The five phases of SaaS product management
Summary
Every now and then, a Gartner analyst will tell you what needs to be done and you must write that down too.” Responses like this left me wondering, “So what exactly do I do here, Bob?” If the job was messy then, product management is manic today with nearly every SaaS company claiming to be “product-driven.” A notable change from the past is the adoption of the agile development model that compresses planning time from 12- to 18-month release cycles (old waterfall model) into an endless cycle of 2-week sprints. Today, this includes but isn’t limited to online community feedback, reviews, user surveys, product telemetry, input from analysts and internal teams and the growing tribe of “product-oriented” CEOs. Gainsight recently collaborated with Method Garage, a customer journey consulting firm, to map out the stages of product management maturity and what every company should do to move forward to the next level. In all seriousness, many companies still operate like “feature factories” today, where the core mission of the product organization is to “ship” a release every 18 months or so. The most efficient companies in SaaS leverage product-led growth to have their product drive as much of the lifecycle—from trial to conversion to onboarding to adoption to renewal and expansion—as possible.
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