SELF-ASSESSMENT
Product Team Health Check
Can you support what your company leaders want the organization to do?
Sell what you've built
Build what you've planned
Plan the right products
Are your processes designed to achieve these?
Take the FREE Product Health Check to pinpoint the underperforming areas in roles, processes, and methods to determine where to begin your product team transformation.
Free Product Team Health Check
Take a few minutes to assess how your product team supports your company’s goals for growth, planning, and strategy. Can you sell what you've built, can you build what you've planned, are you planning the right products, and do you have the right team to achieve these?
For each of the following statements, indicate strongly agree, inconsistent, or strongly disagree.
Growth: Can you sell what you've built?
We follow a clearly defined process to launch and grow our products.
Our product marketing team has deep expertise in buyers and buyers’ journeys.
We leverage feedback from both buyers and sellers to improve the buying experience.
Product positioning is aligned with what buyers value and the unique value we deliver.
We enable sales teams with tools that align with the buyer's journey.
Plan: Can you build what you've planned?
We follow a clearly defined process to improve our products.
We understand the problems our customers face.
Our product plans align with the product roadmap and strategy.
We have a systematic and objective method for prioritizing product features.
Our product plans are rarely revised for the needs of a single client.
Strategy: Are you planning the right products?
We follow a clearly defined process to determine future offerings which align with our corporate strategy.
We engage continually with the market to discover unmet needs.
We engage continually with the market to validate our product strategy.
We understand the current competitive landscape.
We have a long-term roadmap that expresses our product vision and strategy.
Team: Do you have the right team to achieve company goals?
Roles and responsibilities are well understood in our product, development, and marketing teams.
Our team members have the skills required to be successful in their roles.
Our team meets periodically to develop our skills in working as a team.
We have a clearly defined process to onboard new product team members on our company strategy, products, and processes.
We are regularly improving product management processes.
Total score out of 60 possible:
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QA-HIDE WHEN LIVE
You have room to grow to build a strong foundation. Alignment and standards are keys to success, and there are many areas where you can make significant gains. Ensuring that roles, responsibilities, and standard processes are defined and documented is a good start. Focus on supporting your company’s goals to sell what you've built, build what you've promised, plan the right products, and cultivate the right team.
Consider having your team read "Turn Ideas Into Products." Author Steve Johnson introduces a nimble idea-to-market process with a strong emphasis on personal experience with customers. From business planning to product launch, this approach for managing products empowers your product team to work smarter and collaborate better with colleagues and customers.
Contact us at growth@productgrowthleaders.com for a discount code if you plan to buy multiple copies of the book.
Excellence is within reach. You've made a great start, but there are still some areas where you can improve. You’ll want to ensure clarity in roles, standard processes, and product strategy. Remember to focus on supporting your company’s goals to sell what you've built, build what you've planned, plan the right products, and cultivate the right team.
Download and share the eBook "How to Achieve Product Success" with your team.
Congratulations! Continue focusing on supporting your company’s goals to sell what you've built, build what you've planned, plan the right products, and cultivate the right team.
Measure and monitor your product successes in each of these areas for continual improvement.
You might enjoy reading the blog post "Creating a Great Product Management Culture."
SECTION CALC HIDE WHEN LIVE
Creating a Great Product Management Culture
How to Achieve Product Success
Turn Ideas Into Products
Customer Interviews: A Field Guide
Sales Battlecards; The Power Tool in Your Product Growth Sales Playbook
Overview of Quartz Open Framework
Product Management Process: You can build the wrong product faster than ever
The Business Role of Product Management
9 Steps to an Effective Product Strategy
Product Health Check
Train Your Teams Not Your People
S1 low
For many teams, products get released into the market without adequate tools such as competitive positioning and messaging, sales enablement tools, and a sales playbook. Focus on how the sales team can help prospects throughout the buyer's journey. Without a playbook, the sales team relies on product management for daily support and subject matter expertise.
Keep tabs on product success with ongoing market feedback and product metrics.
Read “Sales Battlecards; The Power Tool in Your Product Growth Sales Playbook” for an example of an effective sales enablement tool.
S1 high
Great! Continue to drive product growth by formalizing market context for the sales team with repeatable tools and processes—the ideal customer, problems you solve for them, messages that resonate, and how to win and when to run. Focus on how the sales team can help people buy throughout the buyer's journey.
Continue to keep tabs on product success with ongoing market feedback and product metrics.
Download our eBook "Customer Interviews: A Field Guide." Tailor the questions when listening to buyers (wins and losses) for a deeper understanding of what works and doesn't work during the buyer's journey.
S2 low
One of the most common failure scenarios is product plans that don’t address real market-wide problems. The key is to ensure that product teams deeply understand the market you serve, the problems you solve, and the business priority of the work. Be watchful that demands from a single prospect or client don't derail your roadmap.
Many teams have a process that is documented but rarely followed—or no process at all. In some cases, products get defined and created despite the process. If your process isn’t achieving its desired outcomes, it’s time to create a new process.
Document your current practices for product management—from idea to market. Determine your major documents, handoffs, and points of friction. Compare and align multiple views of the process. Learn how to map your process in the article "Product Management Process: You can build the wrong product faster than ever."
S2 high
A well-documented planning process ensures that product teams deeply understand the market you serve, the problems you solve, and the business priority of the work.
Consider mapping your planning process to Quartz Open Framework, the only open-source product framework for technology teams. Watch the overview of the Quartz Open Framework to get started.
S3 low
Technology drives invention; problems drive innovation. In the book "The Innovators Solution," Clayton Christiansen recommended an innovation process that begins with the problem to be solved (or, in his words, the job to be done). Customer interviews, observation, and market data lead to a deep understanding of new products to build and new markets to serve.
Download and share the eBook "9 Steps to an Effective Product Strategy" to learn the most important steps to stay relevant to your market and add value to your organization.
S3 high
Excellent! Continue to leverage customer interviews, observation, and market data for a deep understanding of new products to build and new markets to serve. Remember: Technology drives invention; problems drive innovation.
Download and share the eBook "The Business Role of Product Management" to learn the strategic importance of the business role of product management.
S4 low
There is much to do! Many product teams are not doing the jobs their organizations need them to do. How many departments are hiding their headcount in product management or product marketing?
Everyone with a product role needs first-hand knowledge of customers. Surveys and analyst reports simply don’t provide the deep insights necessary for defining, describing, and delivering products to market. As they say, you’re not doing product management if you haven’t talked to a customer.
Remove chaos with clearly defined roles and responsibilities in product management, product marketing, development, and marketing.
Do a current state analysis. Gain insight into the current strengths and challenges of your product management and marketing organizations. Understand the gaps between current capabilities and future organizational needs.
Read the blog post "Train Your Teams Not Your People."
S4 high
Great job! One of the secrets of product success is clarity of roles and responsibilities. Clear roles, a common language, and a standard set of tools ensure alignment across your teams.
Consistency is the evidence of professionalism. Using the same language, tools, and templates ensures that leadership and colleagues understand what is being presented and what it means.
Assess the team periodically to compare where you were to where you are. A well-oiled market-focused product team can be a competitive advantage if you continuously improve and focus on the team, not just individual heroics.
Here is the link to the Product Health Check to periodically track your progress.