Do you have a product launch template that shows what teams (and when) to incorporate into the preparation of a strategy/plan?

Yes, templates can be helpful, as long as they don't limit your creativity and thinking. Sometime you can get into a "rinse and repeat" rhythm with product launches and miss bigger opportunities — and a really rigid launch template can create that dynamic. One resource I've found to be effective to help other teams know how/when to plug in is a "Teams We Work With" document. Organized in phases (discovery, development, strategy building, GTM rollout), it details each of the teams that PMM engage ...Read More

Yes! At HubSpot we had a template for this, and I’ve created one at Iterable as well. I think there are a few phases of a launch that include different people from your organization.Phase 1: Research - Every product launch HAS to start with research. This is a phase I find many PMMs skip, but the importance can’t be overstated - it’s where you get all the detail that will inform all your next steps. Typically this phase includes PMM, PM, Customer Marketing (if you’re surveying existing customers ...Read More

Every organization looks dramatically different, so I don't think there's one size fits all for a template. I would generally say: 1. Understand what problem you're solving 2. Understand what skills are important in solving this problem (ie., you'll need somebody creative, you'll need some research, you'll need some analytical fire power.)3. Recruit the folks you need early.  4. Think about all the ways something can go wrong. Plan for paths of failure or contingencies. Where are there risks and ...Read More

At Zendesk, we do use a launch template that includes key workstreams and teams to engage for different tiers of launches. We use two criteria to determine the tier of a launch: business impact and market impact. For business impact, we assess how much the launch benefits existing and new customers, including whether it makes a material difference in whether they select Zendesk or a competitor. For market impact, we evaluate how the launch changes our position in the market. We consider if the l ...Read More

We talked a lot about that in another question on this AMA - teams like PMM, product management, content, sales enablement, customer marketing, events, demand gen, and the Pricing and Packaging team that have to be involved. PMM needs to involve people from the content team, from the sales readiness and the sales enablement team, the customer marketing team, events, demand gen, product management, Pricing and Packaging. So it's all across the board. Then when you do that, you build a Bill of Mat ...Read More