Building and managing a new product is a mentally stimulating and challenging task. 

In fact, the relationship between a new product and its manager is somewhat analogous to the relationship between a newborn pup and its mother.

The product is fragile in its early stages and can be easily destroyed. Poor planning, poor communication, and poor resource management can sabotage a product before it even starts. That’s precisely why product managers constantly remain responsible for the project’s success or failure.

So, yeah, building and managing a product is not the easiest thing to do. That’s why the best product managers have a  product management process to help them move from Point A to Point Z without getting stopped in their tracks. 

What is a product management process? 

Product management is the art, or science, of building a product from scratch, developing it, introducing it to the market, and keeping it in tune with the realities and desires of the customers who use it. Many great product managers like Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos agree that the last phrase in that definition is the most pertinent aspect of product management — keeping the product in line with the realities and desires of the customers who use it.

The product management process includes all the strategies, methods and techniques that product managers adopt to get the job of product management done. 

The 7 Most Important Steps in the Product Management Process

To successful execute product management, product managers often rely on a tested-and-trusted product management process to serve as a guide. This process involves numerous teams, including but not limited to engineers, marketers, customer satisfaction personnel and market researchers. 

With the help of these stages in the product management process, every product team member finds it much easier to stay on board with the team vision, speedily reach milestones, and ultimately launch a successful product.

Side Note: These stages are not entirely the same throughout every organization because each product is different and may require a slightly altered process. 

Nonetheless, the stages described will provide you with a blanket guide that should help you understand the product management process enough to make your unique product management process.

Step #1: Pick the right ideas

Every product starts with an idea — hence, the first step in the product management process. 

Business ideas are not unique to only product management teams. However, good product managers know how to source ideas and manage them strategically.

Good product managers are constantly conducting market research and competitor analysis to help them develop the next best product. When two competing companies in the same market have identical product portfolios, there’s even more emphasis on collating great ideas to create a tie-breaking product.

Picking the right idea also involves properly collecting and managing all the suggested ideas to be constantly evaluated. Product management teams may choose to create an “idea bank” as a store for good ideas. As soon as the conditions are perfect for an idea to grow, all the teams swing into action.

You can rely on the SWOT analysis to help you separate great ideas from not-so-great ones.

Step #2: Define the product and its success parameters

Once good product managers pick the right idea, they begin to define it — product definition includes product name and product features. This helps product managers set a product’s scope and limit its boundaries.

Defining product features helps product managers map out exactly what components they need in their product’s engineering team to put together the product. It keeps everyone on the same track to prevent the possibility of drifting away from the strategic goal at some later point.

Every product sets out to achieve something at its inception — and it can be very easy to lose sight of that goal. That’s why 81% of product managers have a method for measuring success. 

Setting success parameters makes it easier for every team member, through collaborative efforts, to stay on the right course and ultimately achieve the product goal. 

To define a product’s features and set up success parameters, product management teams need to answer the following questions early on:

Why are we building this product? What should this product do? Who needs this product the most?

How do we know when this product is successful?

Step #3: Design product roadmap stages

This step of the product management process involves far more strategic thinking than all the others.

Many product management teams create product roadmaps. Product roadmaps are mostly visual guides that demonstrate the product’s journey from idea to launch and its various milestones along the way.

Designing product roadmaps makes it easier for product managers to communicate with their product engineering teams about what they need to build, how to build it, and when to have the product ready for testing.

Step #4: Build. Build. Build the product.

At this stage, you’ve selected the right idea, defined the product features and success parameters, and drawn up a strategic roadmap. 

The next thing to do is to create the product. This is the time to put all those months of planning, collaboration, market research, and stakeholder analysis to work. Here, the product managers provide the engineers with all the relevant product features in the product design. 

The speed and efficiency of the product building stage heavily depend on the product management approach of the company. Companies that adopt the Agile approach are more flexible and can make as many improvements as necessary during the building stage.

Agile teams are exactly what Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, had in mind when he said, “Be stubborn on vision, but flexible on details.”

The building stage does not necessarily need to be perfect. You can start with the “beta” version (if it’s an app) or, more accurately, launch a minimum viable product (MVP). 

This stage aims to give the product engineers and product managers something visible to analyze and improve. MVPs are also typically available for customers to purchase and share feedback about the product.

Step #5: Gather and analyze feedback

At the end of the building stage, the product’s out there — no matter how many people have access to it. That’s when product managers focus on gathering feedback from every stakeholder involved in the product management process.

Product managers gather data from how users interacted with the product using advanced and straightforward customer experience metrics. This data should reveal the changes and improvements that the product requires.

The feedback gathering process is a product manager’s best time to get it right because the product users will reveal every product’s pain point (and selling point). 

Every data extracted from stakeholder feedback helps the product management process get closer to the perfect product.

Step #6: Get the product to fit the market

This stage involves using all that feedback data to separate the signal from the noise. Product managers must discard irrelevant and problematic product features at this point to make way for high-performing features.

Eliminating certain features may be a hard decision to make, but if the data from products users support that decision, then you’re on your way to launching the right product at the right time.

Step #7: Keep monitoring the product

Product monitoring is an essential step of the product management process. Updating and upgrading the product are results of product monitoring.

During product monitoring, more data will be gathered on the product, and it will be up to the product managers to decide how to use that data.

Making the right calls throughout the product’s lifecycle is part of product monitoring and a more significant part of the product management process.

Conclusion

The product management process is how product managers birth, sustain, upgrade and possibly discard products. Each step has its essential objective and must be implemented appropriately in line with product management best practices.

Following the steps in this guide is a surefire way to guarantee success for any product management team in the product management process.