What is the Product Management Life Cycle?
The Product management is a process that involves the planning, design, development, and management of a product throughout its lifecycle. It includes adding new features and fixing bugs in an existing product as well as supporting it with a customer service team. Over time new feature ideas, requests, new user role etc. may emerge during the product life cycle, which the product evolution has to follow and serve.
Product Management Vs Product Development
Product management is more focused on the strategic aspects of a product, including market research, customer needs, and product strategy, while product development is more focused on the technical execution of designing, developing, and engineering the product.
Different Stages of the Product Management Lifecycle
Idea Generation
The product management life cycle begins with idea generation and conceptualization, which involves creating product ideas based on market research, customer feedback, or current industry trends. Concepts are developed to outline what the product will do to solve the problems.
After finalizing the idea, you should identify the personas(this can be imaginary but realistic representations of your target customer) and user stories( Simple note defining the action about how a certain type of user would interact with your product) for the product which will help you create a better product overall.
Market Research
Assessing the feasibility of an idea involves conducting market research, which is one of the most important steps in the product management life cycle. They validate the concept by talking to potential customers, analyzing competition (Competitive analysis plays a major role here as it helps to learn how to stand out from your competitors by analyzing their products, strategy and pricing), and determining the demands in the market.
Product Planning
The product manager defines the features, scope, and priorities during product planning. Road maps are created to provide overview of the development timeline and milestones. While creating roadmaps one should think about the long-term goals for the business so that the priorities can be clearly set.
Design and Development
This stage involves developing the product. It includes designing the user interface with the prototype, developing the software, and building the product in iteration. Agile development methodology is often preferred in product development as it is well-suited for iterative development.
Testing and Quality Assurance
To identify and fix any issues or bugs, the product is tested multiple times. The product goes into different phases in testing like Application Testing, System Integration Testing, Regression Testing and User Acceptance Testing. Quality assurance ensures that the product meets the quality standards set by the company.
Product Launch
Marketing and sales strategies, as well as a launch plan, are in place for the product to be launched in the market. The product is generally available for purchase at this stage.
Post-launch and Growth
It's crucial to continue monitoring and improving the product after it's launched. User feedback is analyzed by product managers, key performance indicators (KPIs) are tracked, and updates are made as necessary.
Maturity
The product reaches a stage of maturity when it stabilizes in the market. To stay competitive, the product may require feature enhancements as competitors enter the market.
Decline or Sunset
The end of a product's lifecycle is inevitable. The product may become obsolete, or customer needs may change, causing a decline in sales.
Retirement or Replacement
When the product is decided to be retired, it will be gradually removed from the market.
The cycle starts again with a new product idea when a replacement is planned.
