fritz mueller prioritizing features director of product management
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Fritz Mueller Prioritizing t The Ideal – Do all positive Net Present Value (NPV) projects. t Reality – What rules do you use to decide on the tradeoffsTRANSCRIPT
Fritz Mueller
Prioritizing Features
Director of Product Management
Fritz Mueller
Prioritizing
What gets done Gather Requirements Prioritize Write the Plan
How it gets done Defending and selling the plan If you cannot defend the plan, the priorities will
get changed.
Fritz Mueller
Prioritizing
The Ideal – Do all positive Net Present Value (NPV) projects.
Reality – What rules do you use to decide on the tradeoffs
Fritz Mueller
Sources of Input
EmbattledProd. Mngr.
Customers
Support
SalesEngineering
Competitors
NewTechnology
Cool Features
Long TermFixes
Fritz Mueller
Rule #1 – Identify the Customer
Identify the customer or else: You will only listen to the vocal customers You will define too broad a group of customers You will not solve anyone's problems or needs
Fritz Mueller
Rule #2 - Categorize
Easy
Difficult
Big Payoff Little Payoff
1 2
3 X
GeneratesMomentum
HighRisk
Fritz Mueller
Rule #3 - Balance Frequent Customer Requests Press Competitive Response Engineering Ideas Long Term Architecture Issues New Technologies Support Development Costs
Fritz Mueller
Optimal Balance
You have to balance so what is the optimal balance? Most common requests Press Demo Features Competitive Response
Lifecycle of Product Target Market
Fritz Mueller
Rule #4 – Disruptive Change
While you are refining the product some else is redefining the space.
Be the first to sound the alarm and state a response plan with a reasonable first step.
Fritz Mueller
Customer Input Risks
What customers ask for and buy are different
Understand why do customers stay with you
Technical vocal minority vs. silent majority
Fritz Mueller
Causes of Confusion
If you cannot decide on a plan then. Too diverse a customer set or not sure who
the customer is. Not confident about defending the plan Market is changing You saturated the market
Fritz Mueller
Handling Confusion If you cannot decide on a plan then.
Too diverse a customer set. – split the line and segment the market or focus.
Not confident about defending the plan – talk to more customers
Market is changing – new product line needed or company must change
You saturated the market – expand the definition of the market you are in.
If you still cannot decide then the company may be in trouble and have no safe direction
Fritz Mueller
Rule #5 –Don’t Forget the Basics
Who is the customer? What do they value? Is the product consistent with the
marketing plan? Is the product consistent with the
corporate strategy? Don’t go into a market half way. Do go in
one step at a time. (Honda)
Fritz Mueller
Implementing the Plan
The biggest problem is defending your plan because any plan you come up with will be questioned.
Fritz Mueller
Rule #6 – Sell the Plan
You will never make everyone happy. Since not everyone is happy you need to
convince everyone that you have the best possible plan and any other plan would be worse.
Fritz Mueller
Interested Parties
Prod. Mngr.
Senior Mngmt.
Sales, Customers
Eng.
Fritz Mueller
Selling the Plan Senior Management
Q: Why are we doing …? A: Strategic answer
Sales Q: When do we get…? A: The most requested features are … and we are
working on them.
Engineering Statement: I am going to build… Response: Customers don’t want it or they won’t pay for it
or it will take too long to build.
Customer Q: Why should I care about…? A: It will solve a huge problem for you.
Fritz Mueller
Senior Management This is our customer… This is why they buy… This is where the market is going… This is why we will win… Therefore the product plan has these
features…
Fritz Mueller
From PM to CEO
Customer Requests
Product Strategy
Corporate StrategySuccessful corporate strategyis built from the bottom up.
Fritz Mueller
Summary
#1 - Identify the Customer #2 - Categorize #3 - Balance #4 - Watch Disruptive Change #5 - Basics #6 - Sell the Plan