The journey of a product
Hello everyone! I am a product. In this story, I am a software application. I am here to tell you about my journey from conceptualization to delivery phase. Though I am a software application, this story more-or-less applies to all products that we interact with in both our professional and personal life.
In each of the following phases of my journey, I am defined and developed by various stakeholders.
Conceptualization
Where it all begins!
Based on inputs from market research of user needs!
Product manager, User experience designer, and others plan what the new/next release of a product includes.
Design and Development
Where it is all built together!
Based on priorities and commitments from the Conceptualization phase.
Engineers, Quality testers, Content Strategists, Information Architects, Technical Writers, and so on, work on creating the various deliverables that will ship with the product.
Delivery
Where it is all shipped to our end users!
Based on everything worked on in the Design/Development phase.
All product stakeholders come together to deliver the final artifacts for the product release.
Product Manager
Ra is a Product Manager. They are responsible for defining the product vision and roadmap based on market/user requirements. They decide the product priorities for a release. They are responsible for the overall product growth and diversification of the product and business growth.
User Experience Reseacher
De is a User Experience Researcher. They are responsible for conducting user research to understand the user requirements and their behavior. They collect user data and provide analysis of the data. This data also helps define the product roadmap.
Content Strategist
San is a Content Strategist. They are responsible for aligning the content strategy to the product strategy. They understand the end-to-end content journey of a user, identify the content touchpoints, and create the right content at the right place for a seamless content experience.
Information Architect
Le is an Information Architect. They are responsible for organizing and structuring content to help users find the right information at the right place. They are involved early on in content designing to ensure good navigation and findability.
Let us read how Le influences the content architecture.
Technical Writer
Ab is a Technical Writer. They are responsible for creating end user content that helps users onboard and get started with the product. They contribute in creating various forms of content, such as, end user documentation, strings on the user interface, API and CLI documentation, and so on.
Let us read how Ab contributions help in product development and adoption.
Instructional Designer
Vish is an Instructional Designer. They are responsible for creating learning content. The content includes learning courses and training for both internal and external users. They create learning content for both product as well other career development skill trainings in an organization.
Let us read the interesting discussion between Ani and Vish about instructional designing.
Software and QA Engineers
Engineers and Quality Engineers are the main pillar in product development lifecycle. Engineers create the product and Quality Engineers test the product. Together they ensure that a functional, reliable, and fully usable product is delivered to the users.
In the purview of this Newsletter, we have not discussed these two roles in detail.
Delivery
Where it is all shipped to our end users!
Now I am in the final phase of my journey, where I will be delivered to my end users for their consumption.
We have understood how each product stakeholder contributes in the product journey. Let us see what are some of the deliverables these stakeholders create:
With these deliverables published, I am ready to serve the end user!