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Software Product Planning: What is it and How to do it?
Product planning is the process of identifying and creating a new product idea with all product-related requirements such as its features, price, promotion, distribution, etc. It aims to align the assets of the business and operational factors, to focus on product development, design, and engineering efforts. The purpose of it is to deliver the greatest probability of success in achieving business goals through effective product strategy.
Product planning presents a much larger view of the management and technical side of a product-based business which includes all of the moving parts from inception to exit.
Here are the key steps of product planning that you should go through when building out a new product:
This is the most crucial step in your business that pivots and defines what you are trying to build as a product. Jot down this stage and ensure your idea for the product is a real idea. Another part of the product concept is making sure you have a firm knowledge of the upcoming problems based on your strong understanding of the solutions needed.
Not all successful product ideas are successful business ideas. Once you have walked into the first step and have an idea or concept that solves a real problem, now it is time to do some market research. During this stage of product planning, you need to prove that your idea has a market to sell.
This includes studying your competition, analyzing their weaknesses & strengthens against yours, and finding out the niches where your product can have an advantage over your competitors.
If your product planning has crossed step 1, step 2 of building a concept and confirming that there is a place in the market for your product, the next step is to build the MVP (Minimum Viable Product), so you can put a real-life product in front of customers or users for them to look at, test and provide feedback on the product.
After the launch, you need product maturity. This is where the product roadmap merges with the product planning. A product roadmap will help you with smooth working on building out your product teams, pricing changes, infrastructure, as you add more features and overall sales and marketing approaches.
The process of product planning does not stop with a product launch. It should also include managing the product throughout various stages of its product life-cycle.
During the initial growth phase, competition is usually low while sales are strong. However, with time, competitors will come up with their own products. So, having a constant life cycle in product planning will maintain the balance!
Good product planning lays the foundation for successful product management! It exhibits the basis for cross-functional teams to plan, develop, and introduce their product in the market, and it ensures that product managers identify the appropriate target customers and niche industry prior to reaching the product planning stages.