Product development is the complete process of taking a product from concept to delivery. Whether you're introducing an entirely new product or enhancing an existing one,
the product development cycle starts long before anything is actually built. It encompasses everything from brainstorming the initial idea to strategic planning, building, releasing the product to the market, and measuring its success.
Product development goes far beyond the "how" of building a product. It involves the "why," "what," and "when," encompassing cross-functional collaboration from product management and engineering all the way to product marketing. The goal is to work together to build, launch, and continually improve a product that customers will love.
Who is Involved in the Product Development Process?
Product managers guide the success of the product. They set the strategy, build the roadmap, and define the product features. They sit at the center of the product team, which consists of individuals across the organization who contribute to the product's planning, building, and delivery. This typically includes representatives from product management, engineering, innovation, marketing, and operations.
Every organization defines its product development team differently, depending on the product, customers, and industry. The product team typically consists of individuals actively involved in one or more stages of product development. They also collaborate with members from other teams who contribute to the product’s success, including customer management, sales, finance, and legal. Everyone involved in leading a product within the organization plays a crucial role in understanding customers and delivering a complete product experience (CPE).
A product team typically includes representatives from the following groups:
Product Management: Product managers break down strategic goals into tactical activities. They define the product strategy, outline what the product team will deliver and when, and communicate progress against the product roadmap.
Engineering: Engineers are responsible for the "how" of the product—collaborating on features and user stories, estimating work, planning the path forward, and releasing new applications.
Innovation: Innovation teams create new strategies for approaching problems the business and its customers face. They integrate fresh product ideas with market analysis to drive product strategy and avoid stagnation.
Product Marketing: Product marketers determine how to tell the product's story. They create positioning and messaging, research the competitive landscape, and aim to develop buyer personas. They manage campaigns, build brand awareness, and increase product adoption.
Operations: The operations team is responsible for organizational performance and progress—managing budgets and processes across teams. Program and project managers oversee resource allocation, risks, and bottlenecks, facilitating collaboration.
What Are the Stages of New Product Development?
While the specifics of product development may vary across organizations, there are standard stages that nearly all teams follow—from defining strategy to analyzing success. Here are the seven stages of the product development process:
- Strategy: Defining Goals and Initiatives
Every groundbreaking product begins with a vision and strategy. Success in the following stages depends on your initial goals and how you measure that success.Company executives lead most of the fundamental strategic work in collaboration with the Chief Product Officer, VP of Product, and senior product managers. Together, they define the high-level goals and initiatives that will shape the product team's focus areas.Product goals represent the key achievements needed to turn the product vision into reality. They should have a set timeframe and measurable success criteria.The strategy stage of product development also includes critical tasks such as positioning and messaging, conducting market and competitor analysis, and developing user personas that clearly define specific segments of your target market. This foundation helps bring the customer’s voice into everyday decision-making.In a company that produces a single product, product and company goals may be the same. In organizations with a wide range of products, each product will have its own goals and initiatives. Product managers are responsible for delivering against the defined product strategy and ensuring that the product team aligns with these overarching goals.
- Idea: Capturing and Refining Promising Ideas
Executing the strategy is hard work. Many people, both internal and external to the organization, will have opinions about what should be done next. The product team is responsible for reviewing and evaluating all ideas from customers, colleagues, and partners and then determining what to prioritize.This is why the idea stage of product development relies on establishing an effective idea management process—one that consistently and transparently collects, reviews, and archives requests. Great ideas can move the product forward, but only if you look beyond simply gathering ideas. The focus here should be on turning ideas into real solutions that align with the needs of the business and the customers.
- Planning: Building the Roadmap and Assessing Product Value
Now, it's time to refine ideas further based on goals, estimated product value, and the team's capacity. In the product planning stage, product teams move towards developing a detailed roadmap led by the product manager. This includes defining key user stories and the features that align with each initiative. The roadmap is distinct from product release plans, which detail the stages of work, release dates, and dependencies.A product value scorecard provides consistent criteria for evaluating the value of ideas, refining features, and measuring success after launch. Establishing a prioritization framework and value metrics that can be consistently used across teams and stages is crucial.Once the roadmap is built, the tactical work is specified. Collaboration with the engineering team to assess the effort required to complete upcoming tasks is critical to turning the roadmap into reality. This is where capacity planning comes into play.
- Presentation: Sharing Roadmaps and Go-to-Market Plans with Stakeholders
Roadmaps also serve as communication tools for internal and external groups. Aligning the team around a shared vision requires everyone to understand their role in the product’s success. The product manager shares roadmap views tailored to the audience. For example, company leaders will want to understand how key initiatives align with the company’s strategy. At the same time, the customer support team will be interested in the benefits of upcoming functionality, guidance on when it will be available, and how to present it to customers.Presenting the roadmap goes beyond revealing new features and timelines. Product teams can use this stage as an opportunity to answer questions about the product’s direction and solicit feedback.
- Building
At this stage, the team's focus shifts from planning to building. This is when the product and engineering teams come together to thoroughly examine features and requirements. The engineering team then takes ownership of the development work, including evaluation, planning the path forward, and defining acceptance criteria. Many development teams choose an agile methodology to organize and prioritize work items across sprints.Product managers are responsible for coordinating launches that bring a new product experience to market once it is ready. Regardless of the release pace, they must consider all cross-functional activities required to support the launch—from marketing and sales promotion to customer support.
- Launch: Bringing New Capabilities to Market
A product launch is not a single event that wraps up in a day or two. It requires planning, just like every other stage in the product development process. Launch activities may include marketing announcements, providing training for customers or internal teams, creating self-help resources, and more depending on the release's type or scale.
- Analysis: Evaluating Realized Product Value
You’ve had a successful launch. When is the time for the next one? Not so fast. Important post-launch work includes analyzing product usage and gathering feedback from customers. There are several standard product metrics to track, but numbers alone don’t tell the whole story. The ultimate metric is likability—how much your customers genuinely love your product and want to tell others about it. Likability can be measured in various ways, including a simple survey asking customers to rate their overall satisfaction. Some product teams use metrics such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) or Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT).