Product-Centric Guide to Solutions
Product managers take the first steps to a solution mindset
Your customers urgently want your product to support different cloud platforms. Cloud platform costs change frequently and your customers want to use the cheapest cloud platform. Your management and stakeholders expect you to keep the customers happy for the lowest effort.
With the high number of requests and cloud platform options, you need a breakthrough. Simple prioritization of these requests will not yield results because only a few of the customer requests can get attention from engineering.
This is a case where solution product management can help. However, you don't have any support to create a solution with product managers on your team. What can you do to keep customers happy?
Shadow Solution Product Management
Until you get more support for the solution product management mindset, you can go into the background to introduce solution product management concepts a bit at a time.
The steps to ease into solution product management are:
Define your standard product use case in terms of interfaces and environment
Set a process to evaluate requests as a customization project
Communicate and iterate
Doing these steps lets you and your organization get comfortable with a solution mindset.
Step 1: Define Your Standard Interfaces and Environment
Why do this instead of getting to work on the new requests coming at you? Defining what you have is key to discussing change with customers and your product team.
A way to document what you have is with a compatibility matrix or a support matrix. The components of a successful compatibility matrix are:
What is supported by each version of your product
Information on each interface with a focus on APIs and protocols that are open to interpretation
The major functions of any platform that your product rides on
The things your product doesn't support
How do you create something so technical? You don't go all technical. Keep in mind that your compatibility matrix is shared publicly and you want just enough information for customers to know what your product does. And you want to minimize the information that a competitor can use.
You can draft the first version of the compatibility matrix by:
A column for each supported version of your product
A section and row for the version of platform software that your product supports
Additional rows for the interfaces and platform features your product supports
An example is below.
Your test team is a good source of this information. The key is to document it and review it with your product team.
Step 2: Process to Request Customizations
A benefit of drafting your compatibility matrix is the product team is in agreement with the supported platforms and interfaces. Items that aren't listed in the compatibility matrix are in the roadmap or the backlog.
When a customer asks about support, then your support team or sales team can check the compatibility matrix to find out if an interface or platform is supported. If the item isn't supported then you need to find out about the demand.
Customer demand for support outside of the compatibility matrix is considered a customization request. When sales or a customer wants something new, then you will need to collect:
Customer's use case
A specific request about the platform, features, interfaces
Timing needed
A business opportunity that depends on the request
You will use this request to decide if the request is feasible and if it fits your business objectives. If the request is a bad fit, then let your sales team know it won't be implemented and the reasons for the decision. If you want to proceed with the customization request, then proceed to pricing and contracting.
Be sure to record all your customization requests for tracking and backlog planning. Especially tracking of the rejected customizations. You will reject opportunities due to not being able to meet the customer timeline. The number of rejected customizations helps justify the acceleration of a roadmap item.
Step 3 Communicate and Iterate
At this point, you have a draft compatibility matrix and a draft of a customization request. You've had working sessions on both of these.
Now it is time to put your shadow solution product management into play. Since there is reluctance in your organization to consider the solution outside of your product, you will want to ease into this change.
Considering that your changes are to help customers have an accurate picture of your product's capabilities, you don't need to mention anything about "solution product management". You are introducing product changes: a new compatibility matrix and a customization request.
If there is resistance to your product changes, then you can adjust to piloting this change.
Getting started and iterating is the best way to see the benefits of solution product management.
Shadow Solution Product Management - Putting the Pieces Together
Shifting to a solution mindset can be a big step for some organizations. Instead of taking on convincing the organization to step out of a product-centric world, you can build on the product focus. Shadow solution product management consists of:
A compatibility matrix to document how your product connects to other elements
A customization request to expand the interfaces of your product in the solution
Product-oriented communication and iteration
The outcome of this effort is a common understanding of how your product fits in your customers' use cases. You are controlling what is in your product scope and taking a major step toward solution product management.
What Can Go Wrong with Shadow Solution Product Management?
Solution product management is challenging - whether you have stakeholder buy-in or not. Here are a few issues to consider:
Maintaining the Compatibility Matrix: Depending on the number of interfaces / APIs your product uses and the frequency of change in your interfaces, keeping the compatibility matrix updated can take you away from product initiatives.
Fix: Be sure to transition the maintenance after the first draft. Product Management prioritizes changes and the quality team maintains the compatibility matrix. Automation and reporting tools can help also.
Numerous Customization Requests: Every customer becomes a snowflake and duplicate requests can overwhelm a product management team. The goal is to minimize customization requests instead of growing the outstanding requests.
Fix: Shared space with the open customization requests along with a way to +1 on the open requests. If a customization request can't be addressed quickly, then put the request in the roadmap. Tools can help manage the requests.
No one uses the Compatibility Matrix: You and the rest of the team continue getting questions about what is supported. The compatibility matrix isn't saving time for the team.
Fix: When you and the product team get a question that is answered in the compatibility matrix, then your response is "Please see page 5 for the xxx support in release yy".
Your communication about the compatibility matrix and customization requests will need to be repeated to finally stick with the team. You will want to celebrate the time savings from having your interfaces documented in a single place.
Conclusion - Product-Centric Solution Guide
In a product-centric organization, gaining support for solution product management can be challenging. Product managers often feel overwhelmed by customization requests for interfaces and platform support. However, by adopting an incremental approach, you can stay ahead of these demands with an entry point into solution product management.
The Key Parts of Solution Product Management:
Define Standard Interfaces and Environment: Start by creating a compatibility matrix that outlines what each product version supports across various interfaces, APIs, and platforms. This matrix serves as a go-to reference for customers and internal teams.
Process Customization Requests: Establish a clear process for managing out-of-scope requests by documenting customer use cases, specific platform requirements, and related business opportunities.
Communicate and Iterate: Share the compatibility matrix and customization guidelines to gradually introduce a solution-oriented mindset.
With these steps, you can ease into solution product management, empowering your organization to meet customer needs more effectively. Think of it as “solution product management without the heavy lifting”—just enough to bring real value, one step at a time.
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