The Product is Greater Than the Parts
Breaking through stalled growth with product leadership
Your product is getting extra scrutiny as your organization evaluates all the products. Growth on your product has plateaued lately. Your stakeholders want you to open new revenue growth opportunities. You need to extend into a new strategy and lead your product team in delivering new growth.
How can you lead multiple teams in reaching this goal? How can you do this without overstepping your boundaries and confusing your product team?
Work Within Your Process
Avoid confusion by using your normal processes for a product iteration. Collaborate as normal on requirements and the development process for the new revenue ideas.
Work with your stakeholders to understand your organization's business objectives. Incorporate stakeholder feedback into your strategy. Don't "name drop" the stakeholders.
Represent the stakeholders as you communicate about the intent of the requirements. If you are unsure about your stakeholders' position, contact them one-on-one to get clarification.
Communicate with visuals so the product team can buy into going after the revenue growth opportunity.
Treat This as a Growth Opportunity
You might feel you have been thrust into a broader role with many demands. On the other hand, you have an opportunity to grow your leadership muscles.
Your leadership comes from laying out shared goals that solve customers' problems. Outlining the initiatives with the contributing teams shows the way to meet the goals together
By tying together each team's unique strengths, you show there is value in working together. Draft a roadmap to show how the parts come together. Visuals of the ideal way the parts come together give your product team insight into your strategy. Show the linkage of delivery efforts to business improvement.
The product is greater than the sum of the cross-functional teams!
Watch for Signs that You Need to Adapt
Growth projects often cause the product team to evolve. You might develop new workflows that need fewer teams involved. Or the team uses automation to reduce the delivery effort. Be sure to communicate about the changes and benefits!
Throughout the growth project be ready to adapt as you learn. Some examples of learning and adapting:
You learn that more SKUs cause more effort with little benefit
Your requirements aren't feasible to implement
Your subscription model depends on a capability that is not available
Customers don't have time to try out your pilot
Meanwhile, as the development of the growth project wraps up, look for ways to transition the changes to the responsible teams. There should not be an ongoing dependency on the product management team as the growth project is released.
You can help most by measuring the outcomes of the growth project and communicating the results.
Conclusion - Solving a Product Growth Plateau with Product Leadership
Product initiatives like hitting a growth plateau benefit from your informal product leadership. With management support your strategic leadership can overcome the growth plateau. By creating shared goals and communicating with visuals of the product team coming together you can deliver product growth while practicing your leadership skills.
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The term "User Experience" comes to my mind. The product is actually the experience across many touchpoints and internal departments. It is not only product management. Well written, Amy!