Product Management 101: Product Life Cycle

Products are not made in a day. It begins its life as a small thought: a “what-if” spark that captures the imagination and goes till retirement. So, today we will see all phases that a product goes through.

Knowing the whole process can help the team make a clear decision, deliver consistent and complete information, do not miss any phase, and help understand each department’s roles to ensure a great product. To get acquainted with the product life cycle, we have a seven-phase model that uses a phase-gate approach. The phase consists of work that needs to be accomplished, and the gate is a kind of decision-based on the task in the phase. So, moving from one phase to another involves getting through the gate to ensure that the company can move forward with the concept or the product or not. The seven phases of the product life cycle with phases and gates look somewhat like this -

Conceive — Plan — Develop — Qualify — Launch — Maximize — Retire

Here, the lines denote the gates and the words like the plan, develop, etc., are phases.

Breaking Down the Product Life Cycle

Phase 1: Conceive

During the conception phase, a company or team generates new ideas, evaluates them, and prioritizes them to decide whether to move forward with them and spend money, time, and resources. The idea should be such that it solves the unmet needs of the customers. Anyone can come up with new ideas: managers, engineers, salespeople, even customers can propose new ideas. The product manager’s key role in this phase is to articulate the customers’ needs and the solvable problems so that the possible solution can be accurately validated with customers.

Decision at the gate: Will the company agree to provide funding and resources to move on to the planning phase and gain a deeper understanding of the main parameters for the continuation of the project?

Phase 2: Plan

Product managers take more detailed actions and specific market research and competitive analysis during the planning phase to determine if the odds are great and profitable enough to be viable. They determine the market need (what problems customers have) on a deeper level. And they work on a business case to justify spending the money developing the product. Engineers then create a product description document. The product marketing manager works on the market strategy document, which describes how strategically the company can take the product to the market.

Decision at the gate: The company agrees to fund actual product development.

Phase 3: Develop

In this phase, the team moves forward to create a product above the bar that caters to the customers’ needs. The role of the product manager during development is to ensure that the customer problem is solved by what the engineers create.

Decision at the gate: Does the decision-making team agree that the product is ready to launch?

Phase 4: Qualify

Before being too sure of launching the product in the market, it is important to make sure whether the product is good enough to do so. Therefore, before shipping it to all your customers, try experimenting with a select few and see whether all the functionality is working properly or not.

Decision at the gate: Does the decision-making team agree that the product is ready to launch?

Phase 5: Launch

Now, it’s time to launch the product the team has been working on for so long. Launches are a fantastic amount of work, and when done successfully, it creates excitement among the customers and gets you the initial sales.

Decision at the gate: Is the organisation ready to start the maximize phase and spend additional money and resources to meet revenue, profit, and strategic goals for the product? What worked and what didn’t during the phase? Were projected sales achieved or not? If not, why? Which product changes should be reported back to the product development team?

Phase 6: Maximize

This is the point when the marketing department takes charge. They would work on demand generation, public relations, and sales. Product managers here track the success of all the marketing process. They look at competitive responses and collect customers’ feedback to ensure the customer’s voice is included in the following product revision.

Decision at the gate: Is the product ready to be retired from the market?

Phase 7: Retire

Retirement is a carefully considered necessity for product success. In this phase, the product manager usually drives the process to the end by carefully weighing the competing needs against the whole company in achieving a dignified end of life for a product.

Decision at the gate: There is generally no gate at the end of retirement. If you are diligent, review and note what went well and what didn’t go so well.

I hope it was something new for you to learn. Keep posting about your thoughts, and we will meet next time. Till then, keep exploring.