Information Systems and Software Product Development by Elinow Steven

Author:Elinow, Steven [Elinow, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-08-23T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Product Management Metrics

Metrics in product developments are vital for the measurement of product features, characteristics, and performance. Most product development efforts will have several dozen, if not hundreds, of metrics used to measure the product’s success and ensure it meets defined standards during the quality assurance testing. Metrics provide product managers with the ability to measure the compliance of production processes, tools, and techniques. They also provide the product development team with measurable criteria the product can be evaluated on during testing. Metrics will allow for the marketing team to measure the success of products during research and post launch phases.

Metrics must first be defined by the organization during the scope definition. Metrics should be further refined during the test development, production process, and marketing planning efforts. The metrics defined during the scope definition, scope refinement, and test development steps will provide the criteria by which the product must be created and evaluated for compliance. The metrics discovered during the production planning step will enable the organization to ensure products meet standards. This is done by comparing the product against the established metrics.

The metrics developed during the marketing planning step will allow the organization to measure the success of the product after its launch. Doing this will enable the organization to take one of many actions we discussed in the product and software development methodology chapters. We will further review these options in a later chapter focusing on post launch feedback from customers. In this chapter, we will discuss the following topic areas:

1. Using product goals and scope as the foundation of developing metrics

2. Collecting the right data

3. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

4. Big data analytics tools

5. Vanity metrics

6. Strategies for using qualitative metrics

7. Strategic metrics

8. Consumer metrics

9. Using metrics to drive product strategies

10. How to measure the effectiveness of the product strategy

Product goals and scope are the foundation of developing metrics . Metrics are usually quantitative measurements or values to drive decision making and strategy. Is the product aimed at getting new customers or having existing customers spend more? Is it to replace an older product and move a user base from an older product to a new one? iPhone releases are a prime example of this. After several years, Apple’s iOS versions will no longer support an older phone model. This cycle will give customers a multi-year use of the device to ensure value is received, but still force people to move to newer iPhone models. You must have an established and developed scope focusing on what problem the product is trying to solve.

The problem the product is aimed to solve should be measurable and achievable. The characteristics must be quantifiable. One example is the market research team identifies that the design of a mobile device must fit in a person’s pocket. With this design characteristic now defined, you know that the phone must be less than or equal to 9 by 4 inches to provide the device clearance when going into a standard size pocket. Further research would find that many mobile device’s dimensions are 5.

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