Change management in product design and product development
January 19, 2012 | Product Development
We have all experienced periods of great change during the product development process and our approach to change management is crucial to the ability of the product management function to add value to the business, rather than act as an obstacle. We try to avoid having this scary face!
Scared Product Manager worried by change
As individuals we can adopt the change management principles to our attitude to work which we have described previously on this blog but we can also implement change processes to manage change to product design and the platforms upon which we deliver our products.
“horses for course” – let us not over engineer our approach the change management but the following are crucial considerations.
- Requests to add new features from the Sales teams must be triaged and prioritised based upon a sound business case and market needs.
- Requests to change the existing live product to operate in a different way need not only a triage on business case, but also the impact on live customers within the market.
- Configuration requests, where your product enables these should be set up to be the easiest to manage.
- Design changes during product development are perhaps some of the hardest items to manage unless a sound set of tools are established in the business which allow the automated tracking of change and the connection between requirement documents, technical development documents, test documents and marketing documents.
Personally, I am still looking for such an environment that connects all of these elements together and delivers them in an attractive cost effective package for small business. Should you be aware of such a product, please feel free to add to this post.
