than an idea with a documented plan.

In any case, the vehicle can come back to origin and start a fresh journey with a new version of plan. However, to start a new journey all the mistakes should have been documented in the plan as an upgraded version. Remember, changing the vehicle is changing the idea. However, the destination may remain the same.

Development

The team is ready, plan is ready, the approach is ready, market research report is ready, and MVP (minimum viable product) is ready. Nothing will stop the full length development of the product. Implement agile methodology to develop the product. Agile helps to find the errors at the early stage of the product building. Finding errors or any functionality gaps at the early stage of product building will certainly minimize the cost, saves time and efforts. So, get the first version of the product ready to launch.

Introduction

Creating a right market pitch is the key to introduce a product into market. Here is the detailed market pitch for any startup.

Another good read

The post How to establish a startup – Part2 appeared first on Saranmok.

Starting up is setting up something from scratch. In English language, it is a verb. In life, it is an action. Over a period of time it turns as noun called ‘startup’ but it has numerous actions involved with it. Before getting into the topic one should understand the difference between startup and business, entrepreneur and merchant.

For instance, let us take KFC as a startup and investing in KFC’s franchise is a business. Perhaps, a business generates money from the day one but a startup will not generate money from the day one. A business can promise certain income but a startup can not promise certain income. A plan can be prepared and executed in a business but preparing a plan is a continues activity in the startup. We are writing the bible from reality in a startup but following the bible in the business.

Well, writing a bible is not writing notes, it is writing basics to obey, writing formulas to apply, writing methodologies to follow, creating processes to implement. Eventually, it is not a routine task, it is not a normal activity, it is not a regular task to work. Hence it is proved that start up needs abnormal and extraordinary efforts & patience from a determined individual.

Readiness (Mentally and physically)

So, the take away is: Mentally and physically getting ready is the first step for a startup. Yes, the entrepreneur should get ready to live with lot of uncertainty, the entrepreneur should get ready to travel alone, the entrepreneur should be ready to control emotions, the entrepreneurs should get ready to keep investing time and efforts until see the success, the entrepreneur should get ready to deal the financial issues, the entrepreneur should get ready to deal the discouragement and insults, the entrepreneur should understand the true meaning of dignity of labor, the entrepreneur should get ready to deal the competition, the entrepreneur should transform as a real leader. The readiness as a real entrepreneur is the first stage of a startup life cycle — First basic of a startup.

Here is the startup life cycle.

Self Analysis (WWH)

What? Why? How? analysis should be done before getting into next phase of the life cycle. Outcome of the self analysis gets clarity and set the direction. So, first thing is first, develop an entrepreneur mindset.

What? (Self talk)

What am I solving? Is it an existing problem? How many people are getting impacted because of the problem? Why should I solve this problem? What is the qualifications and awareness I have? How can I gain more knowledge on the problem? Would the solution turn as unique or compete with another business? — The outcome of ‘What’ analysis is getting more clarity on what am I solving and the impact of the solution.

Why? (Self talk)

Why am I starting up? What do I need? Is it passion? Is it for money? Is it for social status? Creating employment? Want to do social service? This internal agenda drives entrepreneur’s mindset, the mindset triggers actions, actions generate the results. In any of the above cases the dynamics of the startup works the same. It won’t change the behavior per entrepreneur’s agenda. Startup expects to learn, expects to get hurt, it expects to understand the problems involved in establishing a company, it expects to go down, it expects to understand the worth of customer’s money, it expects to understand the commercialization, it expects to understand the value of relationships, it expects to understand the value of money, it expects to understand the society — So, get ready to learn before success. Otherwise an entrepreneur can not handle success, it remains as one day celebration.

These are the minimum lessons learnt to be a successful entrepreneur. Eventually, the startup agenda will be prioritized by nature regardless of entrepreneur’s agenda. So, get ready to be smart enough to take the prioritization into your hands. That is why the reality is

The real and successful first generation entrepreneur is practical not arrogant because he/she went through a painful journey.

Narasimha Mohan

How (Self Talk)

How to do is an approach? A process can be defined from a successful approach, success can be achieved by choosing a right approach, experience teaches the right approach. Then how to define a right approach without experience? Chances are less because every start up is different by its nature, every business is different by its execution. The best way to have a right approach is altering it, based on the results parallelly. Am I executing it alone? Do I need cofounders? Am I investing from my pocket? Am I borrowing money? An entrepreneur should ask himself numerous questions to finalize the approach.

Hint: Understand your mindset, attitude meticulously and master it, to pick a right approach.

Problem solving is a product building. So, 75% of the start up life cycle is product life cycle. From the phase “Research and planning” will be explained in part-2.

Another good read:

The post How to establish a startup – Part1 appeared first on Saranmok.

Questions that product manager should ask for all teams: Numerous responsibilities keep the product manager confused, specially the coordination between teams like, sales, engineering, leadership, support, and customers, tedious to be organized and confused to get prioritized. Product manager should have clarity about the topic to be discussed and the agenda should be clear enough to get the right points discussed in the meeting. Majority of the times more than 50% of the topics to be discussed are common. Set of well prepared questions would help to prioritize the topic.

Asking right questions will drive into the right direction to understand the state of the product and it’s performance. Irrelevant questions will drive into wrong direction. The way of asking questions and the subject of questions indicates the clarity and vision of the product manager.

Questions for sales

1. Is our product fulfilling the customer needs? What are the gaps between the features of our product and customer’s expectation?
2. What are the strong features which makes our product sellable?
3. Which existing features are less prioritized by customers?
4. Who are the competitors always getting compared by the customers?
5. What is the technology expectation from customers?
6. Out of 10, how many customers are expecting customizing our product?
7. How is usability? What is the customer experience and response about it?
8. What are top five common features expecting by majority of the customers which doesn’t exist in the current version?
9. What are the current trends following by the customers?
10. How many customers are not interested to take our product and why?
11. How many customers are interested buy the whole product and how many are interested to take the module/part of the product?
12. Is the customer happy for the value they are getting for the price?
13. How many of the existing customers are contacting sales for enhancements and customization?
14. What is the percentage of sales generating from our customer reference?
15. Do the newly added customers expect training? How long?

Questions for support

1. Can I have a consolidated report of customer escalated issues, bugs and suggestions?
2. Which part of the product has more complaints in terms of technology and functionality?
3. What is the rate of defects getting injected for every release?
4. Did any of the customers challenge the core functionality of the product?
5. How smooth is our installation process? How many customers are depending on customer support to install the product?
6. What are the technical challenges while plugging in our product into their existing system?
7. How many of the customers are using the most upgraded and latest version of applications? Does our application compatible for it?
8. How many of the customers are using older versions of the applications? Does our application supports it?
9. Who are the toughest customers to handle and what is their expectation?
10. Are you up to date with all of our latest features and functionality?

Questions for the engineering team

1. How complex is the feature to implement? If it is not feasible to implement why?
2. Does we have any architectural limitations to implement the features?
3. How robust if the current architecture?
4. What is the methodology you are using for effort estimation and capacity planning?
5. Are you preparing the design for each features which is being implemented?
6. Are you clear about the functionality to be implemented?
7. What is the additional information needed from my end a part from the feature functionality?
8. Are the user stories detailed enough to develop the feature?
9. Which core functionality would be impacted by implementing new features?
10. What could be the impact and effort estimation if we migrate the application into latest technologies?

Another good read

The post The coordination between product manager and teams appeared first on Saranmok.

Grooming is mentoring about a topic/subject. Product grooming is mentoring about the features of the product to be developed. Engineering team knows how to develop, but product manager should groom them why to develop? and What to develop? Product grooming plays vital role in shaping up the product per expectation. Product grooming is organized by product manager/product owner.

Product planning is organized by scrum master to estimate engineering efforts. Product team and engineering team meets to understand the complexity and severity, estimating efforts based on capacity to derive the duration.

Product grooming and planning meetings bridge the gap between product and engineering teams, they works as a platform to understand each other’s concerns. They helps both the teams to be on the same page in terms of functionality, technology challenges, customer expectation, feasibility, and complexity. Product grooming is organized by product manager or a product owner per Agile methodology.

Business case

Business case is something which supports why the feature should be developed? The feature to be developed must not be just a task statement. However, letting know the importance, advantage, and the business impact involved for implementing the feature will explain why the feature is going to be developed. For instance, you advised a person that do exercise regularly may not motivate the person. However, if you explain the advantages like 1. You will be healthy 2. It burns the unwanted fat 3. Your face will glow 4. Your stamina will get increased.

These points indeed motivates him to start the exercise. So, instead of assigning a feature with little explanation of functionality, explain with a business case so that the feature will be shaped up far more better than the expectation.

Functional flow

Flow is the steam or a movement, how the functional flow moves and impact other functionality, it represents in a diagram. Functional flow helps engineering team to understand the impact on other functionality, modification of other functionality, changes of the existing functionality so that the new functionality will be developed without deviating the existing functionality.

Impact on the business

Knowing the impact of the business helps to prioritize the feature. Engineering team should understand the business involved with each feature, how it impacts to gain the market share, the impact of customer satisfaction, the impact on revenue, the impact on competition, and the impact on overall performance. Understanding the prioritization and business impact will indeed helps getting adequate support from engineering team to meet the deadline.

User stories

User story is a tool which is being widely used in Agile methodology to develop the functionality. Majority of the cases a feature or an epic is far more bigger than a user story. That is why each feature breaks down into smaller user stories. What is a user story? The user story is a small part of a feature which consists of 1. ‘Title’ what to be developed 2. ‘Description’ which describes the background 3. ‘Steps’ which indicate the detailed implementation step by step 4. ‘Functional flow’ which defines the flow of functionality and the impact on other features 5. ‘Exit criteria’ which define the completion of the user story.

Product planning

Product planning is a meeting organized by scrum master, he/she invites both the product and engineering teams to discuss about the effort, estimation, timelines. It should be organized for each sprint to plan per Agile methodology. Usually, the topics to be discussed in the product planning is : Challenges, how many user stories are clear, how many are considered for the current sprint, and the user stories to be moved to next sprint. Product planning is a right forum for product manager to negotiate, compel all the teams and plan further to get the features implemented.

Another good read

The post Importance of product grooming and planning appeared first on Saranmok.

Work hard for the first hallow the rest will follow.

Narasimha Mohan

Stop learning will have only keep going. It will never have start doing.

Narasimha Mohan

Skill has an expiry date, passion doesn’t.

Narasimha Mohan

Your most unhappy customers are the greatest source of learning.

Bill Gates

I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.

Steve Jobs

If you are born poor it is not your mistake, but if you die poor it is your mistake.

Bill Gates

Every quote is someone else’s experience, it may be theory for you.

Narasimha Mohan

Failure is simply an opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.

Henry Ford

Your decision is the byproduct of self-confidence, presence of mind, and understanding of the problem.

Narasimha Mohan

Entrepreneurship is not a job, it is the way of living to achieve a goal.

Narasimha Mohan

The successful worrier is the average man, with laser- like focus.

Bruce Lee

Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree long time ago.

Warren Buffet

No one is better patriot than an entrepreneur.

Narasimha Mohan

Be ready to revise any system, scrap any method, abandon any theory, if the success of the job requires it.

Henry Ford

Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.

Elon Musk

Problem solving is product building

Narasimha Mohan

Team members remain as machines to complete their individual tasks, unless they are built as a workforce to achieve success.

Narasimha Mohan

Sometimes deeper analysis may have simple conclusions, but simple analysis may have deeper conclusions.

Narasimha Mohan

The extreme focus on negativity may brings positivity but extreme focus on positivity will bring negativity.

Narasimha Mohan

A Person who always in the shoes of a customer and wear a hat of product design per customer need is a product manager.

Narasimha Mohan

Is my product values for 100 bucks? Will produce a quality product but, is my product getting 100 bucks for me? Will produce a product which ignores the quality and fails to fulfill the customer need.

Narasimha Mohan

Handle the growth and enjoy the success otherwise, growth will handle you.

Narasimha Mohan

Sometimes a million dollar doesn’t matter in a great relationship but even a cent matters in commercials.

Narasimha Mohan

Keep the subconscious mind alive but live in reality.

Narasimha Mohan

The real wealth can be created with planning, decision making, analysis, and relationships along with currency.

Narasimha Mohan

Don’t lose a person who knows your potential in the journey, because a great relationship is much beyond your logics, calculations, and profit & loss.

Narasimha Mohan

I fear not the man who has participated 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has participated one kick 10,000 times.

Bruce Lee

Another good read

The post Famous entrepreneurship and life changing “quotes” appeared first on Saranmok.

What is a roadmap? A map which has multiple directions to reach the destination. So, finding a right direction to reach the destination is all about product roadmap. Indirectly, direction can be altered, modified, changed, and created but destination should not be changed. What is the destination here? Vision of the product is the destination. Eventually, building a product roadmap is choosing a shortest possible and feasible route to reach the destination.

Having a vision for a product or business is very much important to plan the activities and drive the show. Defining the product future, where do you want to see in next 5 years? What is the market share would want to grab? Which area/domain would you like to have dominance? What is the plan and measures you would like to take to be pioneer? Making money in a shortest possible time or creating an admired brand? Ultimately, how or where do you want to see the product/business? is all about having vision.

Setup the date and duration

Having vision without a plan and target date to achieve, reaching a destination without direction and time to reach would remain as dreams. So, setup the time and duration to build a product. Eventually, the roadmap will be developed with what to deliver and when to deliver.

Often, when to deliver becomes a puzzle because a product has multiple features to be developed. Those features need to be organized and prioritized per compliance, customer need, innovation, market demand, feasibility, and complexity.

Essentially, roadmap doesn’t have any specific duration, it could be prepared for 5 years or 5 months. However, considering the practicality it will be prepared for an year which has feature prioritization for each quarter. How to prioritize the features?

Priority -1

Compliance is the top priority. For instance, products related to healthcare, banking, insurance must fulfill the compliance. So, features related to compliance are prioritized to implement. If the compliance features are not implemented in the specified time period business may end up paying the penalty.

Priority -2

Customer is the business user, any product which is being developed to fulfill the user requirement so, customer asked requirements must prioritized to develop. If customer is not happy, product will not be sold out. If the product is not sold out there is no revenue.

Priority -3

Bugs with medium or low level priority which the system is still working with have to be fixed as soon as possible. If they are not getting fixed, it will have an impact on the functionality.

Priority -4

Innovation is something which could change the game and set the trend either. However, customer usually has no expectation about innovative features. Eventually, once the compliance and customer need are fulfilled innovative features can be implemented.

Majority of the cases, based on the engineering team’s request and technical complexity, the prioritization may get changed but the final date and the route to travel is fixed.

That is how the roadmap has to be prepared.

TemplatePoint is the best source for any product templates

Another good read

The post How to build roadmap for a product appeared first on Saranmok.

What is market research? Why to do it?

What is market research

Market research is understanding the target customers and their need, finding problems and it’s need of fixing, understand the competition and defining a unique selling proposition (USP), detailed analysis of the problem and it’s complexity, understanding the complexity of the problem and feasibility to fix it.

Collecting statistics of customers and market share. If it is a unique product and new to market, finding the current need of a customer in imperative because sometimes, the product will be early to the market.

Finding problems

Fixing an existing problem is half way success for a product. So, I would suggest searching a problem from real life is one source. Online forums and social groups are also the better source for finding problems to develop a product and finding answers for the product which will be developed. Find right forums and ask right questions to open a right discussion.

Competitive Analysis

Parameters that are being considered are imperative to understand the competition even before starting the development of a product. Search for right websites which are publishing the results, turnover and market share of a company. Do a detailed analysis to know the time taken for establishment, breakeven and growth, these parameter are useful while panning the budget, efforts and time.

The best way to do competitive analysis is to find problems in the competitive product. It is a wise decision to fix the existing problems while developing a new product. Eventually, it helps finding the unique selling proposition and developing a product which is robust to fulfill the customer needs. These parameters help planning the market pitch either.

Surveys

Survey is collecting other’s opinion. It could be about a product which is going to be developed or taking an idea to develop a product or understanding the need or knowing a problem to develop a product. It could be online or offline. I believe there is no robust online process to take surveys yet except online applications like surveymonkey, Offline surveys can be done with a groups of people.

Statistics

Genuine statistics plays vital role to understand the reality. Numbers drive numerus factors like market share, product revenue, company revenue, line of business revenue. These numbers help to understand the pricing strategy and the way it works to generate qualitative and quantitative numbers. A part from that it helps to plan the budget either.

Social media presence

Social media presence is one of the parameter which can not be ignored in today’s business. The followers, reviews and rating will let us the know the performance up to some extent and customer satisfaction. Performance and customer satisfaction are the keys to plan further.

Product Demos

Product demo is the best way to understand competitive product and it’s features. They helps to design the right product for customer need. Designing better and unique features are possible after understanding a proved product. I would consider product demo is one of the best parameters to understand the competitor.

Another good read

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