Over a series of weekly posts I want to create a story around a product launch scenario.  I thought it would be a useful exercise for me personally, but more importantly I believe it will be of value to those of you who are in various stages of launching a product.  Your comments will help drive the direction of the story and its outcome, so the more comments that come in the better.

You see the thing is we didn’t have access to a class in school on how to plan and execute a launch, and there is a nearly infinite number of permutations of what can go right and what can go wrong.  Experience becomes our compass to navigate this dangerous and unforgiving territory.

Even with all the planning and rationalizing of what will work great and be cool,  “No plan survives contact with the enemy” - to paraphrase Prussian Field Marshall Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke,

Widget Software and Chen

Our story begins with Chen, the product marketing manager for Widget Software.  Widget Software is a $30M software company that builds enterprise scalable, open, extensible, and state-of-the-art solutions (insert your trite and meaningless adjective). Chen is responsible for the Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy and execution of a new product, the Widgetizer.  Chen is in unfamiliar territory.

He has lots of experience in point activities around product marketing - positioning, presentations, demos, packaging and the like - and doesn’t consider himself technical.  He hates being called a “Demo Dolly”. Chen spends most of his time working with marketing communications (Marcom) people. He has good working knowledge of Widgetizer but relies on the Widgetizer product manager for technical information.  This is the first time Chen has been given the responsibility of developing a GTM strategy and been held accountable for the results.  The only GTM tools at his disposal are:

• What Widget did for the last launch
• What can be derived from how competitors have launched
• Hit or miss information from searching online
• Plenty of unsolicited ideas from the Sales team

Robin the Product Manager

Robin is the Widgetizer product manager.  She has done an impressive job of identifying a need in the market and translating that need into requirements for the Development Team.  Robin is counting on Chen to launch Widgetizer in such a way that it generates the revenue that was projected in her business case.  This will be an important personal win for Robin.

Up until now Widget Software has largely been a Development-driven organization.  Meaning that Widget developers would decide what would be built and product managers would largely be project managers.  Robin was determined to change this approach and be Market-driven. The success of Widgetizer would set the stage for the transition.  Even with a great product, Robin knows that if the market doesn’t know about it and if Widget Software isn’t operationally prepared to sell and support it, her efforts will have been in vain.

A History of Bad Launches

The CEO of Widget Software conducted an audit of previous launch efforts and found what they already knew.  Widget has done a great job of engineering products and lousy job of bringing them to market.  But the excitement of finishing a new product would quickly give way to the disappointment of missed revenue projections, followed by finger pointing and blame.  You’ve probably heard it before.  The product sucks.  The price is too high.  The sales guys are useless.  The customer’s don’t get it.

There is cautious optimism for the Widgetizer launch from the management team.  The product quality is high and the early feedback from evaluators is better than expected.  With a history of  bad launches, the management team is concerned of a repeat of history.

What’s Chen’s Next Move?

If Chen can pull off a successful launch his personal capital within Widget will go up significantly and he will build a strong ally with Robin.  Robin will prove the value of being a Market-driven organization. There could be promotion or a big bonus in Chen’s future as well as Robin’s.

So where does Chen start?  What should he focus on next?  What misteps could he take now that will doom the launch?

I was speaking with a product manager last week who was describing the challenges of managing a cross organizational team while getting ready for the launch of a major enhancement to an existing product line.  When she described the team I asked her why finance was absent.  She indicated that product management would engage finance and accounting at the end of the process, three weeks prior to the go live date.  In my mind this was a mistake - albeit a common one - and I told her why.

What is finance focused on?  Pricing, billing, investment, legal and revenue recognition to name a few.  Without all of these issues identifed, agreed to and in place, a new product or service cannot launch.  In almost every case finance is part of the team that approves any new product initiatives.  The company looks at them as the conscience of the organization.  They are not only actively engaged at the outset but they need to be part of the team that helps manage the full product lifecycle including launch.

In addition, finance can be a product manager’s best friend in terms of tracking investment pre-launch and revenue post-launch.  They don’t just contribute to the cft, they actually are the lynch pin in delivering product readiness and ultimately measuring success or failure.  Not only that, you really don’t want to upset the area of the organization that signs paychecks and approves expenses.

It is interesting however that in many cases a lot of pms are intimidated more by finance than their customers.  Work with the CFO.  Find a member of the finance and accounting team that you’re comfortable with.  You would be suprised as to how you can lower the risk of launch delay or failure if you have the money men and women actively engaged.

I have come to embrace the use of cross-functional teams for product launch as being vital.  But my initial exposure to cross-functional teams was frustrating to say the least.  I was working for Viasoft in Phoenix.  At the time Viasoft was rocking and rolling due to Y2K hysteria and we were loving every minute of it.  Viasoft had grown to a size where bringing a new product or version to market was getting complex, and being a publicly held company there were more T’s to cross and I’s to dot.

For the most part the company was winging product launches. Diving catches in the end zone with seconds before the game ends were the norm. Wisely, the management team adopted the cross-functional team (CFT) approach.  We started a project office and a small team of people with no previous product launch experience were given the task of defining a company standard project template for product launch.  These folks were talented project managers with a commanding knowledge of MS Project, but they just weren’t familiar with the nuance of bring a software product to market.  There are lots of variables and gray areas that aren’t always easy to represent in a project plan.

I was given responsibility of a product line and walked into my first CFT.  The attendees were already designated and of course we had someone from the project office to oversee the process.  I walked into a conference room filled with 22 people.  These were people from every nook and cranny of the company and believed they had a stake in the process.  I conducted the meeting and smiled, but knew that this would never work.  This many people in a room at one time is counter productive.  Period. The first meeting went for several hours. The expense to the company on an hourly basis was immense.

Keep in mind that although the company wanted CFTs to improve execution, we didn’t receive any training on how to use CFTs effectively.  Every product manager approached their CFTs differently.  Some refused to use them at all.  I decided to lean into it.

I started by setting some ground rules.  First, there could only be one representative from each functional area.  That person must have the authority to act on behalf of their department.  That one took a little finesse to make happen, but it worked. OK, now the number of people was cut down considerably.

Second, I limited CFT meetings to 1 hour.  This was a status meeting.  Anything that started down the path of problem solving or brainstorming was tabled and scheduled as a separate meeting.

Third, I developed a standing agenda that was distributed in advance of the CFT meeting.  Everyone had what they needed to be prepared for the meeting.  And they knew if their participation was mandatory or optional.

Fourth, I schedule a standing meeting.  Same day of the week.  Same time.  Even when I was traveling we conducted the meeting. No excuses for not knowing when the meeting was scheduled.

Fifth, it became apparent that these meetings could easily be dominated by the development team going over the status of the most minute feature details that had no relevance to a number of the CFT members.  To address this  I scheduled a separate, standing meeting with the product development group just to cover product development status.  Established members of the CFT could attend if they wanted, but it wasn’t mandatory.

Sixth, I designated someone to take meeting minutes.  That freed me up to drive the meeting and keep the flow going.

I still had challenges and learned many more ways to make CFTs better, but these 6 simple things enabled the team to be more effective, more attentive and more committed to achieving results.

The Launch Clinic think tank has been hard at work developing a list of things you can do to improve the launch performance in your organization this year.

2008 Todo List

#1 - Implement a launch methodology or framework - forgive me for being a little self-serving but we know it works.  We hope you use our approach but what’s most important is it should be on the top of your 2008 list.

#2 - Use a dedicated Launch Manager - product managers are often the go-to-guys for managing a launch but they have too much on their plate.  As a result launch planning suffers and so do sales.

#3 - Start a blog - be sincere and talk about what you are passionate about.  A blog is a great way to build a following and get feedback.  It’s so easy to start a blog nowadays there’s just no excuse.  If your IT guys are in the way then use an outside service.  The information you share and gain is just too important to wait.

#4 - Start using cross-functional teams - CFTs work and successful companies know it.  All it takes is a little know-how and some patience but the rewards are immense.

#5 - Get better acquainted with your sales team - this are the guys who are on the front lines every day and have direct feedback with customers.  Get out in the field with them at least once a month to see what’s going on.  What you’ll learn will amaze you.

Our long awaited "How to Organize and Manage a Cross-Functional Team" webinar is now available.  The topic of CFTs consistently ranked high from our customers so we thought we could do more justice to the topic by offering a separate webinar.

The format is 1.5 hours.  In addition to the live content you will receive a copy of the Cross-Functional Team Leaders Toolkit, which we will cover in the webinar.  The first session will be delivered on January 31, 2008 at 9AM Pacific Time (Noon Eastern, 17.00 GMT).

This webinar will be offered with a tiered promotional discount.  The sooner you register, the better the value.  The full price for the CFT webinar will be $129 USD, but here’s what we’re going to do:

There will only be 40 seats at the discounted price. After that the webinar will be sold at the full price of $129 USD.

If you have any questions about the webinar or would like to see if a particular CFT challenge you are facing is covered, please let us know.