AMA: Workiva Vice President Of Product Management, Chris Omland on Managing Mature Products

I would define a mature product as one that has reached product market fit, is feature rich and integrated with an ecosystem and is stable, secure, performant in terms of its development and has broad market adoption and recognition. Product Market Fit - A lot has been written about this but I’d look at how much market share the product has within its target market. Does it have a strong and referenceable customer base, is the value proposition well understood and is it viewed as the leading pro ...Read More

If you are an outcome driven product team (which I hope you are), I think this should be defined as the change in behavior you expect to see/create for users of your new feature or product. Outputs are easy, outcomes are hard. Before you ever start working on the output (e.g. building) you should clearly be able to articulate: What is the problem we are trying to solve What will be the change in user behavior if we solve the problem How will we know we created that change What are the measures w ...Read More

The thing to keep in mind with mature products is work does not stop. If you are doing a good job as a Product Manager you will continue to find new customer problems, enhancements to your existing product and ways to create more differentiation. In order to do this work you have to make sure your technology stack is in a good spot. I always say there are three aspects of good software: It does what its suppose to do We can maintain it We can evolve it So when I am working on a mature product I ...Read More

Key success metrics for a mature product can vary depending on the specific industry, product, and business objectives. However, here are some common metrics that can be valuable indicators of success: Revenue and profitability: I often see Product Managers focus just on revenue. It’s important to also consider the cost to serve, which will give you insight into if the product is profitable and viable for the business.  Customer Retention and Churn Rate: This is critical for SaaS business but al ...Read More

One of the advantages you have as a Product Manager for a mature product is you will have a well defined set of users and personas. The other advantage you have with a mature product is that you will have a lot of users and usage. This gives you a great opportunity to learn from an established customer base. Having a mature product does not mean you stop doing research and understanding customer pain points. I’d focus on the following: Establish a customer advisory board (CAB) - A CAB is a great ...Read More