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Product Life Cycle & Product Development Cycle: Revisited
A few years ago I wrote an article about Product Life Cycle & Product Development Cycle. Now that some time has passed I wanted to revisit this topic, and use all the comments, feedback and knowledge I have gained these past few years to discuss it from a fresh angle.
Along with a review of this subject, I will take a look at a few lessons I have learnt, including:
- The importance of team inclusion! (developers, designers & operations teams).
- The differences between B2B & B2C products.
- Continuous product discovery & agile software development.
- The benefits of releasing products or new features in several small iterations.
- Ways to drive innovation using methods such as Design Sprints.
Product Life Cycle
The Product Life Cycle is the set of commonly identified stages in the life of commercial products. The stages which a product cycles through during its lifespan are: Development, Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline.
Development
The Product development stage is the first part of the Product Life Cycle. This stage is not only about building the product, it also includes carrying out the discovery work needed to research, testing and validate assumptions.
To learn more about product discovery and how to implement it throughout the product life cycle, take a look at continuous product discovery.
Market research, benchmarking, and competitor analysis are the main focus for research at this stage. These will help give an idea of the potential growth for the product, and support building a business case to validate the product.
Be sure to use customer interviews and create prototypes to gather feedback from potential customers and existing users. Their feedback after testing the product is vital to help you and your team understand customer problems and user needs.
