How to do a great product review
Ingredients for a success product review with stakeholders
Hey PMs,
Last week, I wrote about product planning which is something most products teams do at the beginning of the year.
But there is another ritual that product teams do or should do - product reviews.
Do you do product reviews with your executives and stakeholders on a regular basis? If not, you will find value in this article where we discuss the details on conducting a successful product review.
Why should you do product reviews?
As a PM, you are making some bets for your company in terms of product strategy and roadmap. You want to make sure that your efforts are aligned to overall company goals, and that you are aligned with all other stakeholders. A product review ensures that everyone in the company is on the same page which paves the way for creating more impactful products.
Here are some reasons why product reviews reviews are important.
Alignment of Goals: Executives often set strategic goals for the organization. Regular product reviews ensure that the product team's efforts are aligned with these broader objectives. It's a chance to confirm that everyone is on the same page and moving in the right direction.
Resource Allocation: Executives need to make informed decisions about resource allocation. Product reviews provide a platform to discuss the progress of ongoing projects, helping executives allocate resources effectively based on the strategic importance of each initiative.
Risk Mitigation: Identifying and addressing potential risks early is key to successful product management. Engaging with executives allows the product team to highlight any challenges or risks they foresee, enabling proactive decision-making to mitigate these issues before they escalate.
Strategic Input: Executives often bring a high-level strategic perspective to the table. Their insights can be invaluable in shaping the direction of a product. Product reviews offer an opportunity for executives to provide strategic input, ensuring that the product aligns with the overall vision of the organization.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Involving internal stakeholders from various departments fosters cross-functional collaboration. It ensures that different teams are aware of each other's contributions and dependencies, promoting a cohesive approach to product development.
Feedback Loop: Executives and internal stakeholders can offer valuable feedback based on their experience and expertise. This feedback loop is essential for refining and improving the product. It also provides an avenue for executives to express their expectations and preferences.
Decision-Making Authority: Executives often hold decision-making authority for strategic initiatives. Product reviews serve as a platform to present key decisions that need executive approval, ensuring that the necessary green lights are obtained for critical milestones.
Accountability and Transparency: Regular product reviews create a culture of accountability and transparency. They allow executives to assess the performance of the product team and hold them accountable for the outcomes. Transparent communication builds trust within the organization.
Celebrating Successes: Beyond troubleshooting challenges, product reviews are an opportunity to celebrate successes and milestones achieved. This positive reinforcement motivates the product team and reinforces the value of their efforts.
Who should be present in these reviews?
In general you want the key executives and stakeholders present at these reviews. If you do a review once a year, then you should include as many departments as possible. If you do frequent reviews than you can invite all departments and executives once, and do the other reviews within the product teams.
This is a bit subjective and will vary based on your organization culture and how decisions are made. At a minimum, the following roles should attend:
All your Peer product managers
All engineering managers
Product Marketing
Support Lead
Customer Success lead
Key executives - CMO, CRO, CEO, CFO
Design leads
Release Ops leads (Dev ops, QA, Sys admins)
What if your company does not have a ritual of product review?
Some companies diligently conduct detailed product reviews. If your company currently does not have this ritual, then I highly encourage you to start one, even if it is a short one. The idea is to get the ball rolling and build momentum. Over time, your product culture will change and the product teams will be more impact oriented.
What should you include in a product review?
The key goals of a successful product reviews are :
Share progress
Obtain alignment
Confirm plans
Feedback and Course correct
Get resources
With these goals in mind, here is a rough set of content topics you should include. This is not meant be exhaustive nor all inclusive. You decide what is relevant to you and your teams based on the goals you set out.
There are 4 key sections to a good product review.
Report from previous review
Current state of product
Market learnings
Product Plan
Let’s dive in.
Report from preview review
In your previous review, you might have concluded with some action items. How did the product and the team do on those action items.
Why is this important?
Frequently, action items get recorded but there is no serious follow up and this becomes an academic exercise.
Initiating with the progress on items discussed in previous reviews will establish a team that upholds a high standard of accountability. Be prepared to explain the changes. This is especially important if you do more frequent product reviews.
This could be just one slide with 3 columns.
Action item
Action taken
Further plan of action (if any)
Current state of product
In this section, you will provide a “state of the union”.
This is your opportunity to explain what is happening with your product. Here are some things you can include :
Product usage - How many users are using product actively and how did it change over time. Is the usage increasing or decreasing?
Revenue - What is the current ARR or MRR of your product?
Customers - How many customers (logos) are using the product? Who are the top customers by usage? By revenue?
Retention - What is the retention rate of your product? How does it compare to industry? By historical trend?
Win-Loss analysis - Who is buying your product and why? Where are we losing sales and why? Any new uses cases being uncovered?
Customer satisfaction/ NPS - How do customers perceive your product? And trends?
State of Engineering - Have your engineering lead present this section where they can talk about the big changes in the industry, or about the legacy code that needs to be addressed? This is their chance to make a case for re-engineering efforts.
Support tickets - Did the product incur an increase or decrease in tickets? What kind of issues ?
Customer feedback - What are customers saying? Check with support or customer success teams, or talk to customers directly
Big Gaps or Risks - In your perception, what are some big gaps in the product that need to be filled? Or risks associated with the product?
Some of the financial metrics like ARR or retention for your product area may be hard to measure. Insist on working with finance and/or sales ops to determine product specific numbers.
Market Learnings
In this section, you provide a summary of what have we learnt from the market.
Customer discovery - Summarize what you have learnt from customers from your discovery. This may have happened during the year in customer meetings or advisory board or in customer conferences. What is changing in their business? What are the big things that are still bothering them?
Competition - Any new competitors to be worried about? How are they positioning their offering? Who is stealing most of your prospects? Work with sales and product marketing to get this information.
Industry shifts/trends - What are analysts and press saying about the industry? Are their trends that may impact your product sales significantly?
This is a good time for you to ask the executives for their strategic input. Maybe they just had an exec off site where they finalized company’s strategic priorities. Let them share what is important from their perspective.
Product Plan
Finally, share your own product plan. This includes not just work currently being done or planned, but also what else you are working in terms of discovery and validation.
Start with the details of the upcoming release - scope, timeline and status of activities. Will the product release as per plan? If not, whats the course correction plan? You many already shared this with stakeholders, but it’s worth repeating.
Share the big themes that you are considering as part of your research. Are they in alignment with company priorities? If not, this would be a good time to get feedback.
What is the recommended plan for the product? This is your roadmap.
What are the expected business impacts for the year.
What are the trade offs?
What things are the product team not going to do?
This is an opportunity to ensure that the product plan is in alignment ot the strategic priorities of the company. It also allows stakeholders to have confidence in their own ability to execute.
e.g. if sales have a growth goal, then understanding the product plan gives them the confidence they can achieve the goals. Same for support or customer success.
These are important considerations for you to get an affirmation from executives. You need to know you are the right path and not working on something that may not have an impact downstream. And the executives and stakeholders also know what you will be working on and that nothing is left off the table.
Finally, the critical section here is your ask. Do you need budgets to subscribe to that data service? Do you need to hire more engineers? Anything that your product plan hinges on and requires resources need to be spelt out clearly.
As you can see, there is a lot to cover in this review but it is important. Make this a team effort. Take help from engineering and product marketing who will be your partner in this. In fact, I suggest have them presents the relevant parts of the review. It makes it look like a team effort.
Here are some rules you should consider:
No surprises:
Executives hate surprises. If there is any negative news, bring it out. Especially, if you already have a plan of action in place.
Err on the side of oversharing, even the smallest detail:
When it comes to product reviews, more information is often better than less. Encourage a culture of thoroughness by advocating for detailed insights. Even seemingly minor details can have a significant impact on the overall product development process. |
If in doubt whether something needs to be included… INCLUDE it:
When crafting a comprehensive product review, it's better to be safe than sorry. If there's any uncertainty about whether a piece of information is relevant, include it. This approach ensures that nothing crucial is overlooked, and it provides a holistic view for all stakeholders involved. It's easier to filter out unnecessary details during the discussion than to discover a missing puzzle piece when it's too late.
Have all groups in the product development speak:
A successful product review involves hearing the perspectives of all key players in the product development journey. Ensure that representatives from various teams – from engineering and design to product marketing – have a platform to voice their insights. This inclusive approach not only fosters collaboration but also brings diverse expertise to the table, resulting in a well-rounded evaluation that considers different facets of the product.
Conclusion
In my previous job, we implemented a structured review process for each product domain, conducted on a quarterly basis. The immediate impact was a profound alignment across all departments, fostering a clear understanding of roles and expectations. Over time, this strategic approach led to a heightened sense of purpose within the product teams, focusing on initiatives with substantial business impact.
Undoubtedly, product reviews constitute an indispensable ritual for any product team, ensuring cross-functional alignment. I strongly advocate for the initiation of this practice as it serves to elevate the significance of your product teams. After all, the product team serves as the connective tissue between overarching business strategy and its effective execution.
Are you interested in reviewing your product review process?
Let’s start with a free 30 min intro call.