The Foundation: Product Organization

Putting a new product out in the market doesn't happen overnight. There are many key tasks that need to be addressed. But before any work begins it's important to understand what needs to be done and how get organized.

Product Management lays the foundation for the success of a product. Being organized during the early stages of the Product Management Process is critical in ensuring success as the product life cycle continues. This article touches on a few tools to help you stay organized an on track during those early stages.

Laying out the Initial Product Goals

Documenting the goals of the product allows you to put on paper what the product will be, who it will be used for and what it's impact will be for users. It is the initial stake in the ground. It helps guide the prototype process, VoC research and definition of your first Minimum Viable Product (MVP). It even ensures changes don't veer too far off the initial course.

For example, let's say the original desire was to deliver a nutritional product to help keep pets healthy, but taste tests required changes to the formula. If those changes make the product unhealthy, the initial goals are no longer met.

Documenting the initial product goals are also used in the planning process as input to the project charter.

Because this initial step is so crucial you won't want to write it on a napkin. Simple presentation tools like power point allow you to not only jot down your initial ideas but share and collaborate with others.

Counting the Costs

A wise man never starts building without knowing if he can afford it. In many cases prototyping is an initial up-front cost of product development. It's important that before you invest too much of your own, or someone else's, money that you count up the cost for the effort, especially because there is often no revenue involved in protyping.

Once the prototype has been successfully vetted the team can move forward with the first MVP. But you're not out of the woods yet. You'll want to make sure you sell the product at the right price point.

There are many tools out there to help you calculate your product's costs vs profits. The Association of International Product Marketing and Management (AIPMM) has a template that paid members can be use to calculate different price points and expected gross revenue based on units sold. Having all your price point data in one place can help you stay organized as you determine what price is best for your product.

This knowledge empowers you to move forward knowing your hard earned money, your time and your ideas aren't starting off on the wrong foot.

Categorized User Research

Your Voice of the Customer (VoC) research is going to be the biggest asset to understanding whether your product is viable for your targeted user group. VoC research helps you understand the customer needs, wants, like and dislikes in the niche area your product intends to provide benefit.

Capturing that data in different formats can be difficult to sift through when you're ready to begin analyzing. InVision has a template that can be used for your VoC research, so you can easily organize, group and retrieve that data when you're ready to evaluate it.

Overall you want to begin your product journey making choices that will keep you and your data organized. What tools have you found helpful in keeping organized during these early stages? Let me know in the comments below.