How to get the team excited about your next release
Tell me if you’ve heard this one before. A Product Manager walks into a meeting.
To him, this is yet another meeting where he’ll talk about stuff that could have been easily shared via email. There’s so many other things he could be doing right now. But might as well just get this over with.
It’s the release briefing. The meeting to bring everyone on the same page about the upcoming release. People from different departments are sitting at the table.
The Product Manager sits down, connects to the screen, projects a list of bullet points, and begins to read them aloud:
“We added this new way of composing a message, users can now add…”
“We also added a button here where users can…”
“We fixed a bunch of bugs.”
After reading out the bullets, he stops and looks around the room. Silence, except for the tap-tap-tapping on keyboards. People take notes.
Then the questions start.
Stop! Let’s rewind!
Does that sound like anyone in the room will get excited about the new features? The months of work and thoughts that went into a release? Don’t think so!
I want to pull the Product Manager out of that room and say “Listen up — this is your Product! You represent it, show excitement! Show them some passion and energy! Make them believe in your product! Help them be successful by making your release successful.
Let’s do this again.
A Product Manager walks into a meeting. Same meeting, same people in the room waiting.
This time, he’s thinking:
“I have the honor of presenting all the cool new stuff that the team built in the past weeks. They are excited to learn what we ship and eager know how this release will make our customers even happier.”
You should feel like Tim Cook when he walks up on stage at Apple’s product presentations. Watch one, if you want to get inspired. Get in the right mindset.
Communication is an important part of the product role. Do your homework to get it right. Here are a few things that make this briefing successful and exciting.
It’s like selling it to your first customers. Tell a story and start with the problem. What would your users love about this new feature?
- Reinforce WHY we are doing this
- Start with the problem you are solving for your users
- How are you solving it with the new features
- Then explain the details
- LIVE DEMO
Live demos make everything better. But prepare them carefully. Things can go wrong in live demos. Go through the flow before and check that everything works. I do that with the exact setup I have during the presentation.
One more action item — Write the press release the way you think it should get written. Here is how Amazon is doing it. Don’t worry about structure or grammar. That’s what you have experts for. It helps you get the story straight. You know the problems of you users best. And you know how your product solves them.
Here is another good inspiration from how Apple crafts their press releases. Every section starts with how the features solve a users problem. Check out the most recent iOS 11.3 update notes for inspiration.
Shipping is the best part. Make it fun and exciting for everyone and everyone will help make the launch successful.
Thank you for reading and let me know your release secrets. :)
PS: Join my personal email list for more articles like this. I share what’s going on in Silicon Valley, learnings, interviews and personally filter out helpful links and news so you don’t have to. It is a great way to stay in touch. Thank you for all your feedback. 👏
