Companies often spend millions of dollars on product development efforts and carefully monitor and control the entire process only to treat the product launch process as an afterthought. It is disheartening for product teams to watch their organizations fumble at the goal line.
Organizations that do separate the product development process from the product launch process acknowledge that planning and implementing a successful product launch is labor intensive. However, only a minority of organizations actually do this well – even though this is one of the most critical and vulnerable elements of the entire product production process.
Last year’s Study of Product Team Performance pointed to the importance of having a single person responsible for product launch. However, our data suggests that only 37% of organizations actually take this step.
High-performing product teams not only have just one person responsible for launch, they also appropriately plan, staff, and resource the activity for success. If managed effectively the chances of success are greatly magnified. If not, the majority of organizations will continue to fumble the ball at the goal line.
Greg Geracie is a recognized thought leader in the field of product management and the President of Actuation Consulting, a global provider of product management consulting, training, and advisory services to some of the world’s most well-known organizations. Greg is also the author of the global best seller Take Charge Product Management. He is also an adjunct professor at DePaul University’s College of Computing and Digital Media where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on high-tech and digital product management.