Product strategy meets successful delivery
Building first-version products is inherently challenging and risky. Especially when it comes to ensuring product-market fit, navigating complex requirements, and meeting the varying needs of the customer. While we can’t eliminate all of the risk, a strong Product Manager can understand the needs of both your customers and your business and solve for them in an efficient and effective way; minimizing risk and maximizing value.
Crafting a product vision to meet your business needs
Building a roadmap for version 1 and beyond
Having a focused go-to-market strategy and product roadmap is imperative for any first version launch. From the very beginning, our Product Managers work with your team to uncover the right go-to-market strategy, set the project up for success, and assemble a team with the right type of experience and skill sets.
thoughtbot Product Managers:
- Identify the root cause and problem statements
- Focus in on the target users and critical path
- Call out assumptions, risks, and dependencies
- Work with designers to run experiments to test, gather information, and validate assumptions
- Have code-competency to collaborate with developers and understand complexity and technical challenges
- Prepare a prioritized roadmap outlining implementation details and milestones
- Use feedback and identify KPIs to inform the foundational product strategy
“We were so impressed by how collaborative and organized thoughtbot’s cross-functional team was. They were able to work through unexpected challenges with strategic focus. That remained consistent throughout our nine-month engagement.
Director of Product Management, Harvard Business Review
Setting up the project for success
Creating a space for team members and partners to do their best work
Once a high-level go-to-market plan has been created and the team with the right skill sets has been assembled, it’s our Product Manager’s responsibility to ensure that everyone has a space to do their best work. Product Managers come equipped with best practices for each phase of the product delivery lifecycle.
As design and development gets underway, Product Managers lead the collective effort across interdisciplinary teams to make sure that there’s alignment around priorities, information is flowing to the right team members, and that the proper mechanisms for communication, tooling, and working practices are in place and documented.
What that can look like for you
- Run Agile ceremonies (Sprint Planning, Backlog Grooming, Daily Syncs, Retros, Stakeholder Demos)
- Coordinate across teams and establish best practices for cross-team collaboration
- Build a regular cadence for stakeholder updates and check-ins
- Create and maintain product/project documentation for visibility and historical context
Team and Process Improvement
Establishing best practices while driving delivery
What sets the thoughtbot team apart is our ability to move your team and process forward while also building products that people love. A product is only as great as the team supporting it, which is why mentorship, knowledge sharing, and best practices documentation is such an important part of our delivery. Our Product Managers make sure your product, processes, and team are all improved as a part of our work together.
“thoughtbot has a structured process for delivery that sets clear expectations up front. I feel like I found not only a partner for product execution, but also a partner in thought leadership and business strategy.
Founder, Corverix
Customer Focused Product Iteration
Using customer feedback and KPI's to inform product strategy
Your product is an evolving application that ebbs and flows with the ever-changing needs of your business and customers. Our Product Managers help champion the voice of your customers and continuously align the team around your business goals, KPIs, and business objectives.
To maintain an evolving understanding of your customers, we utilize both qualitative and quantitative feedback that allows us to evaluate impact, validate assumptions, anticipate potential risks, and ultimately uncover the next set of features that will deliver the most value.
Free Resource
Research and Strategy Playbook
Do you want to see how our product strategists approach specific use cases? We've outlined a step-by-step guide in our newest Playbook. It breaks down how thoughtbot tackles the most common client scenarios. For example: how to identify your target audience, minimize customer drop-off, uncover opportunities to successfully grow your business, and conduct a competitive analysis with actionable insights.
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