What are the best practices for launching a new feature in an existing product?
Do you need help in Product Launch? If yes, read “What are the best practices for launching a new feature in an existing product?”
I have framed the solution in 2 formats,
1. Theoretical aspect: This is covered in this article with some examples,
2. Technical aspect: I have provided a link to a presentation that covers the technical aspect at the end of this article.
1. Define your launch objectives
In his book “Start with Why?” Simon Sinek talks about “Golden Circle” which explains 3 keywords — Why, What & How. It’s the most relevant book I have ever read.
Taking ideas from the book to answer this question the very first Goal should be,
Why: The first question to ask yourself is “Why” do you want to launch this new feature?
What: Once your why is clear you should start planning what feature you will be developing.
How: The main question here is how you get to understand what feature to develop. It’s simple by market research which includes a lot of things like understanding what competitors are doing. What do internal data and metrics say…etc?
2. Validate your feature with user feedback
Here I have a slightly different view. It’s not just that every time you need to speak to your customer to understand or validate your feature because many times even customers do not know what actually will delight them, Something that will delight them now might not delight them later. So here’s the approach that I prefer,
- User feedback: Above I did not mean that user feedback should not be done rather what I want to convey is user feedback is not the only approach. Read “The Mom test” to understand the right way to ask questions to get maximum value from each answer
- Page sense: Integrate page sense to your web (Microsoft clarity, ZOHO page sense) and observe the user journey. It is one of the best ways to understand user behavior. You can see that wherever the user is spending more time or if he gets stuck then it’s a message that the feature needs to be optimised.
- Smoke test: “The Lean Product Playbook” talks about a smoke test in the MVP model where it says to create a dummy feature page and bring inorganic traffic to understand the user behavior and then analyze the backend data.
Try as many possibilities as you can for the best optimisation.
3. Plan your launch strategy and timeline
Launching a product involves a lot of details like getting ready,
- Market analysis
- Audience personas
- Product pricing — Follow psychological bias models like Decoy effect, Anchoring effect..etc.
- Market positioning — ATL, BTL & TTL
- Go-to-market strategy
- Sales enablement
- Internal communications
- External launch
- Post-launch feedback
Read more in-depth about these topics. My best advice would be to go through multiple frameworks available and try to mix and match as to what suits best for your product. You can just take inspiration from these frameworks rather than sticking to them step by step.
4. Test your feature thoroughly before the launch
Testing multiple times reduces the risk of error. Before launching your product,
- Prioritize meticulous feature testing to ensure a seamless user experience.
- Identify and fix bugs, optimize performance, and validate user experience. This proactive approach minimizes last-minute surprises, enhances security, and confirms compatibility across platforms.
- Test serves to gather pre-launch user feedback, aligning your features with audience preferences. A well-tested product instills confidence, paving the way for a successful and impactful launch.
5. Launch your feature incrementally and monitor the results
Launching your product feature incrementally is a strategic move that pays dividends. By breaking down releases into manageable stages, you mitigate risks and maintain a positive user experience.
This approach enables real-time user feedback step by step and you can easily collect feedback without being information-overloaded, fostering an iterative improvement cycle.
Define milestones, monitor key metrics, gather user feedback, and iterate for optimal results. This method ensures resource efficiency and aligns your product more closely with user expectations. Communicate transparently with users, fostering trust and managing expectations throughout the process. In the fast-paced world of development, the incremental launch strategy is your key to sustained success.
6. Here’s what else to consider
A successful product launch is not just about following a certain framework or a structure but rather knowing a lot of nuts and bolts or in simple words, you can say having product sense too.
For example, knowing how to prioritize things, you can use frameworks like RICE, the Kano model, MoSCoW, the Eisenhower framework, and many more. Now you many not necessarily use the exact framework in your product but having a sense of these helps you to have a deeper understanding of how and what is prioritisation.
Make a great Product requirement document before starting to work on the product or product feature. It helps in understanding deeper concepts of the feature and also helps get the best done from stakeholders.
Understanding the concept of guesstimates is super crucial because it helps to predict the success of the product.
Material:
Refer Profitability framework and also I have written a marketing case study on OYO.
Sharing a detailed insight on product launch, refer to this for deeper understanding.
Note: This problem statement was taken from LinkedIn.
Anubhav Mishra
Product Manager
anubhavmishraaa@gmail.com
