Distribution

Assuming we have done a great job so far and the new product or feature is ready for prime time, roll it out to customers and ensure user onboarding.

-Manage staged releases to deploy major changes across your customer base in a controlled manner.

• Watch out for issues at any stage and be ready for last-minute optimizations.

• Implement an early access program, for example, for your Customer Advisory Board customers to gather feedback as early as possible.

• Collaborate with product marketing and create release notes and similar documentation to educate your customer base about changes and new functionality.

• Prepare and conduct launch presentations, webinars, and deep dive sessions as needed.

• Streamline onboarding, both for new users and new features, to remove any barriers to adoption.

• Measure usage to identify barriers.

• The product or feature is generally available.

• Customers have adopted the product or feature as expected. Note that this does not necessarily mean close to 100% usage. In B2B, customers are often relatively slow to adopt because they need to adjust internal processes.

• No show-stopper or major issue has been observed, specifically not when re-assessing the Four Key Risks.

• Metrics are in place, and usage data is collected to further optimize the product or feature.

• Product Managers are in the lead and accountable.

• Product Marketing helps to tell the world by shaping release notes, providing documentation, or running launch campaigns.

• Customer Success teams observe requests by customers, support tickets, and bug reports coming in to spot potential issues as soon as possible.

• Account Management and Consulting listen to early-access customers' complaints, concerns, and suggestions to identify areas for improvement.

• Continuous delivery during the Delivery phase to ensure quick responses to issues and avoid piling up tech debt

• Feature stages to run early access programs and make new products or features accessible to groups of customers in a step-by-step manner

• Marketing plan to roll out new products or features in specific customer segments, industry verticals, or regions step-by-step

• Metrics for launch and activation to have measurable data for assessing the health of the new product or feature

• In-product engagement tools to onboard new users as well as show new features to existing users

• NPS, CSAT, CES, or similar to measure the satisfaction of customers with the new product or feature

• Do not overwhelm customers. “This is great—but not so fast!" is a common refrain, especially among larger enterprise customers.

• Do not underestimate training needs. Any change is difficult and might confuse occasional users who do not use your product daily or weekly. To address this, companies often create training material or conduct training sessions.

• Let customers be in control. When activating a new product or feature, customers usually demand options to turn it on when it feels appropriate. Likewise, specific configuration options that may depend on company size, industry, region, or other aspects will be needed.

• Your product is only a piece of the puzzle. Just as consumers have dozens or even hundreds of apps on their private smartphones, companies need many applications to run their business. Hence, your product will only be a link in a highly complex chain. Hence, ensuring a seamless integration will be more important than the latest feature.

Today, Product-Led Growth (PLG) is a massive trend in Product Management. That term didn’t exist when Splunk was founded in 2003. In case you don’t Splunk, they provide software for searching, monitoring, and analyzing machine-generated data via a web-style interface. In their early days, that meant primarily log files of web servers, application servers, or email services.

Apart from technical capabilities, Splunk revolutionized how software was distributed: Everybody could download and install it, load data, build analytics and visualization dashboards, and all that. In fact, a full production version was accessible at no cost. Until a maximum data volume limit was reached. Then, users hit the paywall and had to ask their bosses for budgets. This Try before you buy approach already ~20 years ago was a key pillar of Splunk’s successful growth.