Here’s the third article in our series on optimizing the cross-team product development and delivery process. Check out Cross-Team Product Development and Delivery Process Guide here and Pipeline Success Indicators here. So far, in our discussion on optimizing the cross-team product development and delivery process, we’ve established a wide range of parameters. We’ve covered definitions, stakeholder roles, pipelines and key success indicators for each stage, etc. Now, we should take care of implementation the process with a detailed look at what should happen in each phase.
Context Initiation
Everything starts with an idea. To initiate the product definition process, a stakeholder (end-user, focus group, c-level executive, architect, etc.) reaches out to the product management department and asks for a dedicated person to convert an idea into a vision for a product or feature with added business value.
The goals and desired outcomes of this phase are the following:
- Identified product vision. You should be able to answer high level “what” and “why” questions here. The product manager sets up the transparency fundamentals for the rest of the departments at this point.
- Added value. The stakeholder and product manager should agree on the objectives and how they will affect the business.
- Defined product-market fit. How to make the most of the implementation.
- Identified ability to implement the product. No matter how valuable the opportunity is, you have to make sure that the company is capable of bringing the idea to life.
Here’s what the process might look like when fulfilling the requirements outlined above:
The identification itself is an iterative process and should be handled with some sort of PDCA or DMAIC implementation and product discovery techniques. (I’m not a product manager, so it’s best for you to rely on the competencies of one to choose which is the better way to approach the identification process).
Here another indicator comes into play — ease of communication. The better the stakeholder and the manager communicate, the more precisely the vision of the product will be defined.
In addition to the diagram above, we will also depict the level of involvement of key stakeholders in the process. This will help us understand the cooperative effort better:
Exit criteria
After you’re done fleshing out the vision, it’s time to “carve it into stone.” The product manager should do some paperwork and get ready to present the vision for the initiative group to kick off the discovery phase. It will be a good idea to, actually, make a presentation – but we also need to establish a single source of truth for the product definition. Think of the following:
- Presentation with a high-level overview of what and why you’re going to build.
- JIRA initiative (split up by epics)
- Confluence page outlining the vision, objectives, and success metrics.
This is not an exhaustive list of “must-have” items, but rather a recommendation. The granularity of the documentation may solely depend on your actual needs. Either JIRA or a confluence page may act as a single source of truth in terms of objectives and success for metrics definitions, along with the overall high-level requirements outline.
So, what’s next?
Finally, when the product manager has everything set up, final approval should be conducted by each stakeholder. At this point, you should be all set to kick off the discovery phase - and we’ll look at that in the next post!
Check Part 1 in the series here, Part 2 here, and Part 4 here.
