Product

management 101
Section 4: New product
development

© Todd Birzer Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

 Product management 101
Prioritization and roadmapping
© Todd Birzer Photo by airfocus on Unsplash
The work of product
management

Market New product Lifecycle

Intelligence Strategy development Management

Customer Product strategy Prioritization Positioning

Market Discovery & Pricing
Competition delivery Sales support
Launch Sales channels
Product support
Finding growth
Obsolescence

© Todd Birzer
 We will talk about…
• Importance of prioritization
• 4 prioritization techniques
spanning the long-term (big
picture) to the near term (fine
details)
• Roadmapping
• OKRs
• Development buckets
• Prioritized backlog
© Todd Birzer Photo by airfocus on Unsplash
Your development team
will never, ever, ever be
big enough

Rich Mironov, the 1st law of

software economics

Development teams can never build as fast as we

can dream up new things
– An “and” world vs. an “either/or” world

Without ruthless prioritization, mostly the

wrong things get built
– A few “yes’s” and many “no’s”

We need get good at prioritization

© Todd Birzer
Guided by our product vision,
objectives, and strategy
The big picture
Long-term Initiatives

Epics

User stories

Near-term
The fine details

© Todd Birzer
Guided by our product vision,
objectives, and strategy
The big picture
Long-term Roadmaps
Objectives and key
results (OKRs)

Development
buckets
Prioritized
backlog
Near-term
The fine details

© Todd Birzer
 Vision
Every birdwatcher has unique knowledge and
experience. At eBird, our goal is to…

• gather birding information in the form of

checklists, photos, and audio recordings

• freely share our data to power new data-

driven approaches to science,
conservation and education

• create the most rewarding experience

for birdwatchers, providing the most
current and useful information to the
birding community

© Todd Birzer Example only, not real data

 Objectives

• Grow the number of active eBird

users by >15%/year

• Record >100M bird sightings annually

• eBird data cited in >100 academic

publications per year

© Todd Birzer Example only, not real data

Guided by our product vision,
We’ll start
objectives, and strategy
The big picture here

Long-term Roadmaps
Objectives and key
results (OKRs)

Development
buckets
Prioritized
backlog
Near-term
The fine details

© Todd Birzer
What are roadmaps?
• Time-based charts showing the planned
evolution of a product or service

Why do roadmaps?
• Visual tool to share with full development
team, managers, executive leadership
• Helps prioritize technology investments,
highlight schedule tradeoffs, and focus
development teams

© Todd Birzer
 Some dangers with roadmaps
• Can be too detailed and prescriptive
– No room for discovery
– Can focus on “output” rather than
“outcome”
• Timelines are usually too optimistic
• Executives latch on to roadmaps as
commitments
• Sales teams may share early roadmaps with
clients

If you keep roadmaps simple, high-level, and linked

to a strategy, they can be an effective
communication and prioritization tool

© Todd Birzer
Product area 3

Product area 2

Product area 1

Time

1-3 years
Linked to your
© Todd Birzer strategy horizon
 1H 2022 2H 2022 2023

Data tools
Data
CSV data exports visualization
tools

Birdsong

Mobile apps
Products
recording tools

Computer vision /
Field ID tools AI-driven photo ID
(prototype)

Butterflies
(prototype)

Web
Rare bird alerts
Profile
enhancements

© Todd Birzer
 Market &
application
Products &
services

Technology &
platform
Time

© Todd Birzer
 1H 2022 2H 2022 2023

Markets
1st time
birdwatchers

Products/services
Field ID tool Photo ID tool

Technology platform
Field Computer vision /
identification AI-driven photo ID
engine (prototype)

© Todd Birzer
 Enhancement 1 Enhancement 4 Enhancement 6
Enhancement 2 Enhancement 5 Enhancement 7
Enhancement 3 Enhancement 8
Enhancement 9

0-3 months 3-9 months Later

Or…now, next, later

Note: Timeline gets
fuzzier farther out
© Todd Birzer
Roadmapping
CSV data exports Rare bird alerts Computer vision /
AI-driven photo ID
Field ID tools Data visualization (prototype)

Product enhancements
tools
Profile enhancements Butterflies
(prototype)

Birdsong recording
tools

0-3 months 3-9 months Later

© Todd Birzer
Using Aha!

© Todd Birzer
Using
ProductPlan

© Todd Birzer
Using Roadmunk

© Todd Birzer
Using ProdPad

© Todd Birzer
Using Jira

© Todd Birzer
 Roadmap process

1. Decide on a roadmap style

• An approach that fits your business

2. Together with your engineering lead,

create a draft roadmap for your area

3. Share and align with your product

team and execs

4. Use as a tool to make tradeoffs

5. Update quarterly

© Todd Birzer
 Next on the
Guided by our product vision,
playlist
objectives, and strategy
The big picture
Long-term Roadmaps
Objectives and key
results (OKRs)

Development
buckets
Prioritized
backlog
Near-term
The fine details

© Todd Birzer
OKRs • Product vision, objectives, and strategy set a
1-3 year product path
– With roadmaps illustrating your product
evolution

• Objectives and key results (OKRs) convert a

big picture direction into this quarter’s goals
– Used by some of the best product
development companies: Google, LinkedIn,
Netflix

• OKRs are a great way to communicate and

instill priorities

© Todd Birzer
OKRs

OKRs
• Objectives: our business goals
• Key results: measurable outcomes
(used later to grade achievement)

© Todd Birzer
OKRs for Q3 Score
Objective 1: Increase the number of new active users
>80% of first-time users submit a second bird

Key results
checklist
5 users successfully use an AI-driven photo
identification prototype
Objective 2: Increase the usage of eBird’s data by university
researchers

results
>1000 CSV data downloads

Key
>30 academic articles published
Objective 3: Expand user base in countries with high bird
diversity but low eBird usage (target: Peru, Ecuador, Brazil)
Launch Spanish and Portuguese versions of
Key results
Android/iOS apps
>100 “friend” referrals in target countries

© Todd Birzer
OKRs for Q3 Score
Objective 1: Increase the number of new active users
>80% of first-time users submit a second 1.0

Key results
bird checklist
5 users successfully use an AI-driven photo 0.4
identification prototype

• The how is determined later, and will evolve

in the “discovery & delivery” process
• Scoring is 0-1, with 0.6-0.7 optimum
– Scored at the end of a quarter
• OKRs empower your product team

© Todd Birzer
 OKR tools
Workboard (workboard.com)
Jira (atlassian.com)
Gtmhub (gtmhub.com)
Perdoo (perdoo.com)
Weekdone (weekdone.com)
Koan (koan.co)
Plai (plai.team)
Others…

© Todd Birzer
 OKR process

1. (You + product team) Craft 1-3 OKRs

• Guided by strategy and longer-term roadmap
• What metric can you move? What can you
(ambitiously) get done?
• Don’t include the everyday, ongoing work

2. (You + management) Share and align

3. (You + product team) Use the OKRs to

prioritize your work
• Guide development plans / sprint plans

4. (You + product team) Score at the end of

each quarter
• Share results with management

5. (You + product team) Repeat next quarter

© Todd Birzer
Guided by our product vision,
objectives, and strategy
The big picture
Long-term Roadmaps
Objectives and key
results (OKRs)

Development
buckets
We’re Prioritized
here backlog
Near-term
The fine details

© Todd Birzer
Development
buckets

Roadmapping and OKRs help us focus on

the big impact items, but…
• Dev teams often have many “other”
demands
• Breakthrough product enhancements
can get neglected

Development buckets are a tool to focus

development efforts on big impact items

© Todd Birzer
 Development Big Near- Support Tech-
Development categories>> impact term & bug nical
buckets items client fixes debt
1 enhance-
ment
requests

Percent of 60% 15% 10% 15%

development
2 time >>

Items Use your Item 1 Item 1 Item 1

strategy, Item 2 Item 2 Item 2
roadmap, Item 3 Item 3 Item 3
3 and OKRs … … …
to In priority In priority In priority
prioritize order order order
these items

4 Guide development efforts: work through the stack ranked

lists (top to bottom) constrained by column percentages

© Todd Birzer
 Development Big Near- Support Tech-
Development categories>> impact term & bug nical
buckets items client fixes debt
1 enhance-
ment Row 2: prioritize
requests between
columns
Percent of 60% 15% 10% 15%
development
2 time >>

Items Use your Item 1 Item 1 Item 1

strategy, Item 2 Item 2 Item 2
roadmap, Item 3 Item 3 Item 3
3 and OKRs … … …
to In priority
In priority In priority
prioritize order order order
these items Row 3: prioritize
within a single
4 Guide development efforts: work through the stack ranked
column only
lists (top to bottom) constrained by column percentages

© Todd Birzer
 Develop- Big Client Support & Technical
1 ment impact enhance- bug fixes debt
categories> items ment
requests
Percent of 60% 15% 10% 15%
2 dev time >>
Items AI-driven Add data Map color Restructure
photo ID category error photo
prototype for Stanford (profile database
page)
3 Data Country Reduce
visualization population Hotspot time for
tools tracking for location video
EU bug upload
Rare bird
alerts Graphic Regional
issue with cloud
Profile page Chinese hosting
upgrade fonts

© Todd Birzer
Guided by our product vision,
objectives, and strategy
The big picture
Long-term Roadmaps
Objectives and key
results (OKRs)

Development
buckets
We’re Prioritized
here backlog
Near-term
The fine details

© Todd Birzer
 One end-result of our prioritization work is
a prioritized backlog

• Guiding our development teams

• What should they focus on first?

© Todd Birzer
 Develop- Big Client Support & Technical
1 ment impact enhance- bug fixes debt
categories> items ment
requests
Percent of 60% 15% 10% 15%
2 dev time >>
Items AI-driven Add data Map color Restructure
photo ID category error photo
prototype for Stanford (profile database
page)
3 Data Country Reduce
visualization population How Hotspot
do we time for
tools tracking for location video
EU prioritize
bug this upload
Rare bird list?
alerts Graphic Regional
issue with cloud
Profile page Chinese hosting
upgrade fonts

© Todd Birzer
 To get to a prioritized backlog, a value
effort matrix helps
• Product enhancements
• Sprint priorities (epics, user stories)

A lean prioritization approach

It’s not rocket science, but it’s very useful

© Todd Birzer
 ☺
High

Value

Low

 High Effort Low ☺

© Todd Birzer
 Value in helping you meet your
longer-term product
objectives and quarterly OKRs
☺
High
Customer and business value
• Net promoter score
• Revenue/profit growth
• New customer acquisition
Value and renewal rates
• Competitive differentiation
and market share
• Strategic fit
Low

 High Effort Low ☺

© Todd Birzer
 ☺
High Effort means cost to the business

• Development time
• Monetary costs/investment
• Ongoing operational costs
Value
• Level of risk

Low

 High Effort Low ☺

© Todd Birzer
 ☺ Opportunity
G Priority 1
High
Opportunity
Priority 2 R Opportunity
C
Opportunity
Value Priority 3 P
(or don’t do) Opportunity
X
Opportunity
E
Low Opportunity
W

 High Effort Low ☺

© Todd Birzer
 AI driven
☺ photo ID Priority 1
High
Data
visualization
tools Refer a
Priority 2 friend
Butterflies Spanish/Port
Value Priority 3 prototype localization
(or don’t do)
Birdsong Profile page
recording update
Rare bird
tools alerts
Low

 High Effort Low ☺

© Todd Birzer
 Value effort matrix can also be quantitative
• ProductPlan example above

© Todd Birzer
 Value effort matrix is a lean
technique to help us get to a
prioritized backlog

• If a simple chart is good enough,

don’t use numbers

© Todd Birzer
 We talked about…
✓ Importance of prioritization
✓ 4 prioritization techniques
spanning the long-term (big
picture) to the near-term (fine
details)
✓ Roadmapping
✓ OKRs
✓ Development buckets
✓ Prioritized backlog
© Todd Birzer Photo by airfocus on Unsplash
 Product management 101
Discovery & delivery
© Todd Birzer
The work of product
management

Market New product Lifecycle

Intelligence Strategy development Management

Customer Product strategy Prioritization Positioning

Market Discovery & Pricing
Competition delivery Sales support
Launch Sales channels
Product support
Finding growth
Obsolescence

© Todd Birzer
 We will talk about…
• Discovery and delivery
• Stage-gates
• Product concept testing
• Product analytics
• New flavors of product
management
© Todd Birzer Photo by airfocus on Unsplash
If we want innovation…

• Found in the real lives of our customers

– attitudes, daily behaviors, social interactions
• We need to talk, observe, empathize
– “deep hanging out”
• Need to understand their articulated and
unarticulated needs

We need to know the “what is”

Foundation of a
“discovery & delivery”
process
© Todd Birzer
Deep customer

High
Optimization
understanding Continuous
What is? refinement

Delivery

Market fit
Incremental
market
releases

Discovery
Experimentation
& prototyping

Uncertain
Ideas What works?
What if? What wows?

Rough Refined
Product readiness
© Todd Birzer
• Who leads discovery & delivery?
– Magic in a three-person team
• Engineering lead
• User experience (UX) lead
• Product manager
– Collaboration and teamwork

As product managers, we lead this effort

© Todd Birzer
Ideas
What if?

• Ideas are sourced from many places…

– Customers
– Sales
– Executives
– Competitors
– “What if” innovation sessions
• With a diverse team (engineers
and product designers) that
deeply understands customers
and their challenges

© Todd Birzer
Discovery
What works? What wows?

• Experimentation, testing, and prototyping

are key with discovery

• Goal:
– Quickly and inexpensively vet ideas
with customers
– Evolve these ideas to find product-
market fit

• Discover reality rather than predict it

– Humble, not arrogant
© Todd Birzer
Discovery
What works? What wows?

• Start with the lowest cost

prototypes
– Simple descriptions, PowerPoint
mockups

• As ideas evolve and get more

traction, move to more advanced
representations
– Clickable prototypes, videos, 3D
printouts

© Todd Birzer
During discovery, we trying to validate…

1– Value: Does the idea have

customer value? Will they buy it?
2– Usability: Can users figure out
how to use it?
3– Feasibility: Can we develop this?
Do we have the skills? Time?
4– Stakeholder: Is our management
supportive of our direction? Does
it support our strategy?

© Todd Birzer
Delivery

• When we are confident that we have a good fit

between the market, technology and strategy,
we deliver these new capabilities to customers

• Series of incremental releases. Smaller and

sooner is better than bigger and later
– New value to customers faster
– Earlier market feedback
– Course-correct sooner if we missed the
mark
– Learn and evolve faster than our
competitors

© Todd Birzer
Optimization

• Many development efforts are never

done

• Optimize your product

• Use broad market feedback, product

analytics, AB tests, and experimentation

© Todd Birzer
Deep customer

High
Optimization
understanding Continuous
What is? refinement

Delivery

Market fit
Incremental
market
releases

Discovery
Experimentation
& prototyping

Uncertain
Ideas What works?
What if? What wows?

Rough Refined
Product readiness
© Todd Birzer
Deep customer

High
Optimi-
understanding zation
What is?

Market fit
Delivery

Uncertain
Discovery

Ideas
Rough Refined
Product readiness
© Todd Birzer
Deep customer

High
Non-linear, Optimi-
understanding zation
iterative process
What is?

Market fit
Delivery

Uncertain
Discovery

Ideas
Rough Refined
Product readiness
© Todd Birzer
Stage-gates
Business Develop-
Scoping 1 2 3 Testing 4 Launch
case ment

For companies worldwide, some form of a

stage-gates process is much more common
than discovery & delivery

- Stages: Phases of a new product or service

development

- Gates: Checkpoints where product

development is reviewed, go/kill decisions
are made, and next-stage funding is allocated

Good to read: Lean, Rapid, and Profitable New Product

© Todd Birzer Development, by Robert Cooper and Scott Edgett
 Discovery & delivery Stage-gates
Heritage Lean, Agile, software Waterfall, hardware
Characteristics Flexible, fast, highly Systematic, deliberate,
productive can be slow
Sweet spot Rapid software High investment
development hardware development
Low cost to correct Highly regulated
mistakes products
High cost to correct
mistakes
Risks Poor coordination and Getting swamped by
financial risk with faster discovery &
complex projects delivery competitors

© Todd Birzer
 Not every product team can move
from stage-gates to discovery &
delivery

But every product team can

incorporate some of discovery &
delivery’s best practices

• Talk directly to real customers

• Test your product concepts
• (Challenge) Find ways to
release incrementally

© Todd Birzer
• A key part of an effective discovery & delivery
process is testing product concepts

• When testing product concepts, we are

balancing a goal vs. constraints

– Goal: We want deep feedback on our product

concepts

– Constraints:
• We have limited engineering resources
• We want to move fast

• We can scale our product concepts to balance

feedback vs. cost and time
© Todd Birzer
Concept-to-product
evolution

High
Discovery & delivery Final
product
Alpha/beta

Quality of feedback
software &
prototype
samples
Clickable
prototypes &
3D models

Video

Moderate
Printouts Be creative with your
product! This is not
an exhaustive list

Low Expense and time High

© Todd Birzer
Deep customer

High
Optimization
understanding Continuous
What is? refinement

Delivery

Market fit
Incremental
market
releases

Discovery
Experimentation
& prototyping

Uncertain
Ideas What works?
What if? What wows?

Rough Refined
Product readiness
© Todd Birzer
 Final
product
Deep customer

High
Optimization
understanding Alpha/beta Continuous
What is? software & refinement
prototype
samples Delivery

Market fit
Incremental
Clickable market
prototypes & releases
3D models

Video
Discovery
Printouts Experimentation
& prototyping

Uncertain
Ideas What works?
What if? What wows?

Rough Refined
Product readiness
© Todd Birzer
Printout: good sample Simple
Software / services graphics to
illustrate the
concept

Language
is easy to
understand Concept P
• On your mobile phone, an option to set
playback at….
Objectively • Slower than normal
true • Faster than normal
details with
no selling • Sound will be automatically adjusted to
reflect normal human voice pitch

© Todd Birzer
 1 2

Refine Refine
concept concept

Start with a simple printout Create a screen capture video

and get feedback during of the application experience
interviews with small biz and share in customer
owners. interview. Get feedback.

3 4 5

Incremental
Refine Refine release
concept

Develop a clickable Develop a beta Release

prototype, and software, and have incrementally and
have customers try multiple small gain feedback from
it. Get feedback. businesses try this. the broader
© Todd Birzer Get feedback. market
1 2

Refine Refine
concept concept

Start with a simple printout

and get feedback during Create a video of the
interviews with daughters, product experience and
sons, elderly parents, share in interviews. Get
professional care givers feedback.

3 4 5

Refine Refine
concept Incremental
release

Onsite trial: Take a Run a beta test at Lease an early

robot to an elderly a few different version to a few
care facility and houses. Get elderly care
have people try it. feedback. facilities

© Todd Birzer
 Test your product concepts!
• Grounds your product development in
reality
– What works? What wows?
– Attitude of humility
• Reduces the risk of failed launches
• Uncovers innovation

Plus…it’s good fun

© Todd Birzer
 Product analytics and
Deep customer
product experiments are

High
Optimization
understanding
powerful tools to optimize Continuous
What is? refinement
our products
Delivery

Market fit
Incremental
market
releases

Discovery
Experimentation
& prototyping

Uncertain
Ideas What works?
What if? What wows?

Rough Refined
Product readiness
© Todd Birzer
 Product analytics give us data on
how customers engage with our
products or services

• Software
• Hardware with IOT

© Todd Birzer
 Let’s assume you are a product manager at Envoy
– a San Francisco-based startup that helps
workplaces run smoothly and safely. Envoy has
products for visitor management, meeting rooms,
deliveries, etc.

For this example, you are the product manager for

their Desks product. In our Covid world, lots of
companies are moving to hybrid work
environments – sometimes we work in the office,
sometimes we work at home, and we no longer
have a dedicated desk at work. Envoy’s Desk
application let’s people reserve a desk on the days
that they are coming into the office

© Todd Birzer
 How many users on my platform?
– Daily active users
– Monthly active users
– Focus on a “value moment”

Not real data

© Todd Birzer
 How many users by account type?

Not real data

© Todd Birzer
 How many users by geography?

Not real data

© Todd Birzer
 Do users stay with us or drop off over
time?
• Stickiness

Not real data

© Todd Birzer
 What features are being used the
most?

Not real data

© Todd Birzer
 What path are people
taking to key actions? Not real data

© Todd Birzer
 What is our conversion funnel?
• To completion of onboarding
• To product value
• To money

Not real data

© Todd Birzer
 For businesses (B2B)…
Which of my accounts are a churn risk?

Account Monthly Days with Churn risk

recurring desk
revenue reservation
(last 30
weekdays)
Client K $52,000 0 Very high

Client G $16,000 3 Very high

Client Q $31,000 9 Moderate

Client Z $74,000 30 Low

Share with your client Not real data

success team!
© Todd Birzer
 5 recommendations for product analytics…

1. Instrument (nearly) everything

2. Focus your analysis on your product’s

core value
– Moments that matter

3. Use your analysis to drive fast product

evolution…
– Greater (and sooner) customer value
– Competitive advantage
– Growth and profitability

© Todd Birzer
 5 recommendations for product analytics…

4. For business-to-business (B2B): provide

this data to your clients
– Via your customer success group

5. Pair your product analytics insights

with your customer interview insights

© Todd Birzer
Product
analytics
tools

Others…

© Todd Birzer
Product analytics with hardware…
• Not as easy as software, but extremely helpful if
you have IOT modules

i-mop commercial floor scrubbers

© Todd Birzer
 i-mop commercial floor scrubbers

For you…
• Product usage hours per day,
location, on/off cycles,
maintenance issues, spare parts
alerts, replacement timing

For commercial cleaning

managers…
• Location, usage tracking,
preventative maintenance
alerts, longer machine life

© Todd Birzer
Product experimentation

Experiment to see what drives key metrics

• Test like a scientist
• Idea g hypothesis g experiment g
conclusion g proceed or pivot
• AB tests

Evolve your products quickly

• Companies like Facebook, Amazon,
Netflix, and Google run thousands of AB
tests/year

© Todd Birzer
© Todd Birzer
Product experimentation

From customer
interviews and Not real data
usability tests…

Some office
managersBased
get on observation
stuck on setting
We expect that adding a 3-step guidance
desk
for “setting desk configuration” will
configuration
increase conversion after sign-up +2%
© Todd Birzer(from 40% to 42%) Not real data
Product experimentation

Could we
Not real dataincrease

these numbers?

If we added a step-by-step guidance

into our “set desk configuration”
workflow, would it help?

© Todd Birzer Not real data

Product experimentation

Our hypothesis: Based on data showing office

managers struggle setting desk configuration,
we believe that adding a step-by-step guidance will
increase the number of companies where employees
successfully reserve desks.

We will know this is true if we see a +2% increase in

companies where employees reserve desks.
© Todd Birzer Not real data
Product experimentation

Run experiment

50% is a control group

50% sees “step-by-step guidance”

…and measure the impact of the change

© Todd Birzer Not real data

Product experimentation

When we get enough people (when we hit

statistical significance), we check if we met our
2% threshold

• Yes: Move to step-by-step guidance for

everybody

• No: Stay with our current approach

© Todd Birzer
Product experimentation

Use your product experiments to move key

metrics

Guide your experiments with…

• Product analytics
• Customer interviews, concept testing,
usability tests

Small increases in key metrics can have big

impact
© Todd Birzer Not real data
Product experimentation

Tougher to do Easier to do

Small B2B SaaS Large B2B / B2C SaaS

Hardware
Highly regulated products

If you can do it, product

experimentation can be
extremely powerful

© Todd Birzer
Product
analytics
tools

Experimentation
tools

Others…

© Todd Birzer
 Product management has become leaner,
faster, and more experimental

Powered by…
• Deep customer insight (what is)
• “What if” innovation ideas
• Discovery and concept testing (what
works, what wows)
• Incremental delivery
• Product analytics

The new flavors of product management

© Todd Birzer
 We talked about…
✓ Discovery and delivery
✓ Stage-gates
✓ Product concept testing
✓ Product analytics
✓ New flavors of product
management
© Todd Birzer Photo by airfocus on Unsplash
 Product management 101
Launch

© Todd Birzer Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

The work of product
management

Market New product Lifecycle

Intelligence Strategy development Management

Customer Product strategy Prioritization Positioning

Market Discovery & Pricing
Competition delivery Sales support
Launch Sales channels
Product support
Finding growth
Obsolescence

© Todd Birzer
 Sales

Time

© Todd Birzer Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

 We want impactful launches
to…
Pull forward the sales ramp
Increase total lifetime sales
Versus a quiet whimpering
launch

Technology companies often

underinvest in product launches

Requires significant upfront

planning
More than lean, Agile teams are
used to

The payoff can be large

© Todd Birzer Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash
 Often tied to launch windows
Might only be once/year
Major tradeshows or industry
events

As a product manager, you might be

the first to identify an
opportunity for a major launch

© Todd Birzer Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Launch priority

Major strategic launch

1 High company priority. Big news for the market, strong
competitive advantages, solid revenue/profit growth
potential. A “big play” for company.

2 Supporting launch
New features, product enhancements, line extensions

3 Maintenance launch
Bug fixes, quality improvements, cost-reductions

© Todd Birzer
Launch deliverables 1
By launch priority Item 3 2
Launch plan u

Planning
Budget management u

Basic marcom: Website updates, sales brochures, u u

social media

Marketing
Advanced marcom: launch videos, whitepapers, u

launch events
Press & key opinion leader outreach / press release u

Marketing programs and promotions u

Communication to sales reps & other internal u u u

teams

Sales & account

Communication to channel partners u u

management
Communication to clients (existing + trial) u u

Sales tools and presentations for sales teams u u

Training of sales teams on product, key benefits, u

how to demo, how to sell, etc.

© Todd Birzer
 Launch plan - outline
Launch plan
1 Market Target customers and their needs, market
For Priority 1 launches
environment trends, competition
2 Product Description, value proposition,
competitive differentiation, pricing
3 Launch Top level approach and timing, budget,
planning goals & metrics
4 Messaging Compelling messaging around the
product benefits
5 Awareness, Guiding customers through the buyer’s
interest, journey with targeted content. Launch
preference events, social media, tradeshows, ads,
marcom. Press and key opinion leaders
6 Sales and Promotions, sales tools, demos & trials,
channels training of sales reps and channel
partners
7 Technical Training and preparation
©support
Todd Birzer
 Driver safety programs for
commercial trucking fleets

For Priority 1 launches:

• American Trucking Association’s
MC&E show
• Use show to reach trucking
executives and raise Lytx’ industry
profile

Key tactics: Launch videos, customer

testimonials, press events, sales and
marketing outreach to trucking execs
before, during, and after show

© Todd Birzer
 With a study of 2000 people in 11
countries, Steelcase used their
deep understanding of the new
ways people are sitting to design
the Gesture chair

To launch the chair worldwide, they

used this compelling story to get
attention far beyond a normal
office chair launch

Key tactics: Launch videos,

training of sales and distribution
channels, worldwide press outreach

© Todd Birzer
New product launch

Example: Steelcase Gesture chairs

1. The Draw 2. The Multi-Device 3. The Text

4. The Cocoon 5. The Swipe 6. The Smart Lean

7. The Trance 8. The Take It In 9. The Strunch

© Todd Birzer
New product launch
Example: Steelcase Gesture chairs

© Todd Birzer
 Impactful launches drive earlier
and higher sales

Setting launch priorities can

focus a company’s energy and
resources

Priority 1 launches require

upfront planning and preparation
Big impact when done well

© Todd Birzer Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash