reDesign

In part one, I talked about the questions I ask when tackling a new product. Based on the answers to those questions, I’ll outline a path that includes some or all of these tasks:

• Write initial concept presentation.
• Work with designers to get concept art. A few good mocks from very talented designers can make selling much easier.
• Gut check with engineering on overall feasibility.
• Conduct competitive analysis.
• Conduct market research (primary and secondary).
• Sell concept to senior management and other teams.
• Flesh out product requirements.
• Get design and engineering resources committed.
• Build user interface and visual design.
• Work with engineers on architecture.
• Build and test prototype.
• Build the product.
• Write user and technical documentation.
• QA the product and fix the showstoppers.
• Release for internal testing and fix major bugs.
• Release for external beta testing and fix bugs that affect functionality. Seed product to key influencers.
• Measure usage and make necessary changes.
• Release the product.
• Market the product to wider audience.
• Measure usage and make necessary changes.

Many of these things happen concurrently. Often, all these things need to happen in less than 2 months. Sometimes, only a few of these steps are needed (or possible). At a startup, I might not have $50,000-$80,000 to conduct focus groups. It’s faster for me to get an early version out to the public and get feedback from real users.

At any time, market conditions might change or my competitor might come out with something new which needs to be figured into my plans.

Designing and launching a new product is much like putting together a puzzle — a puzzle where you start with a fuzzy picture on the box and whose pieces keep changing shape as you work on it. That’s what makes it fun.

You can try this puzzle. I promise these puzzle pieces won’t change on you. Check out the original image if you need to peek at the box.

When I’m talking to companies, one of the questions I get asked is “how do you launch a product?” There are so many variables that go in to launching products that the real answer is “it depends.”

It depends on a lot of things: the size of the product, the company I’m working for, who I’m working with. One of the most successful products I launched went from whiteboarding with a smart engineer to launch in about 4 weeks. On the other hand, I’ve spent more than a year on a rigorously analyzed, well documented product that never launched because of changes in business priorities.

I start by asking a lot of questions:

• What are the objectives? Is it about generating revenue for this quarter? Shipping something before Christmas? Responding to a competitor’s product?
• Who is this intended for? If the target audience is one that I’m not familiar with, I need to add in extra time for primary and secondary research.
• How much effort is this? If it’s a small effort, I might just go ahead and do it. If it’s an 18 month effort, I’ll look for ways to break it up into smaller phases, releasing and testing along the way.
• Does this impact existing revenue? If launching this product is going to affect $500 million in revenue, I’ll want to do some 1% testing early on.
• Is this user facing? If so, I’ll need time for design reviews and possibly usability testing.
• What other areas of the company does this affect? If the effort spans departments, I need to plan on selling it throughout the company. (Especially if it requires other teams to do work.)
• Does this require external partnerships? I’ll need to identify partners and work with business development to negotiate the deals.
• Do I have to capitalize this? If you don’t know what this means, consider yourself lucky. If I have to capitalize a product, much of the process is dictated for me.

In part two, I’ll talk about the next steps.