Comprehensive Guide to Lean Product Management

What is lean product management?

The lean startup concept was first coined by American entrepreneur and author Eric Ries in his book, “Lean Startup.”

He summarized his experiences as a startup advisor and entrepreneur and advocated working backward from the ultimate business goals.

Lean product management creates, designs, and implements products quicker using lesser resources. The focus is on reducing wastage of time, effort, and resources while launching new products and services.

It manages the product life cycle by applying a lean framework, customer focus, financial viability, and behavioral economics with continuous innovation.

Why is lean product management important?

According to recent research, 25% of company leaders agreed that none of their new offerings met their profitability goals.

Inappropriate methodologies, ineffective processes, dysfunctional organizational structure, incorrect pricing — could any of these be the reason for such an alarming statistic?

Companies apply considerable time, talent, and money to product development, yet still the products fail to generate great interest.

Applying the lean methodology from Toyota is a great way to shorten the time to market while optimizing the product roadmap.

The lean methodology originated from the Toyota Production System (TPS). It focused on eliminating all wasteful activities to deliver the vehicles to the customer in the shortest time and most efficient manner. It has two main elements:

1. Automation with a human touch that immediately stops work when any issue is found
2. Just-in-time approach in which a process produces only what is required for the subsequent process

The lean framework gives modern product managers an edge as they focus on creating customer value with less complicated processes. Minimum viable products (MVP) are made quickly based on user-testing insights before launch.

How does the lean product management methodology work?

Lean product management methodology aims to design customer-centric processes with the least wastage. It gets products to the market faster and simplifies the entire product life cycle.

Lean product management is a broad philosophy that encompasses many techniques and processes. Applying each of the following techniques in tandem can lead to product success.

Lean startup

The lean startup is a modern movement that erupted in 20th century America. It advocates linking product strategy to the broader business objectives.

GE invited Eric Ries, the founder of the lean startup, to apply this theory in their consumer appliances division. In this ‘Fastworks’ programme, more than 5000+ senior managers across multiple divisions were trained. The result was a brand new refrigerator model with a 50% less cost of production.

Another example is the file hosting company Dropbox, which reached 15million users and $12billion valuation in just 11 years after using the lean startup approach.

Lean startup advocates delivering customer value using the least possible resources in the least possible time. This enhances the chances of product success and reduces overhead expenses.

Product ideation

Ideation is a process that identifies solutions for customer problems. It forms a critical part of lean product management and starts with finding the customers' needs and preferences.

Will the customer's problem be solved with the new product? Will customers like and use it? Does the new product add value to the end-user?

These are some of the questions that the product ideation processes seek to solve.

Market analysis

Every product is released into a specific market. Market analysis is a review process to determine if a product fits into an existing or new market.

In this lean product management concept, managers speak to customers, analyze trends, and interpret competitor intelligence. Critical thinking and in-depth analysis are used to ensure a great product-market fit.

Product strategy

In lean product management, new and innovative strategies are appreciated. Managers are constantly on the lookout for unique and flexible ways to work.

Product strategy defines how a specific product will help achieve the business goals. It helps teams proactively manage product life cycles to develop successful products consistently.

Deploying product strategy is great for companies looking to scale. It works well for organizations expanding their product teams as it lets them visualize future outcomes.

Essential lean management principles for product managers

Wondering how lean management principles can be applied for product management?

Lean thinking creates a governing process that lets teams work quickly to improve customer value propositions by breaking away from tradition. It cuts across failure and introduces a simpler approach to doing things.

Managers welcome the shift in thinking and execute the product roadmap effectively. Let's review the top lean management principles for product managers.

Respect team members

One of the top driving factors of lean management is respecting people. Unfortunately, in many companies, this ends up getting overshadowed by business-oriented demands.

Companies that apply the lean methodology understand that people make the team and not the other way round. Seamless two-way communication, clear deadlines, and regular training programs are essential in forming a close-knit team.

Remove wasteful activities

The founding principle of lean management is 'less is more.' It seeks to eliminate waste in the entire product life cycle process. Anything that does not add value to the customer is removed. Here are some examples of waste for product teams:

• Too many steps in the product user interface
• Unnecessary functionalities or features that are unhelpful to end-users
• Communication gaps between product stakeholders
• Existence of bugs/defects in a new product feature/functionality

Test the product to boost the quality

Do the best you can — this is the philosophy that defines product quality in a lean management approach.

Teams channel their efforts into building the highest quality product to provide the best value for the customer. To do this, lean teams apply diverse strategies such as:

• Establishing an ongoing feedback loop from quality analysts to end-users
• Conducting consistent software tests for customer needs/requirements
• Avoiding wastage of resources and deploying pair programming
• Minimizing manual errors by automating routine tasks

Encourage knowledge sharing

Empower your team members by sharing knowledge with them. Encourage new learning initiatives and cultivate a supportive work culture where everyone can reach out for help. Here are some knowledge sharing tips for your lean product team:

• Ensure clear documentation that suits both technical and non-technical team members
• Set up code commenting standards
• Conduct regular training for software developers

Allow for flexibility

Product teams are encouraged to be flexible. They gather necessary data and review alternatives within predefined timelines.

Lean teams utilize less time and resources and avoid making uninformed decisions. Here is a list of action items that generate flexibility in lean teams:

• Put a regular customer feedback mechanism in place
• Commit to projects only after doing adequate research
• Conceptualize and develop all products in alignment with business goals

Optimize resources

Lean teams optimize for the entire product life cycle instead of narrowing their efforts for downstream tasks or product decisions.

By doing this, they can work comfortably at a stable pace and avoid stressing out about on-time deliveries. A comprehensive product optimization strategy includes:

• Setting up measurable delivery objectives
• Consistent code reviews and software tests
• Establishing collaborative teams across disciplines

Customer value delivery proposition

Every team wants a successful and fast delivery process. To do this, find out simple solutions that can be put into action immediately based on customer feedback.

Instead of making the teamwork faster, consider the elements that are slowing the team. Here are some lean tips to ensure on-time and successful deliveries:

• Focus on increasing the response time for all product management stakeholders
• Avoid having rigid timelines for tasks and activities on the to-do list
• Do not make detailed plans in advance

Start the lean product management process with Wrike

Are complex solutions required if an issue can be resolved in a simpler way? That is the question teams need to ask themselves if they want to adopt the lean-approach.

Introducing flexible deadlines, setting up clear product goals, and reorganizing the team can help you achieve on-time and high-quality deliveries.

Being lean demands a mindset shift towards the key principles of flexibility, respect, and customer focus.

Now that you're armed with the knowledge of the lean product management framework, get a free Wrike trial to put it to work. With Wrike, you can set up the foundation to create and develop successful products that achieve their revenue goals.