Setting Strategic Direction
A true Product Manager plays one of the most valuable roles within your organization: managing the ongoing profitability and viability of their product/category. This very broad and critical charge requires attention to specific responsibilities requiring a particular set of skills and talents. This article will focus on the responsibilities of a Product Manager as they relate to new product development.
The driving force of a product/category is its strategic direction and framework. For your company’s innovation/new product development efforts this includes the set of Product, Platform, Market and Technology strategies, as well as Product and Technology Roadmaps. These elements focus resources on activities that translate into innovative, differentiated and profitable products. A Product Manager that defines and executes appropriate strategies that yield a sustainably profitable product/category is truly worth their weight in gold.
Before your Product Manager gets started
In order for your Product Managers to develop the appropriate strategic framework, they first need clearly stated and communicated business and innovation strategies defined by senior management.
The business strategy defines the long-term direction and vision of the organization, how the organization will achieve that vision, and what measurements will allow the organization to identify progress against or achievement of that vision.
The innovation strategy defines in what ways and to what extent the organization will use innovation to execute its business strategy. This boils down to defining what resources and the extent of resources to be allocated to innovative efforts, and the levels of risk the organization will undertake in the pursuit of innovation.
Why is strategy so important? We’ve worked in organizations that have clearly stated strategies and those that don’t. The difference between the two is like night and day. If two words needed to be chosen to describe companies with and without strategies, they would be ‘clarity’ and ‘chaos’, respectively.
The organizations with strategies provided clarity to the team and organization. The strategies provided direction on where the organization was going, and how it was going to get there. Everyone had their marching orders, they knew what to do and their efforts were aligned. It was not uncommon to see the Product Managers continually referring to these strategy documents because they provided a framework and an understanding of the resources and constraints they have to work with.
In contrast, in organizations without clearly stated business and innovation strategies we’ve seen a lot of valuable time wasted by product managers forced to develop their product/category strategies in a vacuum, trying to infer the direction of the organization. At times it was worse, as Product Managers were setting direction without regard to the mission of the larger organization. This situation creates chaos for the entire organization as the various functions try to cope with different agendas, different resource requirements and different priorities.
It takes effort and time on the part of senior management to develop business and innovation strategies, but the payoff is tremendous. Ensure that your Product Managers are well-equipped with the strategic direction of your organization. They will then be able to develop appropriate and aligned strategies for their products/categories.
The Product Manager’s role in defining new product development strategy
The following content provides an overview of the five key strategies that Product Managers should consider when developing their product/category strategy framework for guiding new product development.
Product Strategies
Product strategies help guide your organization in the development and evolution of categories, product lines and products. The product strategy includes the goals for new product development within each category ( e.g. market share, revenue, new markets), the arenas of strategic focus (the markets, technologies, product types to be focused on), spending/resource allocation for each arena and a timeline showing the planned new product introductions.
Platform Strategies
Platforms enable your organization to create new products faster and more efficiently by bundling together elements that can be common across multiple product lines. A platform strategy guides your organization in the development of platforms and derivative products. The important elements of the platform strategy are defining the capabilities and limitations of the platform, as well as creating the platform’s point of differentiation. The platform strategy is also an integral part of developing product and technology roadmaps.
Market Strategies
Market strategies guide your firm in the development of markets and distribution channels. The market strategy defines who the target customer is, what segments will be served, what is the value proposition or point of differentiation when compared to the competition, and what distribution channels are needed to reach the customer.
Technology Strategies
Technology strategies guide your organization in the acquisition, development and application of technology to gain a competitive advantage. The elements of the technology strategy include identification of the source of technology, as well as the timing of implementation to support the product strategy timeline.
Product and Technology Roadmaps
Product and Technology Roadmaps provide the graphical representation of the current and planned evolution of products and platforms that match market need to specific technologies. They illustrate the portfolio of projects that the organization needs to work on in order to achieve its business strategy and be successful. It especially helps the organization forecast which skills and technologies must be acquired to meet strategic goals.
Communicating the New Product Development Strategy
To be effective, these strategies must be agreed to and supported by senior management, and clearly communicated to everyone involved in new product development. Progress against these strategies needs to be openly and continually monitored, with adjustments made to react to changing market, industry and technology conditions. We recommend monthly new product development portfolio review meetings and quarterly strategy meetings in which the Product Managers present their findings to the senior management team.
Product Managers have the ability to make a real difference for your bottom-line. You will quickly realize that they’re worth their weight in gold by:
- Ensuring your product managers have access to business and innovation strategies created by senior management
- Ensuring your product managers have the time to create and update their product strategies on an on-going basis
- Communicating the new product development strategies to senior management and the project teams, and regularly monitoring progress.