Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Product Strategy Review
- Product Line Review
- Phase Gate Review
- Product Development Review
- Product Team Review
- Product Development Core Team Review
Introduction
In his 1962 book, The Success System That Never Fails, W. Clement Stone wrote, “Don’t expect what you don’t inspect.”
It is still true today. It is human nature to put something off until someone asks for it. That “ask” creates a deadline for results and signals that someone is interested and watching. Doing it regularly ensures team members understand expectations and honor their commitments.
The same principle applies to managing product line performance. You must regularly review all the decisions, plans, actions, and results related to your product line’s performance. Each review forces your product team to get organized, assess the situation, figure out the actions required, coordinate efforts, and report to stakeholders regularly. With just six product management reviews, you can ensure sufficient management and control over your product line’s performance. See Table 2.
| Review Type | Purpose | Typical Frequency |
| Product strategy | Decide what products to offer and when | Annual |
| Product line | Inspect product strategy execution | Quarterly |
| Phase gate | Decide if a product can advance to the next lifecycle phase | Upon phase completion |
| Product development | Inspect product development program performance | Monthly |
| Product team | Coordinate day-to-day product team activity | Weekly |
| Core team | Coordinate product development activity | Weekly |
Product Strategy Review
Product strategy reviews are periodic inspections of your product strategy decisions. This is typically an annual process for which there are three reviews, one for each phase of product strategy development. First you review your market environment, then your situation in that environment, and finally your strategy to compete. See Figure 8.
In the environment review, you will examine your opportunities and their requirements to serve your target customer. In the situation review, you will assess your ability to meet customer requirements and compete for their business. Finally, in the strategy review, you will present and seek approval for product strategy decisions based on your environment and situation analysis.
Impatience may tempt you to compress environment, situation, and strategy reviews into a single just-give-me-the-answer event. While this approach may save review time, it will significantly reduce decision quality. To make high-quality decisions, your understanding of your environment and your situation must be thorough. To make sure yours is, review your environment, your situation, and your strategy separately.
It is also good practice to follow each strategy update effort with annual plan development. That way, strategy decisions are fresh and top of mind when detailed planning begins. You can cement a direct connection between strategy and detailed planning with an annual strategy and planning review cycle like the one below:
- First quarter: Environment review
- Second quarter: Situation review
- Third quarter: Strategy review
- Fourth quarter: Annual plan review
Product Line Review
The product line review examines strategy execution and commercial performance. It is a business review like other business reviews your company conducts. It differs only in the level of abstraction. In fact, it is not unusual to find a slide from a product manager’s product line review in the CEO’s board presentation. See Figure 9.
A product line review agenda looks a lot like a business unit manager’s quarterly business review or even your CEO’s board meeting agenda. In a smaller business where the CEO is effectively the product manager, the product line review and board meeting agenda can be indistinguishable. The agenda typically includes:
- Scorecard metrics
- Financials
- Market position
- Marketing and selling capability
- Product development
- Customer satisfaction
For suggested content for each product line review agenda item, see Table 3.
| Agenda Item | Suggested Content |
| Scorecard metrics | Key financial, operational, and customer performance metrics |
| Financials | Results and forecast for bookings, revenue, gross margin, and product costs |
| Market position | Changes in the market environment, changes in the competitive environment, implications of those changes, win-loss report, and market share |
| Marketing and selling capability | Marketing campaign plans and results, selling materials development status, sales training plans and results, and sales channel performance |
| Product development | Product roadmap status, summary product development status versus plan, risks, and issues |
| Customer satisfaction | Installed-base performance, issues and action plans, customer satisfaction levels, customer retention |
Phase Gate Review
Your product moves through multiple phases over its lifecycle. See Figure 10.
Imagine that between each phase, there is a gate. A product must have satisfied all the requirements of its current phase to pass through the gate and move to the next phase. A phase gate review is where you make that determination. There are only three outcomes of a phase gate review.
The first is management approval if the product has sufficiently completed the current phase’s deliverables and remains viable. The second occurs when the deliverables for the current phase are incomplete. Here, management may direct the program to return to the current phase to complete those deliverables. The third outcome is management may stop investing if the product is no longer viable. See Figure 11.
A program manager typically chairs phase gate reviews when the product is in the product development phase. Product managers typically lead all other phase reviews. To reach a gate decision, the chair will prepare a phase gate review agenda like:
- Purpose of the gate
- Team recommendation
- Current phase deliverables review
- High-level lifecycle or product development plan
- Plan to complete the next phase
- Gate decision
Product Development Review
Product line and phase gate reviews include product development updates. But as product development control mechanisms, they are not sufficient. Product line reviews are too superficial. Phase gate reviews can be too infrequent. Therefore, you need regular, detailed product development program reviews to:
- Ensure the program is on track.
- Expose and address issues.
- Align cross-functional activities.
This product development review agenda is a good place to start:
- Top-level milestones
- Status versus success criteria
- Cross-functional deliverables status
- Status vs. cost and margin targets
- Status vs. program budget
- Top risks and mitigation plans
- Accomplishments over the last 30 days and goals for the next 30 days
Product Team Review
The product team handles the day-to-day execution of the product strategy. It makes sure that:
- Revenue and margin are on track.
- The team is supporting the sales force.
- You are defending against competitor attacks.
- Product development meets commitments.
- The installed base is performing well.
- Customers are happy.
The product manager leads the product team. You populate the team with the cross-functional representatives that management has assigned to the product line. See Figure 12.
The product team meeting is not unlike a CEO’s weekly staff meeting. The topics are the same, but the level of abstraction is different. A product team review is often a weekly working meeting where the team:
- Reviews performance.
- Creates action plans.
- Identifies resource needs.
- Coordinates activity.
- Establishes priorities.
- Resolves issues.
- Prepares for product line reviews.
Product Development Core Team Review
A product development core team (core team) executes product development programs. It is a working group led by a program manager and populated with cross-functional team members. See Figure 13.
The core team must meet regularly to coordinate all the activities related to a product development program and prepare for product development program reviews. The core team meeting’s regular agenda often mirrors the agenda for a product development review. Its membership and charter are like a product team’s except:
- A program manager leads a core team, not the product manager.
- The core team’s scope is a product development program, not the complete business of the product line.
- It is not permanent. The core team forms and disbands as needed to execute product development programs.
- The product manager is a team member, not the team leader.