How do you fit in within the product launch cycle? Do the stakeholders come to you or do you insert yourself? And once you are in the mix, do you have a checklist or framework you use to align your stakeholders to ensure the process is consistent?

This comes down to strong relationships and a history of adding value. So if you take away nothing else, please remember to invest time upfront in building a great relationship with Product and in demonstrating the value that PMM brings to the table early on.

In terms of a framework, I break it down into two types of milestones: calendar milestones for higher level planning and project milestones for work-level alignment.

Calendar milestones:

• Product planning: Usually this happens two or four times each year. These roadmaps give you the information you need for creating your strategic marketing plans.
• Monthly product reviews: Listen in on regular product meetings to understand how the team is thinking about impact and how each of the product areas are progressing.
• Regular check-ins: Whether it’s monthly or weekly, plan to check in with your Product partners weekly to understand upcoming plans and how you can work with the team upstream or downstream to create breakthrough.

Project milestones:

• PRDs: As a general principle, I ask Product teams to loop PMM in at the PRD stage. That helps PMM to understand our opportunity for impact. This includes both upstream impact (e.g. research, design, naming) and downstream impact (e.g. marketing approach, campaign concept, breakthrough tactics).
• Brief stage: The marketing brief is like a handshake with PMM and all of our partner teams plus leadership. It aligns all relevant stakeholders on the strategy and resources required.
• A Round of Creative: I ask the working team for feedback on one round of creative—or two rounds, if it’s a bigger launch. I usually target the second to last round before launch to show high quality work, but still provide room for feedback.

We don’t always tick all of these boxes, and that’s expected, but it’s nice to aim for this to ensure that you’re aligned.

The product launch cycle and how PMM collaborates with others throughout this process can look different at every organization. In my experience, PMM is involved early when the roadmap is being created to provide insight on market opportunity, build business cases to inform prioritization, and represent the customer's voice in roadmap decisions. Once a product has been prioritized to the roadmap, PMM is involved on a regular basis to help test early prototypes with customers, build out the GTM strategy including pricing/packaging, and put together messaging and positioning. When it comes time to launch, PMM is taking the lead on market rollout strategy and will stay involved post-launch to evaluate success and future plans. 

If stakeholders don't reach out to involve you, consider how you might be able to provide value to their process and build trust. No stakeholder likes to feel like you are inserting yourself, but they might need some help understanding where you could fit in. Offering research and following through is a good place to start. 

I absolutely recommend utilizing a framework for product launch, this gives everyone within the organization transparency into the launch process and shared language to help with communication. You can use a formal framework such as Serious Decisions or Pragmatic Institute and then customize it to your org. so it sticks. Frameworks are most useful when everyone across the entire organization uses the same one. Having an executive champion involved in your framework decision making and rollout is critical. 

Having worked as a Product Marketer in 5 different tech companies (varying in sizes), I find that this is different everywhere I go! It has ranged from being more reactive (PM saying they have features ready for launch) to proactive (inserting myself).

I have found that it can be a transition to moving to proactive, which can be tricky, especially when explaining why a "launch" might need to have a later date to formally announce it than the date it is tech ready. Clearly communicating the impact the timing will have on the success of the launch is critical--you want to be able to take the blood, sweat, and tears that the product team has put into making the new feature/product/capability a reality and really make an impact in the market with it! When you approach it from the aspect of "I want to make sure your product gets the attention it deserves," I have found it much easier to lead the charge then simply react to when something is tech ready. Clearly definig the timing of seasonal releases has helped as well, and keeps product managers accountable in reaching those release deadlines! And customers know when to expect to hear about new things.

To align stakeholders and ensure the process is consistent (which can be particularly tricky in regards to timing), constant communication is key.

1. STARTING WITH THE WHY: Why are we doing this, and what is the current plan?
2. COLLECTING FEEDBACK: What are quesitons that should be addressed up front (this can avoid conflict and confusion later in the launch)
3. IMPACT: How will this impact each team, and how can you prepare each team to be successful once the product is launched 

Great question. Especially if product marketing in new to your organization - the product may not know what to do with you!

Start by looking at the roadmap and having open discussions on the product launch cycle. Identify where and how to bring in product marketing (hint: early!) and to what outcome. Get product's input on a product brief to help you outline the marketing for the release. If you need more information, sit down with the product lead with what I call a "discovery document" where you can learn the features, how the release differs from current use, measurements of success, etc. I see this as a prelude to the formal brief. It is another way to partner with product and become an SME on the release. Finally, timelines. Share YOUR process and when and how discovery takes place to help you draft the GTM plan--understanding that a small product release doesn't necessarily equal a small marketing launch. 

When I joined my current company, I had a meeting with the PMs to discuss the existing product launch cycle. Once they gave me an overview, I pointed out the phases where I wanted to be included and elaborated why, and what kind of value I would provide to the process. Then, I prepared a detailed presentation of our launch processes. One of the slides includes a very detailed process of collaboration that looks somewhat like this:

1. PM and PMM look at customer feedback and prioritize next launches

2. PM informs PMM when a feature has entered the discovery phase

3. PM and PMM discuss tier, pricing, etc.

4. PM informs PMM when the product/feature has entered development

5. PMM prepares launch project

6. PM and PMM finalize the project

7. PMM prepares messaging and narrative in collaboration with PM

8. Kickoff meeting with stakeholders, task delegation, risk assessment, discussing details

9. Execution (this would have more phases, depending on the length of this period and the number of tasks, maybe include several check-in meetings with relevant stakeholders)

10. Launch

PM and PMM monitor results and decide for next steps (more adoption campaigns, retro, etc.)

This is a very, very rough outline, but I guess this is kind of the checklist you're looking for. I suggest you create a list like this in as many details as possible - this will ensure you avoid miscommunication (or at least minimize it). The process is probably different for every company - mine only has one PMM (me), so we adapted it to our situation.

In addition, add tier criteria and all the activities you're committing to do for each tier, and everything else you think is relevant to your company's launch process.

This process was easily approved by stakeholders - everyone appreciates a clear process and expectations. However, this doesn't end here: you need to constantly work on building a strong relationship with your stakeholders and providing value to the processes.