Managing Mature Products

3 Answers
Lukas Pleva
Lukas Pleva
HubSpot Group Product ManagerNovember 30
One of the benefits of working with a mature product is that you likely have access to a large pool of existing users from whom you can solicit feedback. In contrast, new and emerging products often have a much smaller user base, especially in the early stages or if you’re still working on findin......Read More
809 Views
4 Answers
Kalvin Brite
Kalvin Brite
Contentful VP, Product ManagementFebruary 2
It's essential to regularly evaluate and address tech debt as it can significantly impact a mature product's overall health and sustainability. If left unaddressed, it can build up and require a massive focus from the team that can disrupt existing customers or prevent you from adding new custome......Read More
386 Views
2 Answers
Kalvin Brite
Kalvin Brite
Contentful VP, Product ManagementFebruary 1
I've found it helpful to craft a ~3-year product strategy that articulates the market and trends, the challenges/opportunities, and the product's path forward with coherent actions to address those challenges. This frames the product's direction and how it will impact the company and customers yo......Read More
446 Views
4 Answers
Chris Omland
Chris Omland
Workiva Vice President Of Product ManagementJune 7
The biggest challenge if you are not careful is you can fall into a trap of just making incremental enhancements and not staying focused on the outcomes you want to create for customers. Its always important a Product Manager is looking for new problems, defining outcomes, thinking how the world ......Read More
888 Views
4 Answers
Chris Omland
Chris Omland
Workiva Vice President Of Product ManagementJune 7
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 cu......Read More
597 Views
2 Answers
Robert Wunderlich
Robert Wunderlich
Oracle Product Strategy DirectorDecember 13
A mature product is one that has found product/market fit, participates in a mature market, and it reasonably meets the needs of the average customer. To understand this further, we can compare Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) with Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions. ERP is a mature market......Read More
460 Views
5 Answers
Kalvin Brite
Kalvin Brite
Contentful VP, Product ManagementJanuary 3
The best PMs define success before building a feature. To define success, teams should think through: 1. The customer problem they're solving, what does it look like when solved (for the customer and the business)?  2. How impactful is it if solved (time-saving, cost-saving, revenue-ge......Read More
453 Views
2 Answers
Chris Omland
Chris Omland
Workiva Vice President Of Product ManagementJune 7
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 impo......Read More
609 Views
1 Answer
Chris Omland
Chris Omland
Workiva Vice President Of Product ManagementJune 7
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 b......Read More
601 Views
2 Answers
Kalvin Brite
Kalvin Brite
Contentful VP, Product ManagementFebruary 1
Business objectives help the broader team and business understand if they've achieved the intended impact but are difficult for a product team to use sprint to sprint for a few reasons: * Revenue isn't super actionable for the team: if it goes down or up, it's not immediately obvious what ac......Read More
557 Views