Public Product Management Training Day 3:
Product Release and Refinement

How do you ensure your product is a success in the market place? It requires much more than an outstanding product; it requires an outstanding product launch and continuous product improvement. Day three of Tarigo’s product management training course focuses on product launch and ongoing planning. By defining a launch process that ensures a professional product release and an ongoing planning process that delivers continuous product improvement, Tarigo product management training enables companies to maximize sales right through the life of a product.

The Product Launch Process

This initial session identifies the fundamentals of a successful product launch and defines a planning process that ensures key deliverables are tracked and supplied on time. Using pro-forma templates, delegates learn about the launch process; how to implement a product launch checklist, how to gain support and buy-in for cross-functional tasks, and how to ensure each deliverable meets the needs of its target audience.

Key areas covered:

• The product launch process
• Building a product launch checklist
• Gaining cross-functional support
• Meeting end user goals

Product Positioning

Customers are swamped with product proposals; new products, improved features, reduced prices, free trials, time-limited offers, etc, etc, etc. Product managers must find ways of cutting through this noise and seize customer attention. Product positioning is a great tool for this; it helps deliver a clear, concise, relevant message that captures the uniqueness of your product. In this session, delegates learn how to develop positioning statements and data sheets that resonate with customers, ensuring effective communication and distinctive positioning in the minds of customers.

Key areas covered:

• Product positioning theory
• Building product positioning statements
• Data sheet development

Communication

Product managers face complex communication challenges. Discussing future product direction, delivery dates, planned features, price points and technology choices opens many potential pitfalls. Bad communication results in misaligned customer expectations and a loss of credibility for the product manager. In this session delegates are taught how to work with customers when discussing future products, how to deal with pricing questions, how to give credible delivery date information and how to deal with questions from the sales team. Delegates also learn how to deal with objections, using an influencing framework to help attain a positive outcome more frequently.

Key areas covered:

• Cross-functional communication
• Communicating with customers
• Dealing with date, feature and pricing question
• Objection handling

Early Availability

Many companies operate formal or informal early release programs. They deliver alpha and beta releases to customers and to individuals within the company, typically to reduce the bug count and improve the quality of the finished product. For the product manager, early availability can be a heavy management burden, but it can deliver marketing benefits as well as product quality improvements. In this session, delegates learn the processes and terminology associated with early availability, best practices across the industry and methods for maximizing the benefit of an early release program.

Key areas covered:

• Early release – definition
• The pros and cons of a beta program
• Gaining marketing advantage through the beta program
• Exploiting the benefit of a beta program

Ongoing Planning

Delivering a winning product is an outstanding achievement for a product manager, but it’s not complete product management. Complete product management means delivering continuous product improvement that increases revenue, opens new markets, and even defines new product opportunities. In short, complete product management means converting a discrete product management process into a continuous product planning process. In this session, delegates learn how to develop a product plan that incorporates the core elements of the course syllabus. Using supplied templates, delegates learn how to use the planning process to gain continuous product improvement

Key areas covered:

• Product planning
• The annual product plan
• Financials for the product manager
• Product planning and the senior management team
• Incorporating product planning into your day job
• Product withdrawal

"Thoroughly recommended! It was reassuring to find I was not alone in feeling bewildered by the sheer volume of demands on my time. This course defined a structure for effective Product Management, providing useful tools to manage the workload. I can’t wait to apply what I have learned."
Jason King, Product Manager, Pharos Communications

"Great course. Highly recommended!"
Lily Cheng, CEO, Splashpower

"This course enabled me to gain a comprehensive understanding of Product Management. The methodology described was in a structured and concise format that made it easy to understand for either a new or an experienced Product Manager. Each module was covered using typical real-life examples that had been experienced in a live environment, making the training very relevant.”
Lisa Bruton, Technical Product Manager, Sabre