Product Management in nutshell.

The Blueprint for a Thriving Business: Creating and Delivering Value

To thrive, any business fundamentally requires one thing: customers. More specifically, customers who are not just willing, but eager to pay continuously. This eagerness stems from the value that your business provides to them.

So, how does a business provide value?

It does so by creating a product or solution that

i. solves customer problems,

ii. enhances the quality of their lives, or

iii. shields them from adversities.

Now, let’s delve into the process of creating this value-laden product or solution.

Firstly, let's answer this question What does any business need to thrive? 

Here are the fundamental steps to create a product or solution.

1. Understand what value to create

2. Identify, how to create this value

3. Figure out how to capture a value in a product or solution

4. Experiment with How to best communicate a value

5. Lastly, How to Deliver a value 

So, it Understands, Create, Capture, Communicate and Delivery value. These are the fundamental components of a value management framework.

Understanding Value

Methods: Perform market analysis:

• Generate customer insights - what do customers do, where there are significant gains to customers, elevated level of pains to customers.

• Understand alternatives or competitors if any.

• Overall market trends and forecasts 

Outcome:

• This should give you a set of customer segments –

• Identify the customer segment you can serve better than others

• List out specific problems you want to solve or gains you want to provide that it is unmet 

Creating Value

Method: Design Thinking Approach 

• Who are the users or customers? (Empathize) 

• What pains/gains are intended to solve/provide? (Define) 

• Is the level of pain enough to pay to solve? Or are the benefits to be delivered premium to charge? (Viability) 

• Generate solution ideas (Ideate) 

• Is the solution feasible? (Feasibility) 

• Is the solution being developed desirable? (desirability) 

• Test the ideas that are desirable, feasible and viable. 

• Iterate based on customer feedback. 

• Define Metrics, and identify Risks & mitigation plans.

Outcome: Solution options that have a competitive edge or deliver a better value 

Importantly, evaluate this out, how?

• Talk to the customer segment - validate your understanding of their problems and gains,

• Show mock-ups of your products to understand whether they see value.

• Understand customers' willingness to pay. 

Capturing Value

• Define your ICP for your first customer, five customers, ten customers etc.

• Understand customer personas, JTBD, what are customer expecting, and what are their emotional and social needs.

• Gather requirements and create MVP. 

• Create a product GTM plan

Now, think about how you deliver the value or a product to achieve your goal i.e., to onboard a customer who is willing to pay.

Communicate Value

Build marketing and communication tactics that could answer the following questions. 

• How do you communicate product value? 

• Where and how do you sell? 

• What do you expect customers to pay? Etc. 

• How do you position your product to this target segment 

• Create a value proposition that is unique to this target segment. 

Delivering Value

Iteratively build and release features to customers. Prioritize features that address key problems for your target customers. Ensure there is incremental value in feature delivery.

• Build a Product Charter: If you have come to this stage, then build a product charter to align, plan and deliver the next product cycle.

Build your product charter document that should include items such as

• What are the types of customer segments that need your product value?

• Identify the target segment (who will appreciate your product, gain value and be willing to pay)

• Identify how you position your product to this target segment.

• Create a value proposition that is unique to this target segment.

• Importantly, how do you scale from now on 

The above document is a useful document to align with stakeholders, cross-functional teams etc. to ensure there is buy-in and closer alignment. 

Include the following in the strawman product charter.

1. Key questions or hypotheses to be validated. 

2. Set of objectives to achieve in the next 3-6-12 months. 

3. Define Goal, & success criteria 

4. Secure resources 

5. Create a roadmap by breaking down goals into specific objectives and tasks. 

6. Incrementally build and deliver the product.