product development process case study

Journey Mapping: A Product Development Process Case Study

Product teams should regularly assess the product development process itself. Sebastian Gherman, a Toptal senior product manager, outlines his approach.

Underpinning every successful product is a successful product development process. As a senior product manager at Toptal, I’ve found that treating that process as a product in its own right results in measurable improvements that touch every facet of our work.

The team I lead comprises an engineering manager, nine software engineers , and one quality assurance engineer. Our work covers a wide spectrum of products and features that facilitate a healthy supply-and-demand balance for our talent network. In the sections that follow, I share how we evolved our product development process using customer journey mapping and arrived at greater efficiency, communication, and collaboration.

When the Process Is the Product, the Team Is the User

Products that are unsuccessful or ineffective often result from what a team, or even a single person, thinks users want and need, not what they actually want and need. A good product, however, is built on the qualitative and quantitative data derived from extensive user research sessions. Likewise, the product development process itself can be unsuccessful or ineffective when it is designed by a leader who assumes they know what their teams need.

As product manager or team lead, you should engage in the same kind of user research that you would carry out for a product—shadowing, interviewing, and surveying—with your team to make sure your process is similarly successful. The goal is to understand how your team is using the product development process and address any pain points they encounter along the way.

Build a Customer Journey Map

There are various ways to collect feedback from users, but customer journey mapping is the product discovery technique I use with my engineers. The result is a diagram that illustrates the steps users go through when engaging with your company, whether that be through a product, online experience, retail experience, service, or any combination of these. The more touchpoints your users have, the more complicated—and therefore necessary—a map becomes.

This technique explores users’ actions and emotions around that engagement to reveal pain points and opportunities. It’s an excellent way to uncover problems in your process.

Within the diagram, users are depicted as hypothetical personas. Each persona should have a short bio, including a description of their inner motivations and responsibilities, as this helps to humanize them. Each persona should represent a key type of user to offer a sense of the diverse wants and needs the solution must address.

Journey maps are organized by user stages. Each stage represents a major goal the user is trying to achieve in their overall journey. For each stage, and for each persona, ask your team to consider:

• Actions: What does the user do?
• Emotions: How does the user feel?
• Pain Points: What bothers the user?
• Opportunities: What are some possible solutions?

Asking the team “What bothers you about this product and how can we fix it?” would not be a useful way to gather information because, at the time the question is asked, they may not recall use cases or how they felt when they experienced an issue. Asking them to split the interaction into steps and asking them how users encounter each step helps the team surface the emotions associated with each stage of the journey.

Applying This Theory to Our Toptal Team

To understand how this theory applies in action, consider the journey map for the product development process that I created with my engineering team.

Using Miro , I created the journey map board, splitting the product development process into eight major stages:

• Roadmap Planning, and Defining Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)
• Product Specification
• Technical Analysis and Work Breakdown
• Implementation
• Quality Assurance and User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
• Pre-release
• Post-release

I chose two personas—software engineer and product manager—as these are the main users who engage with the process.

• Sergey, the software engineer: Sergey ensures the initiatives are delivered on time and to a high standard, while maintaining a robust code base and understanding of the latest technologies and tools.
• Matt, the product manager: Matt ensures the team prioritizes its efforts by working on the most impactful initiatives first. He also listens to stakeholder needs and communicates updates to the team regularly.

Prior to the session, I filled out the journey map for Matt, the persona in my role, in order to get an idea of how much time was required to complete the exercise, as well as to set the team’s expectations of the format. Next, I scheduled two 90-minute sessions across two consecutive days to ensure my team had enough time to complete the exercise without losing focus or energy. Because most engineers are unfamiliar with the journey mapping process, I shared links to the Miro board and a YouTube tutorial to help them prepare. Before the beginning of the first session, I confirmed that everyone understood the concepts.

As facilitator, I asked the team to suggest the actions, emotions, pain points, and opportunities for Sergey’s persona. Some team members were shy at first, but once a few people shared their thoughts, the session started to flow. I filled out cards on the Miro board based on their input.

Key Learnings From the Journey Mapping Process

The journey mapping process yielded five main takeaways:

• Keep the sessions short and focused. If there are more than a few stages within the journey map, I advise splitting the effort into two or three sessions to maximize productivity and to prevent team members from losing focus.
• Be a role model. Filling out the Product Manager swimlanes before the session sets a tone of honesty and openness, and demonstrates how to express these issues, encouraging team members to share their own emotions and pain points more readily.
• Create emotional safety. Team members may find it intimidating to share their struggles—most likely from a fear of being judged—but try your best not to intervene. Sooner or later, a more courageous team member will break the ice and things will start moving. When that happens, show empathy and appreciation. This will reassure other members that they are in a safe environment and they will feel more comfortable sharing their thoughts.
• Create a follow-up plan with your team. Some problems may be hard to solve, especially if the solution involves other teams or departments, but plan to keep your team updated about any relevant communication with, or changes from, those responsible parties who may impact the results of the journey mapping process.
• End with action steps. Create a list of action items, and assign an owner and deadline to each, which will help you realize tangible results from the session. Some examples that resulted in our case are depicted in the following table:

Why Was the Journey Mapping Exercise Effective?

The journey mapping exercise was extremely successful in presenting potential opportunities for improvement and fostering team spirit. It helped us in the following ways:

• It uncovered issues where I believed things were running smoothly and reinforced the importance of not making assumptions. For example, I assumed that everyone had sufficient training on Jira , which was not the case. On the other end of the spectrum, I thought asking the engineering team to record demo videos for new pieces of functionality burdened them, when in fact they valued the exercise because it helped them improve their presentation techniques and lessened their anxiety around being in front of a camera.
• It illuminated some improvements I could make, such as restructuring initiative cover pages to make them more accessible for engineers.
• It empowered the engineering team to take responsibility for the outcomes within their control because they were the ones proposing changes that they could test and further iterate. It was primarily a bottom-up process.
• It revealed that the pain point hot spots were predominantly around roadmap planning and implementation.
• It forged stronger working relationships among the team by acknowledging shared challenges. For example, a number of individuals on our team thought they were the only ones struggling with the CI/CD pipeline for a particular subsystem when, in fact, most of the team was struggling.

Scaling Considerations

If every product manager or team lead for engineering goes through this process with their team, a common set of problems will likely arise, indicating which issues should be addressed first. Teams should follow the updated process for a few months, then the feedback loop must be revisited again. This cycle should continue until the product development process is natural and easy, and supports the needs of the users in building top-quality software products.

In the case of my team, our new process has delivered tangible improvements on several fronts:

• The average time for tickets in review has been reduced by 22%.
• The product OKR completion rate has risen above 90% over the course of the last three quarters.
• The service-level agreement time for high-priority bugs has been met in 100% of cases.
• There have been no failed releases due to deployment problems.
• The average number of post-release reported bugs has decreased by 37%.

If your team is involved in building products , then your process should be subject to continuous scrutiny and improvement. If one function is not performing well, or if its product development process is weaker, that will impact the end result. While I used this practice for an engineering team, it can easily translate to user research , design, UI/UX , and content teams.

Your product development process is your most important product. Use this exercise to help perfect it, and see how much it elevates every product your team makes.

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Apple’s Product Development Process – Inside the World’s Greatest Design Organization

Apple’s Product Development Process may be one of the most successful design processes ever implemented. With a valuation that exceeds $2 trillion, there’s a lot that designers can learn from Apple and introduce into their own design environments.

Apple is a notoriously secretive business. In Steve Jobs’ time at the company it would have been near impossible to find out about the internal workings of the business. This isn’t surprising when a business’s market advantage is its design approach. It’s worth keeping it under wraps.

However, Adam Lashinsky, the author of Inside Apple: How America’s most Admired and Secretive Company Really Works has been given a look at the process. While there are still aspects of the way that Apple works that are shrouded in secrecy , you can get a good idea of the overall high level process through this book. And in this article, we’ve distilled the key takeaways from the book.

Apple’s Product Development Process

Design is at the forefront.

Author/Copyright holder: GiuliaPiccoliTrapletti . Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-SA 4.0

How do you give designers the freedom to design and ensure that the products they produce fulfil their visions? Well at Apple they put design at the forefront.

Jony Ive, the British designer who was the Chief Design Officer (CDO) at Apple, and his design team do not report to finance, manufacturing, etc. They are given free rein to set their own budgets and are given the ability to ignore manufacturing practicalities.

At the heart of the design department is the Industrial Design Studio where only a select few Apple employees have access.

It’s a simple concept that allows for the creation of incredible products.

Design Teams are Separated From the Larger Company

When a design team works on a new product they are then cut off from the rest of the Apple business. They may even implement physical controls to prevent the team from interacting with other Apple employees during the day.

The team is also removed from the traditional Apple hierarchy at this point. They create their own reporting structures and report directly to the executive team. This leaves them free to focus on design rather than day-to-day minutiae.

A Documented Development Process

Author/Copyright holder: Ed Uthman . Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-SA 2.5

The Apple New Product Process (ANPP) information is given to a product development team when they begin work. It details every stage of the design process and it goes into elaborate detail. The idea is to define what stages the product creation team will go through, who will be responsible for delivering the final product, who works on which stage and where they work and also when the product is expected to be completed.

Monday is Review Day

The Apple Executive Team holds a regular Monday meeting to examine every single product that the company has in design phase at that point in time. This isn’t as daunting as it may sound; one of the keys to Apple’s success is that they don’t work on hundreds of new products at once. Instead, resources are concentrated on a handful of projects that are expected to bear fruit rather than being diluted over many lesser projects.

If a product cannot be reviewed at one meeting – it’s automatically at the top of the agenda for the next meeting. In practice, this should mean that every single Apple product is inspected by the executive team at least once a fortnight. This keeps delays in decision making to a minimum and enables the company to be very lean with its approach to design.

The EPM and the GSM

The EPM is the engineering program manager and the GSM is the global supply manager. Together they are known within Apple as the “EPM Mafia”. It’s their job to take over when a product moves from design to production.

As you might expect, these people are usually going to be found in China, Apple does very little of its own manufacturing. Instead it relies on contract outsourcing companies like Foxconn (one of the largest employers in the world) to do this for them. This removes much of the headache of manufacturing for Apple whilst keeping production costs as low as possible. There is a significant market advantage to this approach and its one that many other electronics manufacturers are emulating now.

The EPM Mafia may sound scary (and they probably are to the suppliers) but their real job is simply to ensure that products are delivered to market in the right way, at the right time and at the right cost. They may disagree at points but their guiding principle is to act in the interests of the product at all times.

Iteration Is Key

Like any good design company , the design process at Apple is not over when manufacturing begins. In fact, Apple iterates the design throughout manufacturing. The product is built, it’s tested and reviewed, then the design team improves on it and it’s built all over again. These cycles take 4-6 weeks at a time and may be run many times over a product’s development lifecycle.

Author/Copyright holder: CyberDoc LLC . Copyright terms and licence: Fair Use.

When production is complete the EPM will take possession of some or all of the test devices and then take them back to Apple’s headquarters at Cupertino.

This is a very costly approach but it’s one of the reasons that Apple has a reputation for quality. The more you invest in design, the more likely you are to build incredible market changing products. It’s the process that the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad went through.

The Packaging Room

This is a very-high security area in Apple and it’s where prototypes are unboxed. As you might expect, the security is to prevent leaks to the outside world. If you ever do see a leaked prototype for an Apple product – it won’t have come from here. It’s more likely to have vanished from a production line in China.

A Launch Plan

Author/Copyright holder: Manutaus. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-SA 3.0

The final step in Apple’s product development is product launch. When the product is considered to be as good as it can be – it enters an action plan known as “the Rules of the Road”. This explains all the responsibilities and actions that must be taken prior to a commercial launch of the product.

It must be a nerve-wracking experience to be privy to the “Rules of the Road” because if you lose it or leak it… you’re immediately fired. This is explained in the document itself.

The Take Away

Apple’s process is complex, expensive and demanding. If you compare it to most business theories – it shouldn’t work. However, to date it has out-performed even the wildest of expectations.

You may not be able to emulate all of their processes within the space of your own workplace but there’s no reason that you can’t develop written processes for design phases and launch phases of your projects, for example. And, of course, there is no reason at all for you in not iterating!

The more you know about successful design processes, the more you can take some of the best aspects of them and use them to enhance your own products.

Find out all the details of the design process in: Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired--and Secretive--Company Really Works by Adam Lashinsky ISBN 97814555512157, Published January 25, 2012

And take an insight into Apple’s greatest designer’s mind in : JonyIve: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products by Leander Kahney ISBN 159184617X, Published November 14, 2013

Hero Image: Author/Copyright holder: Sreejithk2000. Copyright terms and licence: Public Domain.

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Case Study: Product Development Process Transformation PMO

• 28 April 2022
• Case Studies

Our client, a leading Automotive OEM, was on a journey to improve its global product development framework currently in use by more than 60,000 of its employees. They had reached their tipping point, and in order to stay competitive, they needed a faster and more cost-effective approach to develop and deploy global products. 

MIGSO-PCUBED, a long-time partner, had previously implemented Project Management Offices within the OEM. The PMOs were designed to help automotive program management teams deliver quality product launches on time and in a more organized fashion. The MP team quickly ramped up to help manage the redesign and rollout of their new product development process.

The Challenge

Our client needed to drive continuous improvement to both the processes and tools utilized within their Product Development Framework. Without a globally-centralized Enterprise PMO, the customer was struggling to coordinate, plan, and execute the suite of changes against their portfolio of programs. 

Furthermore, delivering an updated system involves complex logic checks to ensure that both upstream and downstream impacts of any proposed changes are fully understood by the engineering and manufacturing communities. Due to the tight connection between process and tools, both needed substantial support to ensure successful releases, mitigate potential risks, and support large-scale training and communications.

A global Transformation PMO was therefore established  to manage the portfolio of unique but connected programs and projects. MP resourced the enterprise level PMO by providing on-the-ground support in key regions. 

Key emphasis was placed on: 

• Providing ongoing change management for each new version of the global PD process.
• Implementing strong PPM tool support to ensure end-user training and adoption as a reflection of the process.
• Facilitating global communication.
• Developing a new digital dashboard capability bringing together critical program health metrics for both engineers and program management leadership.

To learn more about the different types of PMOs, read our PMO Guide .

The Solution

Redesigning a Global Framework utilized across multiple regions, functions, and vehicle platforms is a rather complex endeavor. To help address the many issues and challenges faced, the MIGSO-PCUBED PMO recommended dividing the transformation portfolio into four key areas:

Deploying Program Governance

• Implementing an Agile Methodology
• Improving Program Visibility

Managing Change and Adoption

One of the key goals of the process redesign was to improve time to market. That meant the realignment of existing timelines and programs to meet competitive timing targets. 

The first step required was to implement a strong governance structure. This ensured that each vehicle program following the redesigned process would begin on time and that everyone involved understood the requirements and their roles. 

A Governance workstream team within the PMO supported the inflight vehicle teams, ensuring that everyone understood the new timeline, specific constraints facing the project, and how to use associated tools. To ensure projects stayed on course, timing templates that outlined the key phases from beginning to end were created and shared throughout the organization. 

Struggling with your projects?

The next hurdle was then to create a Portfolio Roadmap – a timeline for each of the projects within the portfolio of vehicle program launches that would be impacted by any proposed process changes. In theory, based on which milestone a vehicle program had progressed through identified whether it could be a candidate for a proposed process lifecycle change. The team then had a Portfolio Roadmap baseline by which to flex changes in vehicle program timing and process or tool solution availability.

Implementing Agility into the Product Development Framework Redesign

The second workstream within the PMO was focused on delivering ongoing process and tool enhancements using an Agile framework . With changes affecting over 60,000 employees over more than 100+ in-process programs, incremental changes were rolled out to individual teams and tested before program-wide adaptations were implemented. 

To ensure quality and consistency across program teams, the team established and published project-specific guidelines as a uniform standard to simplify the process and avoid redundancies. Tool-based iterations (sprints) were mapped out into two-week durations. The iterations followed a detailed review process by multiple levels of the team and management to ensure deadlines and requirements were met. This allowed them to define a framework that enabled fast feedback from the team, and updates to tools that improved engineer efficiency, productivity, and quality.

Within these guidelines, MIGSO-PCUBED created robust program development plan templates and Micro Program Timing Tools. This assured that the team had easy access to the tools they needed and the proper training to complete each iteration. Opportunities to leverage various tools were constantly investigated to improve usability and efficiency.

Lastly, with iteration timelines mapped out for the lifecycle of the project, frequent changes to deliverables were expected. Change impacts to the program were frequently analyzed and addressed, coupled with updated training to support these changes.

As the PMO had implemented Agile methods to enhance their speed in rolling out process changes, so too had the Engineering department implemented Agile in their vehicle software development methods. Pockets of the organization had already adopted tools like JIRA and Azure DevOps. The PMO assisted these engineering communities with the implementation of a PPM tool helpdesk and ongoing end-user training, ensuring adoption, as well as accurate program status, was reflected in the suite of tools.

Read Also: Advanced PMO Setup

Improving Visibility of Program Risks

The third workstream within the Transformation PMO was around improving the visibility of program status and risks to delivery. Design issues delaying launch could derail any enhancements gained through process changes. Focusing on improving visibility allowed management teams to have the right data to make decisions, resolving concerns before it’s too late or too costly.

In order to provide Program teams with an accurate status of their progress, the PMO workstream team developed a Global Product Development Dashboard . This dashboard utilized Qlikview and pulled in data from over 30 unique data sources. It included critical KPIs for Program Health and summarized the high risks impacting production within the designing and manufacturing process. The dashboard provided a single source of truth for program teams to obtain an accurate assessment of their program delivery risks and issues.

The team identified thresholds for critical KPIs serving as early warning indicators, as well as completed regular analysis on how to improve vehicle program time-to-market. The dashboard now provided predictive analytics that allowed the OEM to predict the downstream effects of upstream changes and constantly showed the program’s health. By creating and supporting the ongoing maintenance of a digital KPI dashboard, the team increased program status visibility and drove more effective and efficient program reviews.

The MIGSO-PCUBED PMO team showcased the benefit of dashboards . After creating this dashboard, the team identified opportunities to implement additional dashboards highlighting recall issues to reduce downstream complications. The application of this dashboard provided a centralized location for all metrics of the products that faced recalling issues.

Read Also: Digital Dashboards reduce Test Vehicle Outsourcing Case Study

Finally, to ensure the organization was well-equipped and apprised of the frequent changes occurring to the Product Development Framework, MIGSO-PCUBED developed a communications program consisting of onboarding program teams to the updated processes/tools, awareness of key changes, and creating and managing training content. The team found that changes were not always well accepted, even when based on requested features or deliverables.

The team needed to keep the more than 60,000 employees who used the system abreast of the new features being rolled out and any associated changes, without overwhelming them, requiring a multi-layered and multi-regional approach to stakeholder communications.

This included: 

• Developing detailed change materials
• Helping subject matter experts (SMEs) to update the training concurrent with change releases
• Deploying the “train the trainer” model to upskill current users in each region
• Creating a strong knowledge-sharing network so new employees onboarding could easily access the training video

More than 20 training videos were created and continuously updated to cover applicable topics relating to engineering, marketing, and finance, and lessons learned. By implementing this training multi-faceted training approach, the MIGSO-PCUBED team was able to adequately support the level of change involved as well as positively influence the impact of change felt across each program and region. 

Providing access to training helped ease the transition and provided immediate support for the team.

Struggling with Managing Change?

The benefits.

MIGSO-PCUBED brought a mixture of the right skill set of people, agile principles, and practices adopted from the Scaled Agile Framework . This solution simplified the ongoing operations of the PMO and improved the overall product development process. Furthermore, the project consistently met deadlines, budget constraints, and go-to-market deadlines. 

The client’s successful adoption and delivery of the Global Product Development system continues to enable their success for the future of the automotive industry and allows them to stay ahead of the market. We are excited to continue supporting them along this journey. 

The feedback from the management team following the project further represented their satisfaction with the project.

“I can trust the people that [MIGSO-PCUBED] hires to do what is best for our company and to meet our goals,” said one member of the OEM’s management team. “[MP] gives us the autonomy we need and always comes in with the direct solution.”

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• Product development process: The 6 stag ...

Product development process: The 6 stages (with examples)

The product development process is a six-stage plan that involves taking a product from initial concept to final market launch. This process helps break down tasks and organize cross-departmental collaboration. Find out how to implement a process of your own.

Product development is both an exciting and difficult endeavor. From initial ideation to research and prototyping, no two product launches are the same. However, there’s a general process that can help you get started with the product development process. 

The product development process describes the six steps needed to take a product from initial concept to final market launch. This includes identifying a market need, researching the competition, ideating a solution, developing a product roadmap, and building a minimum viable product (MVP).

The product development process has evolved in recent years and is now commonly used by dividing each step into six separate phases. This helps better organize the process and break individual deliverables into smaller tasks.  

What is product development?

Is product development the same as product management.

Though they sound almost identical, there's an important difference between product development and product management. Product development describes the process of building a product, where product management is the overseeing of that work. It's a slight difference, but an important distinction. A product manager, who often oversees a team that is in the product development process, will lead product management.

The 6 stages of product development

Not only does the product development process help simplify a launch, but it also encourages cross-team collaboration with teamwork and communication at the forefront of the process. 

Let’s dive into the product life cycle and define the six product phases. All of which can help you successfully launch your next product. 

1. Idea generation (Ideation)

The initial stage of the product development process begins by generating new product ideas. This is the product innovation stage, where you brainstorm product concepts based on customer needs, concept testing, and market research. 

It’s a good idea to consider the following factors when initiating a new product concept:

Target market: Your target market is the consumer profile you’re building your product for. These are your potential customers. This is important to identify in the beginning so you can build your product concept around your target market from the start.  

Existing products: When you have a new product concept, it’s a good idea to evaluate your existing product portfolio. Are there existing products that solve a similar problem? Or does a competitor offer a product that doesn’t allow for market share? And if yes, is your new concept different enough to be viable? Answering these questions can ensure the success of your new concept.

Functionality: While you don’t need a detailed report of the product functionality just yet, you should have a general idea of what functions it will serve. Consider the look and feel of your product and why someone would be interested in purchasing it.

SWOT analysis : Analyzing your product strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats early in the process can help you build the best version of your new concept. This will ensure your product is different from competitors and solves a market gap. 

SCAMPER method : To refine your idea, use brainstorming methods like SCAMPER , which involves substituting, combining, adapting, modifying, putting to another use, eliminating, or rearranging your product concept.   

To validate a product concept, consider documenting ideas in the form of a business case . This will allow all team members to have a clear understanding of the initial product features and the objectives of the new product launch. 

2. Product definition

Once you’ve completed the business case and discussed your target market and product functionality, it’s time to define the product. This is also referred to as scoping or concept development, and focuses on refining the product strategy. 

During this stage, it’s important to define specifics including:

Business analysis: A business analysis consists of mapping out distribution strategy, ecommerce strategy, and a more in-depth competitor analysis. The purpose of this step is to begin building a clearly defined product roadmap.

Value proposition: The value proposition is what problem the product is solving. Consider how it differs from other products in the market. This value can be useful for market research and for developing your marketing strategy.

Success metrics: It’s essential to clarify success metrics early so you can evaluate and measure success once the product is launched. Are there key metrics you want to look out for? These could be basic KPIs like average order value, or something more specific like custom set goals relevant to your organization. 

Marketing strategy: Once you’ve identified your value proposition and success metrics, begin brainstorming a marketing strategy that fits your needs. Consider which channels you want to promote your product on—such as social media or a blog post. While this strategy may need to be revised depending on the finished product, it’s a good idea to think about this when defining your product to begin planning ahead of time. 

Once these ideas have been defined, it’s time to begin building your minimum viable product (MVP) with initial prototyping.

3. Prototyping

During the prototyping stage, your team will intensively research and document the product by creating a more detailed business plan and constructing the product.

These early-stage prototypes might be as simple as a drawing or a more complex computer render of the initial design. These prototypes help you identify areas of risk before you create the product.

During the prototyping phase, you will work on specifics like:

Feasibility analysis: The next step in the process is to evaluate your product strategy based on feasibility. Determine if the workload and estimated timeline are possible to achieve. If not, adjust your dates accordingly and request help from additional stakeholders.

Market risk research: It’s important to analyze any potential risks associated with the production of your product before it’s physically created. This will prevent the product launch from being derailed later on. It will also ensure you communicate risks to the team by documenting them in a risk register . 

Development strategy: Next, you can begin working through your development plan. In other words, know how you’ll be assigning tasks and the timeline of these tasks. One way you can plan tasks and estimate timeline is by using the critical path method . 

MVP: The final outcome of the prototyping stage is a minimum viable product. Think of your MVP as a product that has the features necessary to go to launch with and nothing above what’s necessary for it to function. For example, an MVP bike would include a frame, wheels, and a seat, but wouldn’t contain a basket or bell. Creating an MVP can help your team execute the product launch quicker than building all the desired features, which can drag launch timelines out. Desired features can be added down the road when bandwidth is available.

Now it’s time to begin designing the product for market launch. 

4. Initial design

During the initial design phase, project stakeholders work together to produce a mockup of the product based on the MVP prototype. The design should be created with the target audience in mind and complement the key functions of your product. 

A successful product design may take several iterations to get just right, and may involve communicating with distributors in order to source necessary materials. 

To produce the initial design, you will: 

Source materials: Sourcing materials plays an important role in designing the initial mockup. This may entail working with various vendors and ordering materials or creating your own. Since materials can come from various places, you should document material use in a shared space to reference later if needed.  

Connect with stakeholders: It’s important to keep tight communication during the design phase to verify your initial design is on the right track. Share weekly or daily progress reports to share updates and get approvals as needed. 

Receive initial feedback: When the design is complete, ask senior management and project stakeholders for initial feedback. You can then revise the product design as needed until the final design is ready to be developed and implemented. 

Once the design is approved and ready to be handed off, move onto the validation phase for final testing before launching the product. 

5. Validation and testing

To go live with a new product, you first need to validate and test it. This ensures that every part of the product—from development to marketing—is working effectively before it’s released to the public.

To ensure the quality of your product, complete the following:

Concept development and testing: You may have successfully designed your prototype, but you’ll still need to work through any issues that arise while developing the concept. This could involve software development or the physical production of the initial prototype. Test functionality by enlisting the help of team members and beta testers to quality assure the development. 

Front-end testing: During this stage, test the front-end functionality for risks with development code or consumer-facing errors. This includes checking the ecommerce functionality and ensuring it’s stable for launch.

Test marketing: Before you begin producing your final product, test your marketing plan for functionality and errors. This is also a time to ensure that all campaigns are set up correctly and ready to launch. 

Once your initial testing is complete, you’re ready to begin producing the final product concept and launch it to your customer base. 

6. Commercialization

Now it’s time to commercialize your concept, which involves launching your product and implementing it on your website. 

By now, you’ve finalized the design and quality tested your development and marketing strategy. You should feel confident in your final iteration and be ready to produce your final product. 

In this stage you should be working on:

Product development: This is the physical creation of your product that will be released to your customers. This may require production or additional development for software concepts. Give your team the final prototype and MVP iterations to produce the product to the correct specifications. 

Ecommerce implementation: Once the product has been developed and you’re ready to launch, your development team will transition your ecommerce materials to a live state. This may require additional testing to ensure your live product is functioning as it was intended during the previous front-end testing phase. 

Your final product is now launched. All that’s left is to measure success with the initial success metrics you landed on. 

Product development process examples

Now that you understand the six stages of the product life cycle, let’s look at real world examples of some of the most successful product development strategies of iconic startups to inspire your own.

Example 1: How Figma expanded their product features

Originally started in 2012, Figma was the first professional-grade UI design tool built entirely in the browser. Today, Figma has grown into the leading competitor for design web applications.

Their mission is to make design accessible to more people and help them bring their creativity to life. They’ve shown this by continuously adding new product features—like multiple flow capabilities, a brainstorming timer, and an interactive whiteboard—coordinating successful software releases, and building trust through transparency.

Read our case study to learn how Figma uses Asana to manage development backlogs. 

Example 2: How Uber solved a market gap

While today we think of Uber as the biggest ride-sharing service, that wasn’t always the case. They too started with a compelling product strategy that made them into the innovative company they are today. 

Uber’s strategy began by solving a gap in the existing taxi industry: creating an easier ride-hailing process with simplified payment processing. But they didn’t stop there: they continued to innovate their product portfolio by developing ride tiers ranging from luxury to budget-friendly. 

While each situation varies slightly, with the right product strategy, you too can create an innovative portfolio. 

Who is part of the product development team?

There are many stakeholders and various teams that assist with the product development process. The main leader is the product manager, who oversees all product tasks related to ideation, research, development, and product launch. 

Additional important stakeholders include:

Product management: A product manager oversees all areas of the product life cycle and works to bridge communication gaps between various internal and external teams. The product manager works to initiate new product launches and initiates product ideation and market research.

Project management: A project manager may be involved in the product development process to assist with cross-departmental communication. They might also assist with task delegation and goal tracking.

Design: The design team helps during the prototyping and designing phase to support the visual product concept. It’s important to connect product designs with brand guidelines and UX best practices. 

Development: The development team helps with the implementation of the product on your website. Most commonly, a team of developers will work together to build the new product offering depending on the complexity of the concept.

Marketing: The marketing team will assist with developing the marketing strategy and testing it before the product goes live. They will also measure the success of the marketing initiatives.

Sales: The product manager works with the sales team to come up with an effective strategy and report on success metrics after the product has been implemented. 

Senior management: Senior stakeholders may need to give final approval before the product can go to launch. 

In addition to these important roles, other teams that may be involved are finance, engineering, and any other related stakeholders. All of which can play a role in the process depending on the complexity of the concept. 

The process that simplifies product development

The right product development process can help you streamline each step with organized tasks and team collaboration. The six stages outlined above will get your team through all steps of the process, from initial idea screening to the development phase. 

But you might need help along the way. Coordinate tasks and organize your product development process with Asana for product management . Asana can help get your products to market faster by tracking workload and simplifying planning.

Related resources

How Asana uses work management to streamline project intake processes

6 ways to develop adaptability in the workplace and embrace change

How to run more effective stand-up meetings

Waterfall, Agile, Kanban, and Scrum: What’s the difference?

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Top 10 Product Case Study Examples with Templates and Samples

Well-crafted case studies can have an immense influence over clients and showcase the success of your products - but how do you create the ones that standout? Are you an aspiring professional, looking to leave a lasting impression through your product case studies? Look no further! Here is your solution ! 

Prepare to be amazed as you uncover startling statistics: companies using case studies effectively in their marketing strategy may experience up to 70% more conversions. Here we present the Top 10 Product Case Study Templates , with examples and samples to inspire and assist your journey.

If you are looking for project business case studies , read our blog to learn more!

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Template 1: Product Case Study Analyst Performing Research Business Automobile Electronic

Professionals in the automobile sector will benefit significantly from this comprehensive template, offering a systematic framework for analyzing goods in the automotive electronics market.

Anyone from product analysts to market researchers to business consultants to those curious about the automotive electronics market might benefit from this template. This template can help you communicate your results clearly, whether you're doing an internal study for your company or making a presentation for customers or stakeholders.

Download now and improve your knowledge of product case study analysis in the automotive electronics industry. 

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Template 2: Case Study Analysis for a Soft Drink Product

Have you ever wondered what goes into a comprehensive soft drink case study analysis? This template reveals the secrets of successful soft drink brands.

The problem statement outlines the soft drink product's issues. It discusses measures to overcome them. Improve your soft drink offering using the template's intelligent ideas. "About Us" gives context for the case study.

Marketing specialists may analyze their soft drink product's market performance and critical initiatives and create expansion ideas. Discover the secrets of successful soft drink products by downloading them now!

Template 3: New Product Management Techniques Strategy Case Study Product Development Strategy

This template inspires and educates professionals and amateurs by fostering product management and development. It helps you discover new product development methods within your industry. It includes a detailed case study of the problems, methods, and results of product development plan execution. It shows how companies can manage brand and customer management.

This template is helpful in engaging customers. It has three phases for strategy, product development, and portfolio management, offering effective results. Why wait?

Template 4: A business case study for automobile product

If you are a business owner in the automobile segment, there is no doubt you may face difficulties in developing innovative and cost-efficient products. NOT ANYMORE! Our next-gen template provides a compelling narrative to address these hurdles. 

By engaging in this case study template, you'll gain insight into the problem-solving process, understand implemented solutions, and evaluate remarkable results achieved. With topics including challenge , solution, outcomes, technology, problem, and client, this template makes an invaluable resource available for instant download. 

Template 5: A case study for financial market product

Are you ready to decipher a successful automobile product company case study? This template unlocks the secrets of auto product success. This template covers the issue, solution, results , and technology. It analyzes the issue and shows how the solution helped the customer.

The template helps marketing teams, and sales professionals identify problems and solutions that produce results. Don't waste this resource! Get this template to amaze your audience with stunning images and powerful outcomes. 

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Template 7: Stakeholder Product Delivery Case Study

Jeff Bezos once said, "We see our customers as guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It's our daily job to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better." 

This philosophy becomes even more significant during this Product Delivery Case Study template. The template includes a detailed case study of three delivery phases. It shows how product owners overcome their obstacles in terms of customer service. The case study examines how delivery practices affect stakeholders, presenting lessons and recommended practices.

Product developers, shippers, and managers may learn about delivery methods and issues. The template helps project teams meet stakeholder expectations and deliver products smoothly.  Download to captivate users. 

Template 8: Product Development Plan Case Study Product Development Strategy

Are you a successful business looking to navigate the complexities of product development? This template highlights the brand's issues, strategy, and results. The case study shows how the brand satisfied customers and grew their product.

Product managers may improve their practices by studying effective product development techniques. The template may help them identify brand difficulties and create market-positioning strategies. Don't delay! Download to unlock success through strategic innovation.

Template 9: A case study for product launch advertising services ppt powerpoint topics

Launching a product successfully requires more than just a great product; it also demands strategic advertising services. In that case, our template is best. Each case study portion breaks out the issues, solution, focused approach, and successful pricing methods.

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Template 10: New Product Development Proposal For Case Study One Pager Sample Example Document

Walt Disney once said, "If you can dream it, you can do it." This statement perfectly aligns with this template case study details . It covers project description, budget and outcomes, and timeframe. The project description describes the new product's goal, characteristics, and market. 

The budget and results section covers project finances and expected outcomes and benefits. Finally, the timeline shows project milestones and deadlines. Internal stakeholders, decision-makers, and investors who need a brief but complete knowledge of the proposed new product should use this form. Download to present your new product development idea clearly and aesthetically. 

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FAQs on Product Case Studies

What is a product case study.

Product case studies provide an in-depth examination and examination of a particular product's development, marketing, and performance. They give insight into how a product was conceptualized, its challenges during production, strategies implemented for its success, and outcomes realized, often including details regarding the target market, competition, features of the product offered for marketing campaigns, and customer feedback. They serve as invaluable resources for businesses and professionals seeking insight into effective product strategies while learning from real-life examples.

What should be included in a product case study?

Product case studies provide an in-depth examination and analysis of one specific product's development, marketing, and performance from its initial concept to market launch and beyond. They examine every stage in its lifecycle from conceptualization through market launch. Product case studies provide valuable insights into the development process, the challenges encountered, and strategies implemented to overcome them. Businesses and professionals can benefit from studying successful product case studies to gain valuable knowledge about target markets, competition, features of products or features of effective marketing campaigns, customer feedback, and more. 

How can product case studies benefit businesses and professionals?

Product case studies offer numerous benefits to businesses and professionals. First, they are real-life examples of successful product strategies so others may gain insights from proven approaches. Case studies give businesses an in-depth view of market trends, customer preferences, and competitive landscapes. They also showcase challenges faced during the product development process that were overcome, serving as valuable lessons for future endeavors. Product case studies increase credibility and trust by showcasing past achievements and drawing in potential customers and stakeholders.

What role do templates and samples play in creating impactful product case studies?

Templates and samples play a crucial part in crafting influential product case studies. By providing a structured framework and format that guides the presentation of information, ensuring consistency and clarity, templates can help save both time and effort by offering pre-designed layouts, graphics, and placeholders that allow users to focus on content creation without spending hours making drafts from scratch. Samples serve as references showing successful case studies that can serve as sources for inspiration in storytelling techniques that work - businesses and professionals can utilize these to streamline the creation process.

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• Nike: Product development from concept to customer

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Product development from concept to consumer.

Nike is the world's largest sports and fitness company, earning $US14 billion in revenue. The company, with one of the world's most identifiable logos - the 'swoosh', is a leader in sports equipment research and development (R&D). Nike identified a gap in the sports shoe market - a shoe which mimics barefoot running in order to strengthen runners' feet and legs, giving them more power and speed while reducing the risk of injury. After extensive R&D, the shoe, Nike Free, was developed. Nike Free was given an initial, strictly controlled, limited 12 month release before being promoted to consumers worldwide. After reading this Case Study, students should be able to:

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Nike's 'swoosh' is one of the world's most identifiable logos and, in just 32 years, Nike has grown to be the industry's largest sports and fitness company.

Innovation is what sets Nike apart in the industry.

How does Nike develop its products and decide what does and doesn't make the cut when it comes to innovation?

Ensuring correct product positioning

Nike was conscious that Nike Free needed to be positioned as an additional training shoe in your kit bag, not necessarily as a replacement to your traditional running shoes.

Advertising is synonymous with Nike. In partnership with its advertising agency, Nike has created some of the world's most attention-grabbing advertising.

Nike aims to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world - and it considers everybody to be an athlete!

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Product Development and Design: A Bicycle Stand Case Study

• First Online: 05 November 2020

Cite this chapter

• Mehridzana Popovac 14 ,
• Tarik Klinac 14 ,
• Adis J. Muminovic 14 &
• Isad Saric 14  

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems ((LNNS,volume 142))

Included in the following conference series:

• International Symposium on Innovative and Interdisciplinary Applications of Advanced Technologies

386 Accesses

Main goal of this paper is to present the methodology for product development and design. A bicycle stand product is chosen as a case study. Presented methodology is a process with several steps which include definition of problem, generating several concept designs, analysis of generated designs, choosing the best concept design, development of virtual prototype and development of real prototype. Presented methodology can be used for development and design of any product. Process of development of virtual and real prototype is presented in more detail. Virtual prototype is developed using advanced computer aided design technologies. Real prototype is developed and manufactured using advanced additive manufacturing technology.

• Product development
• Product design
• Methodology
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• Real prototype

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Mattson, C.A., Sorensen, C.D.: Product development fundamentals. In: Product Development. Springer, Cham (2020)

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50 Product Management Case Studies

We often wonder what kind of process other product teams have created, planned, and most importantly, how they have implemented it. That is why we at Producter have compiled 50 different case studies for you.

a year ago   •   4 min read

We often wonder what kind of process other product teams have created, planned, and most importantly, how they have implemented it.

That is why we at Producter have compiled 50 different case studies for you.

Brought to you by Roadmape

1- Rules of Flow for Product Management: an AirBnB Case Study

“Engagement” is a term that is so overused in product management that it has almost lost its meaning. So often I’ve heard from teams, “We’ll measure the success of this test with engagement,” which could mean anything from feature click-through to bounce to we-aren’t-really-sure-this-will-drive-conversion-so-we’re-hedging-our-bet. Underneath, the reason this term has been co-opted and jargonized is that genuine, productive engagement can be ramped toward long-term customer loyalty. And loyalty pays off: a loyalty increase of 7% can boost lifetime profits per customer by as much as 85%, and a loyalty increase of 3% can correlate to a 10% cost reduction ( Brand Keys ).

2- The Psychology of Clubhouse’s User Retention (...and churn)

3- Netflix Q1 ’21 Subscriber Growth Miss: Can We Avoid Another One?

As a data analyst supporting a mobile subscription business , Netflix’s Q1 ’21 subscriber growth miss is a classic example of when I would get called for recommendations to prevent a miss in the future. I thought this would make an interesting case study to discuss my approach to finding insights to drive subscriber growth. Sadly I’m not a Netflix employee and will be limited to publicly available data but the wealth of information on the Internet about Netflix is sufficient to generate insights for this case study.

4- Amazon Go Green

As part of the Design Challenge from productdesign.tips, our team came together to find ways for Amazon to encourage more sustainability on their e-commerce platform. As with any unsolicited design project, the challenge comes with a lack of access to application analytics and technical feasibilities. Nonetheless, the question remains: How might we design checkout screens for an e-commerce app to help people recycle the goods they buy?

5- Quora Case Study – The Wonderful World of Quora

Quora has become a substantive resource for millions of entrepreneurs and one of the best sources for Business to Business market. Majorly used by writers, scholars, bloggers, investors, consultants, students this Q/A site has much to offer in terms of knowledge sharing, connection building and information gathering.

6- Building a product without any full-time product managers

Jambb is an emerging social platform where creators grow their communities by recognizing and rewarding fans for their support. Currently, creators monetize fan engagement through advertisements, merchandise, and subscriptions, to name a few. However, this only represents 1% of fans, leaving the other 99% (who contribute in non-monetary ways) without the same content, access, and recognition that they deserve.

8- What if you can create Listening Sessions on Spotify

Summary: The project was done as a part of a user experience design challenge given to me by a company. I was given the brief by them to work on a feature of Spotify and I spent around 25–30 hours on the challenge in which I went through the entire process, from the research to testing.

9- Redesigned Apple Maps and replicated an Apple product launch for it

Quick-fire question; what is the single most important and widely used feature in a phone — asides from texting and instant messaging friends, coworkers and family? Maybe you guessed right, perhaps this feature is so integrated into your life that you didn’t even think about it — either way, it is your phone’s GPS. It is reasonable to say that GPS technology has changed society’s lives in ways we never could’ve imagined. Gone are the days of using physically printed maps and almanacks, when we now have smartphones with navigation apps. Since the launch of the iPhone and the App Store, consumers have been able to use different apps for their personal navigation needs. Everyone has a preference, and apps have come out to try and address every need.

10- Intuitive design and product-led growth

In 2018, Miro was hardly a blip on the radar in the Design world. Fast forward two years, and suddenly Miro is solidly the number one tool for brainstorming and ideation.

Click below to see the complete list 👇

Producter is a product management tool designed to become customer-driven.

It helps you collect feedback , manage tasks , sharing product updates , creating product docs , and tracking roadmap .

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What is customer segmentation, learnings about product development strategy in 2022, keep reading, boost product management with slack: a comprehensive guide to producter's slack integration, mastering the art of product management: 10 essential strategies for success, what is user research.

6 Product Management Case Studies You Can't Miss

Associate Product Marketer at Zeda.io.

Mahima Arora

March 18, 2024

8 mins read

Transform Insights into Impact

Build Products That Drive Revenue and Delight Customers!

Product management case studies are detailed analyses of how a product was conceptualized, developed, and marketed. A typical product management case study contains the following:

• The pain points and expectations of the user
• Competing products in the market
• Development , delivery, and iteration methods
• Marketing strategies implemented to relay the product’s value proposition
• How the product was received
• Lessons for the product team

So, why should you learn about the development of a product in so much detail? The answer lies in the sixth bullet.

Let’s look at how reading case studies related to product management can help you.

How product management case studies help you

Here’s why reading product management case studies is a worthwhile investment of your time. A well-written case study:

• Gives you an in-depth understanding of real product problems : Meeting or exceeding the expectations of the customers is always challenging. Whether it is technical complexities, budget limitations, or organizational miscommunication, a case study helps you recognize the source of the problem which led to the development of a less-desirable product.
• Contains practical insights outside of the theory : Even a layman can learn the steps of SaaS product management . However, seasoned product managers know that developing a successful product takes more than learning the development steps. These case studies contain tons of real-life scenarios and the lessons that come with them.
• Educates you and makes you a better product manager: Product management case study examples take you through the journey of developing a product, which helps you improve your existing approach toward product development. You will also learn better ways to manage your team and resources.

In simple terms, a product management case study helps teams learn lessons that they can emulate to develop a more profitable product.

In this article, let’s look at six product management case studies that are a must-read for every product manager.

1. Slack: Initial product launch strategy

Stewart Butterfield started a gaming company called Tiny Speck to change the world of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG). Him and his team created Glitch which was quite different from other games in that genre such as World of Warcraft.

Glitch was a 2D game that did not have the violent aspects that typical MMORPG games had at the time. It allowed extensive character personalization and Butterfield described it as “Monty Python crossed with Dr. Seuss on acid”.

While building Glitch, Butterfield and his team used the Internet Relay Chat (IRC), an online chat tool popular in the 80s and 90s. However, it fell short as the team found it difficult to keep track of past conversations, which motivated them to build their own communication tool.

As they developed Glitch, their internal chat tool gained more features based on their needs.

Despite lots of support from investors, Glitch was unable to attract enough players to keep running profitably and Butterfield eventually shut it down in 2012 .

After six months, in early 2013, Butterfield renamed their internal communication tool Slack - acronym for Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge and requested his friends and colleagues to try it out and give feedback — they all loved it.

By May 2013, Slack was ready for the big reveal which posed a new challenge — executing the perfect launch strategy to drive demand.

Slack’s Challenge: Nailing the initial product launch

While launching an app that can have such an impact on how organizations work, it is crucial to get it right. At the time, there weren’t many team messaging apps and most teams had conversations via email.

Slack needed a significant number of early adopters to validate their hypotheses about team collaboration and collect data that will help them improve its services further. Consequently, this increased the stakes for the first launch.

How did Slack do it

CEO Stewart Butterfield revealed that on the first day of the launch, Slack welcomed 8000 new users which rose to 15000 at the end of the second week. The credit for this initial success, he explains, went primarily to social media.

Social media helped Slack deliver its PR pieces through its genuine users. This led to a snowballing effect because people interacted with people.

Slack recorded over 18 million active users in 2020.

Although the impact of social media-based word-of-mouth marketing will have different levels of success as it depends on factors such as the type of product and its use cases, you should have a social media marketing strategy to spread the word.

Suggested Read: Leveraging VoC-driven AI Insights to Build Revenue-generating Products

2. Superhuman: Finding product-market fit

‍ Superhuman is a premium email service for busy teams and professionals who need more of everything; speed, usability, and personalization. Apart from superb design, Superhuman processes and executes any request within 100ms.

Rahul Vohra built Rapportive in 2010 — a plugin that adds social profiles to Gmail which was later acquired by LinkedIn . This gave Vohra an intimate view of email and quickly realized that things will progressively get worse.

In his words, “I could see Gmail getting worse every single year, becoming more cluttered, using more memory, consuming more CPU, slowing down your machine, and still not working properly offline.” 

He also brought attention to the number of plugins people used, “And on top of that, people were installing plugins like ours, Rapportive, but also Boomerang, Mixmax, Clearbit, you name it, they had it. And each plugin took those problems of clutter, memory, CPU, performance offline, and made all of them dramatically worse.”

Vohra had one question in his mind — how different would the email experience be if it was designed today instead of 12 years ago?

‍ Superhuman was born to give professionals the email experience that they have been long waiting for. Smooth, easy on the eyes, and most importantly, blazingly fast.

But, there was one elephant in the room.

The idea of building a better email service than the existing players sounded great. However, going against some of the biggest brands of Silicon Valley required more than a bad personal experience with Gmail. 

The Superhuman team needed evidence that such a product is actually desirable.

Superhuman’s Challenge: Establishing product-market fit

The team at Superhuman was competing against the email services of Apple, Google, and Microsoft which made the product-market fit quite crucial.

But how do you know whether you have achieved product-market fit?

How did Superhuman do it

Vohra and his team came up with an innovative idea to measure product-market fit by testing crucial hypotheses and focusing on the right target audience.

Superhuman had two hypotheses :

• People are dissatisfied with Gmail and how slow it is.
• People are also dissatisfied with third-party email clients and how buggy they were.

In a product management case study , Vohra explained how to find the right audience — the users who would be ‘very disappointed’ if they could no longer use your product. After identifying them, all you have to do is build the product as they want it.

3. Medium: “Highlights” feature

Evan Williams co-founded Blogger and Twitter which has helped millions of people share their thoughts with the world. Although both platforms became quite popular, they still couldn’t deliver the best reading experience to their users. Blogger allowed readers to browse topics by authors only and Twitter made it difficult for authors to aptly describe themselves.

He quickly recognized the need for a publishing platform that delivers a diverse experience for the readers and allows the authors to speak their hearts.

That’s how Medium was born. It enabled readers to browse articles by topics and authors, helping them to gain different perspectives on any particular subject. It also allowed everyone from professional programmers to amateur chefs to share their insights with the world as they wanted it.

The developers slowly added more features to Medium such as tags, linked images, social cards, and sharing drafts as it evolved through the years.

One of the many notable features of the platform is the “Highlight” feature — where you can select any particular post section and treat it as a mini-post. You can comment on the Highlight or tweet it, which is handy for both personal revision and sharing interesting snippets with others.

Suggested Read: Want to become a Product Coach?

Medium’s Challenge: Determining whether “Highlights” added value

Medium faced a challenge while determining a metric that can give them an accurate assessment of the desirability of this feature. In other words, they needed a metric that would tell them whether the “Highlights” feature made user interactions better and more rewarding.

How did Medium do it

The team at Medium solved the challenge by shifting their focus to one crucial metric rather than multiple vanity metrics such as organic visits and retention time which signifies how much value your users are getting out of your product based on retention rate. 

For Medium, it was Total Time Reading (TTR) . It is calculated by estimating the average read time which is the number of words divided by the average reading speed (about 265 WPM) and adding the time spent by the reader lingering over good paragraphs by tracking scrolling speed.

4. Ipsy: Managing distribution 

Michelle Phan started her journey as a YouTuber who recognized the importance of makeup in someone’s self-expression. She has been sharing beauty tips and makeup tutorials with her audience since 2007. 

While on a trip to Thailand, she observed how little girls scrambled to pay for makeup samples in front of vending machines. Five years later, she launched a subscription-based Glam Bag program — where the customers will receive 4-5 deluxe-sized samples of makeup products.

MyGlam, as it was known back then, quickly gained over half-a-million monthly subscribers which created one of the biggest online beauty communities.

Phan quickly realized what she wanted to do — to build a brand for women who wanted to share their perspectives on beauty and meet like-minded people with similar interests and styles.

Ipsy , which comes from the Latin root “ipse” meaning “self”, was created by Phan, Marcelo Camberos, Jennifer Goldfarb, and Richard Frias to expand the user experience.

Although Phan knew how to convert viewers into paying customers, executing a marketing strategy by scaling it up was challenging.

Ipsy’s Challenge: Managing a content distribution strategy

The first makeup tutorial by Michelle Phan has now over 12 million views. Videos like that helped Phan get her first subscribers on her MyGlam program.

This shows the importance and impact of influencer-led content on revenue for businesses in the beauty industry.

However, running an influencer content distribution strategy involves collaborating with multiple passionate influencers. It was challenging to find like-minded influencers who will promote only one brand. Moreover, when working with influencers, it's important to implement effective content moderation to make sure the posted content aligns with your goals.

Phan and her team had a simple solution for this.

How did Ipsy do it

Phan and Spencer McClung, EVP of Media and Partnerships at Ipsy, partnered with beauty influencers like Bethany Mota, Promise Phan, Jessica Harlow, and Andrea Brooks who were already subscribed to MyGlam to create content exclusively for Ipsy.

In a case study analysis, McClung revealed that it put Ipsy on a content-based growth loop where the content was created by both the influencers and customers for the beauty community.

Sponsored content for products by influencers helped them increase their reach and helped Ipsy get more loyal customers. This growth loop gained Ipsy over 3 million monthly subscribers .

Suggested Read: Pivoting equals failure?🤯

5. Stitch Fix: Mastering personalization

Katrina Lake, the founder of Stitch Fix , realized back in 2011 that apparel shopping needed an upgrade. eCommerce failed to meet the expectations of the shoppers and retail shops were falling short in terms of options.

In an interview with The Cut , she revealed "Searching online for jeans is a ridiculously bad experience. And I realized that if I imagined a different future, I could create it."

After realizing that no one has merged data and fashion shopping, she set out to make a difference. She started a personal styling service out of her apartment in 2011 when she was pursuing her MBA from Harvard.

Lake relied on SurveyMonkey to keep track of her customer’s preferences and charged $20 as a styling fee. In late 2012 Eric Colson, then the VP of data science and engineering at Netflix, joined Lake on her journey of crafting the future of retail.

Lake and Colson wanted to give their customers much more than just personalized recommendations.

Stitch Fix’s Challenge: Building a personalized store

Stitch Fix wanted to give their customers more than just personalized recommendations — they wanted to build a personalized store for them where everything they look at, from clothes to accessories, matches their flavor.

But everyone’s body dimensions, preferences, budgets, and past choices are unique which can make building a personalized store difficult.

The team at Stitch Fix found a simple yet effective solution for this challenge.

How did Stitch Fix do it

Katrina Lake, CEO of Stitch Fix, revealed in a case study that personalization is crucial for the onboarding, retention, and monetization of customers.

When signing up, Stitch Fix asks you a few questions about your fashion choices and picks clothes that look the best on you. Furthermore, the collections in your personal store will keep improving as it continuously learns more about your personal preferences.

Also, there is no subscription fee which makes Stitch Fix a great option for occasional shoppers. Suggested Read: Canva’s Success Tale in the World of Design

6. Pinterest: User retention

Ben Silbermann started his tech career at Google’s customer support department. Although he loved the company and believed in its vision, he quickly became frustrated as he wasn’t allowed to build products.

With support from his girlfriend (now wife) Divya and a college friend Paul Sciarra (co-founder), Ben created an app called “Tote” in 2009 which was described as a “catalog for the phone”. Tote allowed users to catalog their favorite items and will be alerted whenever they were on sale so they can make a purchase.

However, the users used it to share their collections with each other instead. Ben recalled how he collected insects as a kid and loved sharing his collection with others. He recognized how people, in general, love to do that.

And, just like that, Pinterest was born where users can “pin” whatever they are interested in and add it to their personal collections.

Pinterest quickly became a hit and entered the global market.

Despite huge success within the US, Pinterest struggled to retain users globally. The team realized that the primary reason users churned is that something stopped them from getting the product’s core value — building personal collections.

Pinterest’s Challenge: Helping customers quickly realize the core value

There are many things that can prevent a user from accessing a product’s core value and one of them is internal friction within the product.

Pinterest’s product folks zeroed in on the one feature that was the gateway to the product’s core value — the “Pin It” feature.

Users outside the US simply couldn’t relate to the term, even though all it did was save the item they like to their personal collection.

How did Pinterest do it

The “Pin It” feature of Pinterest is linked directly to its brand identity. Casey Winters, former growth product lead at Pinterest, suggested changing it to “Save”, particularly in areas outside of the US.

As of the third quarter of 2022, it has over 445 million monthly users all over the world exploring various “ideas” to build collections for sharing with their friends.

Casey concludes in the product management case study that checking whether the users are getting your product’s core value is pivotal in solving most of your growth challenges.

Key Takeaways

Case studies for product management contain in-depth insights that help product teams improve their approach toward their product’s ideation, analysis , development, and commercialization.

The six product management case study examples we reviewed above give these crucial insights:

• Slack : Don’t forget to use social media for marketing your product before its launch.
• Superhuman : Focus on the users that will be “very disappointed” if they can’t use your product anymore to achieve product-market fit.
• Medium : Track the one metric that tells you whether your users are getting value from your product rather than vanity metrics such as organic traffic.
• Ipsy : Partner with influencers to educate your target audience on how to get the most out of your product.
• Stitch Fix : Learn about what your users want and recommend them just that.
• Pinterest : Continuously experiment by changing multiple variables to uncover new growth opportunities.

To put these lessons into practice, you need to provide your team with the right tools that help them interact with your users, learn about their preferences, monitor their usage data, plan the next steps, and manage product development effectively.

Zeda.io is a product management super-app that allows you to do just that. You can run your entire product management process , from ideation to delivery, in one place. Zeda.io comes with over 5000 integrations with Zapier, enabling you to hit the ground running in no time.

Start your free trial today . Also, looking for the latest trends in AI, UX, product management, and startups? Join our biweekly newsletter now! We distill complex topics into actionable insights just for you. Hit the 'Subscribe' button and never miss out on these valuable updates. Act now – because in the fast-paced world of tech, staying ahead matters! Subscribe here.

• What is a product management case study?

Answer: A product management case study is a detailed analysis of how a product was developed and iterated over time for maximum success. These studies help product managers learn from others and improve their own approach toward product management.

• How do you prepare a product management case?

Answer: You can prepare a product management case study in four steps — understand customer needs, monitor the stages of development, identify the factors that affected the course of product development, and extract takeaways.

• What are the 3 major areas of product management?

Answer: Discovery — recognizing the need for a product, planning — creating a roadmap to plan the product’s development, and development — the various sprints through which a product is developed are three major areas of product management.

• What are the 7 steps of product planning?

Answer: Concept development, competitive analysis, market research, MVP development, introduction, product lifecycle, and sunset are the seven steps of product planning.

• What are the 5 dimensions of product management?

Answer: Reliability, usability, functionality, maintainability, and efficiency are the five dimensions of product management.

• What are the 4 P's of product management?

Answer: Product, price, place, and promotion are the 4Ps of product management which represent four crucial aspects product teams should simultaneously focus on while developing a product. 

• What are the 5 phases of the product management process?

Answer: Idea generation, screening, concept development, product development, and commercialization are the five phases of the product management process .

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U.S. Sues Apple, Accusing It of Maintaining an iPhone Monopoly

The lawsuit caps years of regulatory scrutiny of Apple’s wildly popular suite of devices and services, which have fueled its growth into a nearly $3 trillion public company.

Garland Accuses Apple of Violating Federal Antitrust Law

Attorney general merrick b. garland said that apple has employed a strategy that relies on exclusionary anti-competitive conduct that hurts both consumers and developers..

Over the last two decades, Apple has become one of the most valuable public companies in the world. Today, its net income exceeds the individual gross domestic product of more than 100 countries. That is in large part due to the success of the iPhone, Apple’s signature smartphone product. But as our complaint alleges, Apple has maintained monopoly power in the smartphone market, not simply by staying ahead of the competition on the merits, but by violating federal antitrust law. Consumers should not have to pay higher prices because companies break the law. We allege that Apple has employed a strategy that relies on exclusionary, anticompetitive conduct that hurts both consumers and developers. For consumers, that has meant fewer choices, higher prices and fees, lower quality smartphones, apps and accessories, and less innovation from Apple and its competitors. For developers, that has meant being forced to play by rules that insulate Apple from competition. And as outlined in our complaint, we allege that Apple has consolidated its monopoly power, not by making its own products better, but by making other products worse.

By David McCabe and Tripp Mickle

David McCabe reported from Washington, and Tripp Mickle from San Francisco.

The federal government’s aggressive crackdown on Big Tech expanded on Thursday to include an antitrust lawsuit by the Justice Department against Apple, one of the world’s best-known and most valuable companies.

The department joined 16 states and the District of Columbia to file a significant challenge to the reach and influence of Apple, arguing in an 88-page lawsuit that the company had violated antitrust laws with practices that were intended to keep customers reliant on their iPhones and less likely to switch to a competing device. The tech giant prevented other companies from offering applications that compete with Apple products like its digital wallet, which could diminish the value of the iPhone, and hurts consumers and smaller companies that compete with it, the government said.

The Justice Department’s lawsuit is seeking to put an end to those practices. The government even has the right to ask for a breakup of the Silicon Valley icon.

Read the Lawsuit Against Apple

The antitrust suit is the federal government’s most significant challenge to the reach and influence of the company.

The lawsuit caps years of regulatory scrutiny of Apple’s wildly popular suite of devices and services, which have fueled its growth into a nearly $2.75 trillion public company that was for years the most valuable on the planet. It takes direct aim at the iPhone, Apple’s most popular device and most powerful business, and attacks the way the company has turned the billions of smartphones it has sold since 2007 into the centerpiece of its empire.

By tightly controlling the user experience on iPhones and other devices, Apple has created what critics call an uneven playing field, where it grants its own products and services access to core features that it denies rivals. Over the years, it has limited finance companies’ access to the phone’s payment chip and Bluetooth trackers from tapping into its location-service feature. It’s also easier for users to connect Apple products, like smartwatches and laptops, to the iPhone than to those made by other manufacturers.

“Each step in Apple’s course of conduct built and reinforced the moat around its smartphone monopoly,” the government said in the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. It added that the company’s practices resulted in “higher prices and less innovation.”

Apple says these practices make its iPhones more secure than other smartphones. But app developers and rival device makers say Apple uses its power to crush competition.

“This lawsuit threatens who we are and the principles that set Apple products apart in fiercely competitive markets,” an Apple spokeswoman said. “If successful, it would hinder our ability to create the kind of technology people expect from Apple — where hardware, software, and services intersect. It would also set a dangerous precedent, empowering government to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology.”

Apple is the latest company the federal government has tried to rein in under a wave of antitrust pressure in recent years from both the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, to which the Biden administration has appointed heads sharply focused on changing the laws to fit the modern era. Google, Meta and Amazon are all facing similar suits, and companies from Kroger to JetBlue Airways have faced greater scrutiny of potential acquisitions and expansion.

The lawsuit asks the court to stop Apple from engaging in current practices, including blocking cloud-streaming apps, undermining messaging across smartphone operating systems and preventing the creation of digital wallet alternatives.

The Justice Department has the right under the law to ask for structural changes to Apple’s business — including a breakup, said an agency official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official declined to identify what additional action the agency could request in this case but any demands would be tied to how a court rules on the question of whether — and how — Apple broke the law.

It’s unclear what implications the suit — which is likely to drag out years before any type of resolution — would have for consumers. Apple plans to file a motion to dismiss the case in the next 60 days. In its filing, the company plans to emphasize that competition laws permit it to adopt policies or designs that its competitors oppose, particularly when those designs would make using an iPhone a better experience.

Apple has effectively fought off other antitrust challenges. In a lawsuit over its App Store policies that Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, brought in 2020, Apple persuaded the judge that customers could easily switch between its iPhone operating system and Google’s Android system. It has presented data showing that the reason few customers change phones is their loyalty to the iPhone.

It also has defended its business practices in the past by highlighting how the App Store, which it opened in 2008, created millions of new businesses. Over the past decade, the number of paid app makers has increased by 374 percent to 5.2 million, which Apple has said is a testament to a flourishing marketplace.

Every modern-day tech giant has faced a major federal antitrust challenge. The Justice Department is also pursuing a case against Google’s search business and another focused on Google’s hold over advertising technology. The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit accusing Meta, which owns Facebook, of thwarting competition when it bought Instagram and WhatsApp and another accusing Amazon of abusing its power over online retail. The F.T.C. also tried unsuccessfully to block Microsoft from acquiring Activision Blizzard, the video game publisher.

The lawsuits reflect a push by the regulators to apply greater scrutiny to the companies’ roles as gatekeepers to commerce and communications. In 2019, under President Donald J. Trump, the agencies opened antitrust inquiries into Google, Meta, Amazon and Apple. The Biden administration has put even more energy behind the effort, appointing critics of the tech giants to lead both the F.T.C. and the antitrust division of the Department of Justice.

In Europe, regulators recently punished Apple for preventing music streaming competitors from communicating with users about promotions and options to upgrade their subscriptions, levying a 1.8 billion-euro fine. App makers have also appealed to the European Commission , the European Union’s executive arm, to investigate claims that Apple is violating a new law requiring it to open iPhones to third-party app stores.

In South Korea and the Netherlands , the company is facing potential fines over the fees it charges app developers to use alternative payment processors. Other countries, including Britain, Australia and Japan, are considering rules that would undercut Apple’s grip on the app economy.

The Justice Department, which began its investigation into Apple in 2019, chose to build a broader and more ambitious case than any other regulator has brought against the company. Rather than narrowly focus on the App Store, as European regulators have, it focused on Apple’s entire ecosystem of products and services.

The lawsuit filed Thursday focuses on a group of practices that the government said Apple had used to shore up its dominance.

The company “undermines” the ability of iPhone users to message with owners of other types of smartphones, like those running the Android operating system, the government said. That divide — epitomized by the green bubbles that show an Android owner’s messages — sent a signal that other smartphones were lower quality than the iPhone, according to the lawsuit.

Apple has similarly made it difficult for the iPhone to work with smartwatches other than its own Apple Watch, the government argued. Once an iPhone user owns an Apple Watch, it becomes far more costly for them to ditch the phone.

The government also said Apple had tried to maintain its monopoly by not allowing other companies to build their own digital wallets. Apple Wallet is the only app on the iPhone that can use the chip, known as the NFC, that allows a phone to tap-to-pay at checkout. Though Apple encourages banks and credit card companies to allow their products to work inside Apple Wallet, it blocks them from getting access to the chip and creating their own wallets as alternatives for customers.

The government said that Apple refuses to allow game streaming apps that could make the iPhone a less valuable piece of hardware or offer “super apps” that let users perform a variety of activities from one application.

The government’s complaint uses similar arguments to the claims it made against Microsoft decades ago, in a seminal lawsuit that argued the company was tying its web browser to the Windows operating system, said Colin Kass, an antitrust lawyer at Proskauer Rose. He added that the most compelling allegation — and the one that brings it closest to the Microsoft case — is that Apple could be contractually preventing rivals from developing apps that work with other app providers, as “super apps” could.

Other legal experts noted that companies are legally allowed to favor their own products and services, so the government will have to explain why that is a problem with Apple.

“This case is about technology,” Mr. Kass said. “Can the antitrust laws force a company to redesign its product to make it more compatible with competitors’ products?”

Apple has defended itself against other antitrust challenges by arguing that its policies are critical to make its devices private and secure. In its defense against Epic Games, it argued that restraining the distribution of apps allowed it to protect the iPhone from malware and fraud. The practice benefited customers and made the iPhone more attractive than competing devices with Android’s operating system.

The government will try to show that the effect of Apple’s policies was to hurt consumers, not help them.

“Competition makes devices more private and more secure,” said Jonathan Kanter, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s antitrust division. “In many instances, Apple’s conduct has made its ecosystem less private and less secure.”

David McCabe covers tech policy. He joined The Times from Axios in 2019. More about David McCabe

Tripp Mickle reports on Apple and Silicon Valley for The Times and is based in San Francisco. His focus on Apple includes product launches, manufacturing issues and political challenges. He also writes about trends across the tech industry, including layoffs, generative A.I. and robot taxis. More about Tripp Mickle

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