Webinar: How to Build & Manage a System Product by Amazon Sr PM
Summary
TLDRIn this webinar, Senior Product Manager at AWS, Nit Ja Nen, shares his journey from an engineer to a product manager and delves into the intricacies of building and managing system products. He discusses the complexities of system products, emphasizing the importance of early and accurate planning, multi-disciplinary team coordination, and the challenges of hardware and software integration. Ja Nen also highlights the significance of compliance, packaging, and the balance between meeting customer demand and managing inventory. He concludes with key learnings, stressing the need for upfront planning, critical thinking, and focusing on controllable aspects to enhance customer experience.
Takeaways
- 😀 Nit Ja Nen, a Senior Product Manager at AWS, shared his career transition from an engineer to a product manager, emphasizing the importance of gaining diverse experience.
- 🛠️ The webinar focused on system products, defined as anything with an electronic component, and the complexities involved in managing them, including coordination between hardware, software, firmware, and applications.
- 🚀 Nit highlighted the unique challenges of system products, such as the difficulty in pivoting from their original design, long development cycles, and the need for clear communication with management and teams.
- 💡 The importance of understanding the customer's needs and ensuring the product meets those needs was stressed, as system products cannot easily change their primary function post-launch.
- 📈 System product development requires significant upfront capital and a clear value proposition to justify the investment, often making them a core competency for a company.
- 🔄 The webinar discussed the iterative nature of system product development, with different layers (services, system software, hardware) having varying degrees of flexibility and the need for careful planning at each stage.
- 🔍 Nit emphasized the role of user testing and feedback in shaping the product, especially given the limited number of iterations possible with hardware products, and the use of 3D printing to facilitate this process.
- 🌐 The need for compliance with various standards (FCC, UL, RoHS) was highlighted, as non-compliance can delay product launches and incur additional costs.
- 🛑 The script touched on the importance of considering packaging from an ecological standpoint, noting the environmental impact of single-use plastics and the need for more sustainable options.
- 📦 Logistics, both forward and reverse, were identified as critical components of product planning, with the need to manage inventory, shipping, and returns carefully.
- 🔗 Finally, Nit concluded with key learnings, including the necessity for upfront planning, the importance of user testing, the high cost of deviation from the plan in system products, and the focus on controllable aspects to improve customer experience.
Q & A
What is the career progression of the speaker from engineering to product management?
-The speaker started as a software engineer in 2004, focusing on C/C++ code for network systems. They pursued a master's degree in electrical engineering and joined Intel as a systems researcher. After realizing the long R&D cycle, they transitioned to a product architect role for laptop and desktop teams. Eventually, they became aware of the product manager role and transitioned to it, becoming a lead product manager for the smart home team at Intel before joining AWS as a product manager.
What is the speaker's current role at AWS?
-The speaker is currently a senior product manager at AWS, working with the Snow Services team on Snow Service products, which are edge computing boxes designed to run cloud workloads in disconnected environments.
Why did the speaker feel that product management was the right fit for them?
-The speaker felt that product management was the right fit because they wanted to be closer to the product and have a more immediate impact. They realized this after spending over five years in research and development at Intel, where they saw the long cycle from invention to product realization.
What are the unique challenges of managing system products compared to software products?
-System products have unique challenges such as longer development cycles due to hardware involvement, the need for coordination between hardware, software, firmware, and applications, and the difficulty of pivoting the product from its original design. Unlike software, system products cannot easily change their core function once released.
How does the speaker define a system product in the context of this webinar?
-In the context of this webinar, a system product is defined as anything that has an electronic component in it, such as smart locks, smart coffee makers, or smart cars. These products require coordination between embedded systems, Bluetooth, security mechanisms, and applications.
What are some key considerations when planning for a system product?
-Key considerations include understanding the long development cycle of hardware, the need for clear communication with management and teams, managing multiple stakeholders and work streams, and the significant upfront capital expense required for development and manufacturing.
Why is it important for product managers to focus on value-added services for system products?
-Focusing on value-added services is important because it can increase the overall net margin for the product, help subsidize hardware development costs, and build lasting brand loyalty by keeping customers engaged for a longer period. It also allows for the extraction of more mileage from customers.
How does the speaker suggest product managers approach the planning of system products?
-The speaker suggests that product managers should approach planning by considering the different layers of a system product, such as services, system software, and hardware. They should focus on where they can iterate more and where they cannot, and plan accordingly.
What role does compliance play in the development and launch of system products?
-Compliance plays a crucial role as system products must meet various safety and electromagnetic interference standards to be shipped into different countries. Non-compliance can lead to delays and additional costs, making it an essential consideration from the early stages of product development.
How does the speaker address the importance of packaging in the context of system products?
-The speaker highlights the importance of packaging as it impacts customer experience and ecological responsibility. They encourage product managers to raise the bar on ecologically sound packaging and consider the environmental impact of single-use plastics.
What are some key learnings from the webinar regarding the management of system products?
-Key learnings include the need for months of upfront planning and alignment, the importance of user testing and understanding the target customers, the critical nature of compliance in product development, the necessity of managing the entire supply chain including forward and reverse logistics, and the continuous iteration and improvement of the product based on customer feedback.
Outlines
👋 Introduction to System Product Management
The speaker, Nit Ja, introduces himself as a Senior Product Manager at AWS and shares his career transition from an engineer to a product manager. He emphasizes the importance of gaining experience and finding the right fit, as he did with product management. The session aims to discuss system products, their planning, approval processes, development phases, and key learnings. Nit Ja also mentions his current work with AWS Snow Services and encourages interested individuals to connect with him on LinkedIn.
🤖 Understanding System Products and Their Complexity
This paragraph delves into what constitutes a system product, highlighting that it involves anything with an electronic component, such as smart locks or coffee makers. The uniqueness of system products is discussed, including the difficulty of pivoting from their original design, unlike software products. The paragraph also touches on the long development cycles and the iterative nature of hardware versus software, emphasizing the importance of clear communication and multi-disciplinary teamwork in managing system products.
💡 The Value of System Products and Customer Experience
Nit Ja explains the rationale behind building system products, focusing on the evolution of physical devices into smarter, networked devices that simplify customer experiences and foster brand loyalty. He discusses the importance of adding value and services to products to maintain customer engagement and extract maximum mileage from them, using Apple's ecosystem as an example of how services can subsidize hardware manufacturing.
🛠️ Planning and Metrics for System Product Development
The speaker outlines the planning process for system products, emphasizing the need for clear metrics to convince leadership of the investment's value. He discusses the three layers of system products: services, system software, and hardware, and the different levels of iteration possible at each layer. The importance of early planning, competitive analysis, and understanding customer commitment is highlighted, along with the strategic elements involved in product planning.
🔍 User Testing and Competitive Analysis in System Product Development
Nit Ja discusses the importance of user testing in the development of system products, especially with advancements in 3D printing that allow for more accurate feedback. He also talks about leveraging competitive analysis to set baseline specifications and focus on differentiating features. The paragraph underscores the need to manage time effectively and concentrate on value-added services to increase net margins.
🔧 Navigating Compliance and Packaging in System Product Launch
Compliance and packaging are crucial aspects of system product development that can impact schedules and planning. The speaker explains the need for compliance with electromagnetic interference and safety standards across different regions. He also addresses the ecological impact of packaging, advocating for reduced single-use plastic and more sustainable packaging options.
🚀 Managing Product Launch and Post-Launch Activities
The paragraph covers the complexities of managing a system product launch, including coordinating with various teams, ensuring device availability, and planning for customer demand. It also discusses the challenges of sustaining and scaling products post-launch, highlighting the importance of accurate demand forecasting and the implications of over- or underestimating market demand.
🔄 Continuous Improvement and Customer Feedback Post-Launch
After a product launch, product managers must continuously collect and curate customer feedback, addressing issues that are blockers and planning for future iterations. The speaker uses the example of Apple's antenna design changes to illustrate how customer feedback can lead to product improvements. The focus is on maintaining and enhancing the customer experience through ongoing product management.
📚 Key Learnings from System Product Management
The final paragraph summarizes key learnings from the webinar, emphasizing the importance of upfront planning, user testing, critical thinking about the product's forward and reverse logistics, and the high cost of deviating from specifications in system product management. The speaker advises product managers to focus on controllable aspects such as usability and packaging to improve customer experience.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡System Product
💡Product Manager (PM)
💡Hardware
💡Software
💡Firmware
💡Iterative Development
💡Compliance
💡Ecological Packaging
💡Value-Added Services
💡Logistics
💡Product Launch
Highlights
Introduction by Nit Janen, Senior Product Manager at AWS, outlining his career transition from engineering to product management.
Explanation of the lengthy R&D cycle at Intel and the desire to be closer to product development.
Discussion of the complexities involved in managing system products, including hardware, software, firmware, and applications.
Importance of clear initial product design to avoid costly deviations later in the development cycle.
Comparison of system products with software products, emphasizing the longer development cycles and the need for upfront capital.
Role of multi-disciplinary teams in system product development, involving hardware, software, mechanical, industrial design, packaging, legal, and accounting teams.
The necessity of compliance with regulations and standards, such as FCC in the USA and C from for European Union.
Challenges of iterative development in system products versus software products, and the importance of delivering a complete product to customers.
The strategic value of system products in building brand loyalty and ecosystem lock-in for customers.
Explanation of different layers in system products: services, system software, and hardware, and the varying levels of iteration possible in each layer.
Importance of early user testing and feedback, especially with advancements like 3D printing for accurate product prototypes.
Discussion on value-added services and how they enhance customer experience and increase net margins.
Critical phase of product launch planning, including coordination with manufacturers, event coordinators, and sales teams.
Sustaining and scaling a product post-launch, including managing inventory, customer feedback, and continuous improvement.
Final key learnings: the necessity of upfront planning, considering forward and reverse logistics, the high cost of deviations in system specifications, and focusing on controllable aspects like product usability and packaging.
Transcripts
hello and welcome to today's webinar on
building and managing system products my
name is nit ja nen and I'm a senior
product manager at
AWS before we dive into today's topic on
system product and what it is I wanted
to kind of give a background about my
experience as a product manager and how
my career transition happened as from an
engineer to a product
manager so my uh progression has been uh
pretty straightforward from engineering
to a PM but um it has been a slow one
and mainly because I was not clear
exactly what I wanted to be doing uh
early on in my career and I said gain
more experience it was um you know it
became apparent that product manager is
the right fit for me so I started out as
a software engineer uh in vro in 2004
and um you know I SP I was usually
writing cc++ code as for drivers on the
network systems uh for Telco companies
and then I felt that like you know I
needed to gain more expertise in the
side of systems engineering ing so I
came for my masters in electrical
engineering from University of Kentucky
and right out of college I joined Intel
uh in Labs as a systems researcher
focusing on Next Generation platforms
and um you know like mostly research on
power management architecture and
systems
design one of the things I realized I
spent over five years in inter laabs and
um the thing I realized during that time
is that the R&D cycle it's pretty long
like one of the invention from um you
know early on in my career to 9 uh made
it into laptops in 2013 and I felt that
that was a too long of a time uh to make
an impact and I so I wanted to be closer
to the product so I moved I became a
product architect in for laptop and the
desktop team for a while and I kind of
gained different uh perspectives on like
all the other elements that go along uh
with being building a product and I felt
that like U you know only at that time I
became aware of uh product manager as a
role and I started transitioning towards
a product manager like about five years
um you know after I became a product
architect and um when I left in when I
left Intel I was a um lead product
manager for the smart home team a couple
of products that we see below the inter
speech kit and the D plans was part of
that effort and I joined AWS in 2019 as
a product manager and uh I'm currently
with the snow Services team and the snow
service product as you see down
are rized Edge Computing boxes where you
can run Cloud workloads at the
disconnected and the raged Ed so um our
team is always hiring and looking for
talent if this is a domain that you are
interested in you know always feel free
to reach out to me on LinkedIn and would
love we talk with you now one of the
things I wanted to point it out is that
like when I started we didn't have um
you know the same amount of resources
and what is product management and what
you need to be doing and skills that you
need to acquire but now with facilities
such as product school you have lot more
uh you know information at your disposal
and like make use of that you know like
that's of an interest to
you all right today we're going to be
talking about system products what they
are how do you plan for it and you know
how do you get approval and things that
you need to focus on during the
development phase uh sustaining and like
um you know after you launch the product
what are the steps that you need to do
to sustain it and finally we'll bring it
all together with some key
learnings okay let's start with the
primer right what's the system product
for the sake of this particular
conversation and then let's take it
through
that for sake of this particular webinar
a system product is anything that has an
electronic component in it for instance
a smartlock uh smart coffee maker smart
car right anything that has a word smart
in it has an electronic comp of some
some sort so it is an assistant product
um so for instance like if you take a
smart lot it's got like you know embeded
systems in it it has to have Bluetooth
and like a security mechanism to ensure
your application communicates to it
securely and you can unlock it right so
all of that requires coordination
between Hardware software firmware and
an application and so that that makes it
a complex system prodct to
manage so what unique about a system
product right I don't always agree with
Dwight but in this case he's right with
respect to a system product because
privating to something else from its
original design is very hard you have to
be successful at the first account right
um so for instance like slack started
out as a me as a gaming platform and it
became an Enterprise messaging platform
you cannot do that with a system prodct
more often than not right uh a coffee
maker will always stay a coffee maker
and you no matter what smartness you add
to it you know um you cannot change it
to something else so you have to be very
clear as a PM that like the product that
you're building is meeting the
customer's needs and it is and it is
being operated in its primary form of
use all right other things to consider
usually anything that has Hardware in it
you know it's a long development cycle
we are talking like you know one year is
an aggressive timeline usually takes
longer than one year because you have
you know the hardware team has to go
scope out uh what the architecture is go
through multiple iterations and things
like that so there is another key
difference when it compared to a
software product is that like you know
software product is built in an
iterative Manner and you have mechanisms
to like you know release it periodically
Alpha Beta And you can test out with MVP
with the customers and it trade so you
are showing progress along the way uh
that you are continuous continually you
know heading towards the goal with
respect to Hardware product right or a
system product in this case you don't
actually deliver anything to the
customer till it is finally ready so it
might mean up to a year or a year and a
half of no deliverables to the customer
and so that makes it a little harder
from a PM point of view that you have to
keep communicating with both the
management level as well as with the
rest of the teams on where you are
progressing what the blockers are what
your current goal post is so the
communication is key uh from a PM point
of view and another thing uh is that
like you know system teams are usually
multi-disciplinary it and it is by
nature you know usually a larger team
because you have to consider multiple
software hardware and firmware teams and
then you have to consider mechanical
industrial design uh packaging legal
accounting and then like you know
thermal teams are to be involved and
finally like user experience which ties
in a lot of those things together uh so
from a management point of view because
you have multiple stakeholders all all
of the streams needs to be managed and
any blockers needs to be
mitigated this brings to the point to
the left that we are any system product
development is going to require a large
uppr uh Capital expense you have to put
in millions of dollars to your odm first
of all the odms have to agree to build
it and and they have to have the
timeline that matches with their plans
and then you also have to pay money to
make sure that they have the assembly
line free and you have to pay for the
labor and packaging testing compliance
all of that requires money right so you
have to have show the value proposition
that like building this product is going
to you know provide much larger uh you
know monitor gain to the organization
than otherwise which is why like system
products are almost always a core
competency for a for a particular
company if a company is not used to
building system products uh you know
like uh getting and venturing into a
system product where you know area is
always
challenging as you may have surmised
right um I trative development on the
system level is going to be hot for for
instance let's take a car right like so
when a when a car you know goes out of
the parking lot it needs to have the
minimum set of capabilities uh from a
system point of view there are value
added services like you know are you can
change the audio firmware like you know
uh for instance the camera firmware and
stuff like that but the core
foundational uh specifications of the
car needs to be there the first time it
rolls out but you do have the uh you
know ability to itrade over generations
for instance like consider the first
iPod it had those you know like wheel
that you had it had no display and it
was you know quite bulky and over a
period of years you know they you add
they you know Apple added an
an LCD screen a touch screen it had the
ability to zoom in they added Bluetooth
and finally when it ended up in iPod
touch it was almost similar to a you
know like a smartphone in capability so
you can always iterate and improve your
product over like many generations but
each one of those Generations like you
know you have uh certain constraints
that you have to adad
to all right so finally right so we all
those constraint
cons you know considering all of those
constraints that I mentioned why are we
building the system products then right
uh it's because um if you look at the
physical manifestation of all the you
know products that are around us almost
all of them are evolving into some kind
of a smarter device your refrigerators
are becoming smarter your microwave OV
is smarter now like you know so are like
washing machines and all the ones which
are physic just physical mechanical
things are now becoming electronic comp
components the reason for doing that is
that you know you're you're bringing in
more value and you're all networked and
it it it simplifies customers experience
of managing them and uh you know
building you know building those brand
loyalty for instance if you're building
um you know like a computer platform
customers keep that for like about four
to five years and it's starting to push
towards six years during those six years
you have the customers mindset you can
sell additional services on top and they
have more familiar with your ecosystem
and as you start adding more services
you know your W your your solution
becomes a wall garden and customer
continues to look for the same kind of
um you know platform again and again
like for instance between the windows
ecosystem the Apple ecosystem and the
Android ecosystem you can see that
people who are more familiar with a
certain ecosystem continue to look out
for the same uh kind of products right
so that builds a lasting brand loyalty
and also it builds a mode customers data
once it is in a specific uh you know
like a wall card and they don't want to
move around right so I think having that
um platform keeps the customer engaged
for a long period of time so then now
you can start focusing on how do I bring
in more value uh so that like customers
stay in that and you can extract most
mileage out of the customers um you know
like M
share
all right so we have we have talked
about some of the uniqueness of uh the
system product side now we are going to
be talking about like how how do you
plan for these products what are so that
like you know you can have the right set
of metrics that you can convince the
leadership that uh investing on it is
the right
idea a system product at high level has
like you know three layers right you
have the services and you have the
system software which includes the OS
kernels dri drivers the firmware the
bias uh the EC that's on the platform
and then the hardware itself right so
each of them have different levels of
iterations possible like Hardware has
the lowest level of iteration and it
starts very early so you have to uh you
know set the specifications to maybe you
start with a very high level
specifications and then you quickly
narrow down to the key elements that you
need for instance whether you need Wi-Fi
Bluetooth other radios and uh you know
like things like that needs to be
settled so early on so that you can set
the appropriate system software right
and system software you do have the
ability to iterate a little bit more you
for instance you might have started out
with ubun to 18 as your uh you know
initial launching OS but by the time it
gets towards the launch you can
potentially say like I'm going to move
to 20 because it's got the latest
security features it supports Python 3
for instance and stuff like that on the
services layer you have a lot more uh
degrees of freedom you can itate a lot
more uh you know you can launch the
product and as long as there is a
mechanism to update your firmware and
system software and services you can
always push over the air updates so
thinking about this in different uh you
know different layers and where you can
iterate more and where you cannot helps
you plan for it depending on which
planning cycle you are early on I focus
more on hardware and setting the right
specs and then system software next and
then the services the last
all right the product planning for a
system product is very similar to that
of a software system as well I think
there are just few things to take into
account is that because it's a you know
a physical product you will have to put
something in front of the customer that
that is representative of your final
product and then get feedback from there
right and you have very um smaller
number of iterations here because your
Hardware team needs to finalize all the
mechanical and Industrial and thermal
needs so you don't have the luxury of
continuously Gathering feedback like for
instance like you know continuous
discovery which teres or Tes is talking
about you don't have that capability uh
with respect to system
product for competitive lens here it's
more a strategic element right you're
always almost always customer Centric
but you also keep an eye on the
competitive lens and help s you know set
some of the baselines uh easily for
instance if you have a product and there
is a you know like a comparative product
in the market you don't need to validate
every single element you can kind of
like know what customers are familiar
with and set those Baseline
specifications which might include the
CPU the memory uh you know like the form
factor size and things like that and
then you can focus on the core um you
know like areas that are important to
you and that that differentiates your
product as well so you know spending
more time on things that are that are
differentiating to your product is more
valuable to you than trying to focus on
things that are not
differentiated and the one other piece
which is very critical to a uh system
product compared to a software one is
the customer commitment right because
you are asking for upfront Capital your
leadership needs to see that where does
this product run in the market so you
have to go talk to your customers
identify your segments where who are
your key customers personas and see
whether you can actually like get uh
customers to pay for them essentially
with the m us or whether it's purchase
orders from large retail places like
Costco or Target so having those kind of
uh you know like uh purchase orders
agreements of some kind almost always
justifies the need to uh invest money up
front
right all right I touched upon the user
testing a little uh in the previous
slide so essentially our life has gotten
much easier with the 3D printing
capability so in the past you almost
always had a foam or a cardboard markup
of your particular product and the
interaction with it was not exactly like
you know matching and so what you can do
now is you can print out uh 3D print
your form factor in multiple different
shapes uh different screen sizes for
instance and get an accurate feedback
from customers look and feel the weight
doesn't match with the customer's
estimation and you can you know you can
estimate that into your final
specification I think the key Point as I
mentioned before is that you do not have
too many iterations of this so you can
do potentially like one or two or three
Cycles maybe right but you don't you
cannot do this throughout the life of
your product you have to do this early
on in the planning phase so that like
you know your specifications are set
your dimensions are set so that the
mechanical team the industrial design
team and the user experience Team all of
them know what they are expecting and
start working on the actual
implementation of
it and the competitive lens is also
another thing we talked about like for
instance if you are a PM uh for the
first generation iPhone you don't
actually go and like validate all the
all the basic uh requirements right you
can look at your comparative product in
this case an n95 series they have a
color display they have a facing camera
and then they had led for like brighter
uh pictures and a central button to
manage the calls they potentially had
touch touch but it was more resistive
touch than capacitive touch
but I think that is the key point is
that you can you know uh the basic call
Quality requirements that was expected
the battery life the you know the
durability of the product so you can try
to uh you know like collect all of those
metrics and add your system spec very
easily and and that frees up the time
for you to go focus on the value added
piece in this case for an iPhone
essentially the app ecosystem and the
usability of the product right so once
you have uh you know time is a precious
resource for PMS as for everybody else
so focusing on the right elements with
respect to your system product is going
to be the key don't waste time uh you
know trying to reinvent the wheel on
things that you can easily collect from
uh the marketplace focus on the things
where the marketplace is not giving you
that
feedback so this is a very critical
piece for um system product and it's
becoming more and more apparent uh to me
when looking at uh you know our current
list of offerings everywhere is that you
need to add value added Services onto
your product like think of your product
as a platform and which stays with the
customer for a long period of time and
like if you can add value added services
on top of your product you have the
ability to increase your overall net
margin for your product as a whole and
it also helps drisk your Hardware
development cost for instance like
consider this coffee maker right a cury
coffee maker usually sits on your
kitchen it does its job of like you know
brewing coffee for you every day but on
the uh now if you add a service of a
smart auto delivery of like you know
different flavored coffee cups to you uh
you're first you're adding more value to
the customer now customer is like you
know has a better experience using your
product but and on from your point of
view you are actually bringing in more
Revenue to your overall business line
and because your service service product
always has you know better margins than
a system product your overall net margin
improves another Case Case point is that
um you know Apple for instance they have
like multiple ecosystem or physical
products Mac uh you know the Mac for
iPhones and the SmartWatches and their
services line which includes the iTunes
and like you know the app ecosystem
brings in about 20% of the revenue that
20% with high margins actually helps
them subsidize their um you know
Hardware manufacturing and helps them
maintain the high bar with respect to
the uh you know physical device
manufacturing so almost always think
about uh any value added services that
you can bring to the customer onto your
platform
so now you have completed the product
planning and you have got an approval
from your leadership and you know from a
PM point of view this is a critical
phase where you have to actually put
them all together and make sure that it
works as per your
plan from a product development point of
view uh you have to manage multiple
streams because system products as I
mentioned is a multi-disciplinary effort
right and it's a long period of time uh
to manage that and so from um I remember
at one point when I was managing a
system product there were like 20
different work streams like imagine in a
software side you have the OS you have
the K you have the uh driver team and
then you have the SDK and you have the
applications layer and services teams
that you have to interact with and you
have the hardware team the firmware uh
buyers EC so you you can imagine like 20
25 uh streams that you have to uh you
know continuously keep track the the key
elements that you have to uh focus on is
that like you know you start with
a developer platform Dev Board of some
kind and then you use the EVT which is
the eval kit where all the hardware
software and firmware comes together do
some initial testing and then the DVT
comes in which is a developer platform
which is all the developer extensions to
it and then finally the pvt is a
representation of your final product and
this is where you integrate all your
base software hardware and firmware are
making uh working together and you know
if any issues are uncovered at this
stage you have to go back and go fix
them and because after this point any
change to your Hardware or your system
is actually going to be very expensive
right so pvt exit is going to be a key
milestone for you to track and you will
have uh you know other stuff like
mechanical thermals uh compliance
packaging so there is uh you can imagine
like 15 20 streams easily and from when
I was managing a you know like products
like this usually run like a weekly or a
bi-weekly Cadence meeting with different
stakeholders and identify potential
blockers and me you know you know
identify different mitigation steps and
you also need to communicate to
leadership where you are progressing
along your path right and that's going
to be the key because your team needs
that visibility on where you're going
and how you are doing and so does your
leadership and because you don't have
any you know like customer facing
deliverable for a at least a year you
have to do this uh
proactively all right so I wanted to
touch upon compliance because it's
little bit you know it goes under the
radar uh but it it has an impact on your
schedule and your planning right you
cannot ship a device into a country
without getting uh compliant
certificates from that if it's a system
product all electronic components needs
to be fully tested and the reason for
doing that is that like you know our
devices are fundamentally noisy with
respect to electromagnetic radiation and
we are R you know all the devices are
radiating energy and they have to be
within a specification so that like you
don't cause physical harm to somebody
who's has let's say for instance a heart
maker and like too much interference you
know interferes with that device uh
sorry pacemaker I mean um so essentially
like you know you USA has the FCC
without getting fcc's compliance you
will not be able to ship a product to
USA a production prodct same thing for
Canada C from for European union and
that's a different ball game altogether
Japan requires that like you have to do
the testing in their country using their
lab right and those are just the
compliant for electromagnetic
interference but then there is the
safety standards which is the UL to make
sure that you're not using unsafe
chemicals on your product and Ro has to
ensure that you're are not using
products that are F foundationally
damaging to the environment um so almost
always you will be using a third party
for this third party who specializes in
compliance and they take your product
run through compliance and the the big
issue is that if they do identify a
potential issue you have to go back and
like uh you know come back with steps to
mitigate it like in case like uh if you
ever wondered what this big cylindrical
blob that is attached to your wire those
are called ferite chokes and their
primary purpose is to reduce high
frequency noise on the cables so think
of your cables as giant antennas that's
radiating all electromagnetic signals so
you add these fite chokes to attenuate
those signals so that like your system
is compant any system that you are
sending a you know a system that has a
charger a battery your compliance
complications have increased
significantly so you need to plan for it
from the beginning this is not something
that you can uh add on to your product
later on compliance needs to be foremost
if you're are actually like launching a
product
anywhere another element is the
packaging side you know usually we don't
talk about it but all of us experience
this on a you know like a regular basis
and this has an impact on customers
experience because this is the first
thing they get to encounter and it also
is a passionate uh effort of M is like
you know to we need to reduce uh
single-use plastic in our packaging
because it grinds my gears for instance
on the right hand side like the Lego
pieces there are like a zillion
single-use plastic bags where you put
like another small plastic parts in
there and and immediately after you open
the packaging you discard all of those
plastic and they end up in a landfill on
the other hand like you know look at
like iPad um the seventh generation iPad
which I recently bought they had I
counted like one single use plastic that
was around the charger everything else
was cardboard or recyclable parts and no
matter how nice of a finish it is you
still going throw away the packaging uh
so I would say like as PMS we have to
raise the bar on ecologically sound and
sensitive uh you know like product
packaging for us of course anytime you
go into like you know non-plastic
related packaging mechanisms it almost
always adds cost right but then um you
know you there are there are other
avenues for recuperating that than uh
you know using single use Plastics that
are potentially damaging into the
environment okay so finally you know you
have done with the development it's been
a year and a half since you started it
you got the approval you provided all
the updates to the leadership your
product is ready to go to the market
right so what we think what everyone
thinks we do versus what we really do
will be totally different because at the
time of launch you know you have to make
sure that like the customers are able to
order the devices uh on the of the
launch and your key customers have prior
access with respect to private previews
or betas so that you get you know early
feedback on how your product is doing
and anything things that you can fix you
can focus on fixing them so not just
with on the day of the launch you will
have to coordinate with the event
coordinators the product marketing the
sales team so that like all your funnel
is primed so it's a lot of activity from
a PM point of view the main one is that
like you have to tell your manufacturers
how many devices that you need at the
day of the launch and where they are
going to be stored so that like if
anybody is ordering you know on the day
of the launch they look at your
announcement you have you make sure that
they can get a device because you want
to you want to get early adopters
devices and then they can use that to
spread word of the mouth good media
coverage and all of that and you have to
plan this months in advance you start
with the launch dat work backwards and
say identify how much lead time it is to
man manufactur part and then like you
know work with the odms give them the
appropriate amount of manufacturing
guidance and you know like essentially
making sure that the entire process is
tracked as you can imagine you have to
do all of this while you are planning a
product development May with multiple uh
things that you're tracking things can
fall through the crack uh so almost
always uh you know planning for product
launch ahead of time is going to make
sure that you have a successful launch
while the product launch and development
phase is almost you know it feels
rewarding on the day of the launch it
almost feels like you have you had a big
accomplishment from your point of view
as well as the team's point of view the
sustaining of a product and scaling it
with customers is a lot harder and it is
also like you know it goes on for years
right um as a PM our job is to kind of
look into our crystal ball and estimate
where how much how the product is going
to be doing in the market
you have a certain estimates on how many
customers are going to be buying at the
day of the launch one month in three
months in you know like 12 months in and
you have to give those numbers to your
manufacturing partners and also to your
Logistics team because they have to
store these devices and they have to
ship them to the customer and
so if you are wrong in either direction
there is implications like for instance
like let's say you project like 50,000
units on the day of the launch and all
of a sudden there is a 100,000 customers
who want to buy it you can only fill
50,000 orders and then the remaining
50,000 customers where they will have to
wait till newe Parts can be manufactured
which is a good problem to have but
except for the current circumstances
where like the lead time to procure uh
silicon components is like up to two
years these days like there are entire
automobile factories who are not uh
running because there are no silicon
pots right so meaning your 50,000
customers who are who placed on the
launch day they might actually have to
wait up to a year right depending on
which product that you are building so
they this has made uh you know life as a
product manager very hard so if you are
wrong in one side uh you will completely
lose customer uh you know like mind
share because they will they will not
wait for a year or maybe even two years
for that this the flip side to that is
that if you are overly optimistic and
customer demand is not there you have
this volume of inventory that is sitting
in your warehouse and depreciating on a
daily basis and that hits your bottom
line so we as a PM we have to walk this
narrow line and we also almost always
has this 20 to 30% scope of going up or
down uh so that like you know if it goes
above that window or below that window
you are can you can adjust the materials
right so for instance like I think the
perfect example would be like Amazon
launched Kindle in 2007 and the original
Kindle sold off in I think it's 2004 I
believe uh the original Kindle sold off
in 5 hours right and then the customer
had to wait for like at least like you
know six weeks before they can get the
other one on the other hand when Amazon
launched the firep phone in
2014 they had like projected like you
know thousands hundreds of thousands of
devices and like customers were not
coming in and they you know the
optimistic look was sorry the
pessimistic look was even uh you know
much lower more than that they had to
write up1 140 million $170 million of
inventory in six months after launch so
you have to be walking the tight rope of
between like being uh you know adjusting
between like optimistic and pessimistic
and continuously adjusting your signals
and and there is another thing is that
like after let's say like after the year
of your product launch your adoption
will hit a steady state and like after a
while like it starts
dropping so you have to keep giving
signals
to your odm so that like your device
volumes are
appropriate okay so um this is another
piece where like anytime you are
planning for uh devices they need to be
stored somewhere and they need to be uh
you know shipped to the customer that's
one side that's a forward side you have
to look at the end to end what happens
from the time the customer places the
order to the time when the customer
receives the uh you know product and
vice versa also like what happens if the
customer is not happy for whatever
reason the system is broken they ship it
back to you you have to store it and you
have to either repair it or restock it
recycle it so there is you know the
forward and the reverse Logistics is
something that you have to plan uh ahead
of time this is not something you uh you
know you you can jump up it after you
launch a product this has to be planned
from uh you know the first early uh
definitions of your system architecture
you will know how much what will be the
you know like space that your product
will be taking so you will know how much
warehouse space you will need for the
time of launch and your Peak and you
know potentially like look for labor
cost and account for all of this in your
pricing model so this is going to you
know essentially like it depends on
industry on the on the computer industry
you usually take 20% of your inventory
it's pretty I mean it's it's still very
high you can assume like up to 20% of
your inventory can be returned from the
customers or repaired or recycled or
broken for that matter right and you
have to assume if it's cars are like you
know industries that is well established
it's less than 2% or some you know it
depends on which industry it is but
almost always accounting for forward and
reverse Logistics into your uh you know
pricing model and your p&l is going to
be the
key so this is um the last file that I
have is that like you know as your
product is in the hands of the customers
they are going to be keep uh they're
going to be like you know interacting
with it you are going to be getting
feedback both positive and negative and
as a PM our job is to continuously Cate
them right you can imagine where H you
know Steve is coming from here because
like they spend millions of I mean
billions of dollars almost with
thousands of people working on this
product and customers are holding this
device in a very specific way and the
call at inovation I mean the antenna at
inovation increases and the call drops
and it's you know it is a very specific
problem only if you hold it in one
particular way so now what do you do to
tell your customers is like just don't
hold it like that right like because is
it a blocker for the customer or is it a
nice to have but I mean to Apple's
credit they have taken that feedback and
they continuously fixed it so but iPhone
5 didn't have the same problem they made
different antenna choices um so I think
that's the you know like an evolving job
from a you know product manager point of
view for managing your product collect
feedback curate them continuously
identify which are blockers which are
not blockers things there are there may
be things that you may be able to fix in
software there are things you may not be
able to fix in software those are system
dependent you focus on iterating on Next
Generation but overall like maintaining
and curating this list is a foundational
job for a
p all right so finally let's just bring
it all together with some key learnings
that we have learned during this
particular
webinar system products require months
of upfront planning and Alignment from
leadership right you need to make sure
your leadership is fully aware of why
you are building it and what's your
potential benefit and like how many
services that you're going to be adding
to your platform and things like that
and what's your PO you know net margin
profit opportunity everything and you
also have to spend months ahead of time
with respect to user testing you know
like who your key Target customers are
competitive environment all of
that and PMs have to think critically
forward and backwards about your product
meaning what happens from the time when
the customer places the order to the uh
time when it is received by the customer
and what happens if they are not happy
they're returning it back you have to
have Logistics manage
everything so the number three I think
we it's very clear um is that like you
you are once the specs are finalized any
deviation in plan is expensive mainly on
the system side right anything that
involves the hardware OS form whereare
changing them is much harder as you and
the services side you know you have a
lot more freedom uh to kind of adjust
them around so making sure that you are
building the right thing and setting the
specifications early on is going to be
the key and finally uh we didn't have a
chance to discuss a lot uh but focus on
the things that you control typ
uh you know and you're you're keeping
the eye on it for for example as PMS we
manage the product usability you can
absolutely almost always control that to
a tighter extent than to a system
specifications for that matter like
product packaging is another one right
there are things that we have more
control and focus on that and focus on
how you can use that to improve the
customers experience on your product
with that I conclude today's webinar it
was always great talking to you and if
you have any questions almost you know
feel free to reach out on LinkedIn thank
you
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