Webinar: How to Build & Manage a System Product by Amazon Sr PM
Summary
TLDR今回のウェビナーでは、システム製品の構築と管理について学ぶことができます。Nit Janen氏は、エンジニアからプロダクトマネージャーにキャリアを転換する経験を共有し、システム製品の複雑性や開発サイクル、競争分析、顧客コミットメント、そして製品の持続性とスケーリングについて解説します。ハードウェアやソフトウェア、システムソフトウェアの3層構造と、それぞれのイテレーションレベルを説明。さらに、製品開発の過程で重要な要素や、市場投入時とその後の顧客フィードバックの収集と対応方法についても触れています。
Takeaways
- 🚀 システム製品とは、電子部品を含むもので、スマートロックやスマートコーヒーメーカー、スマートカーなどが該当します。
- 🔄 システム製品の開発は、ハードウェア、ソフトウェア、ファームウェア、アプリケーションの間で調整が必要であり、複雑な製品管理になります。
- 📈 システム製品は、製品マネージャーが顧客のニーズに合致し、主要な使用形態で運用されることを明確にする必要があります。
- 🔄 システム製品の開発サイクルは長いものがあり、1年以下の期間は攻撃的なタイムラインと見なされます。
- 💡 システム製品は、ソフトウェア製品とは異なり、顧客に最終的に製品を提供するまでに長期間無駄な成果物が見られないことがあります。
- 🌐 システム製品チームは、多くの場合、複数の分野の専門家で構成される多岐にわたるチームです。
- 💰 システム製品の開発には、大量の資本支出が必要なため、製品の価値提案を明確にし、組織にとって大きな利益を得られることを示す必要があります。
- 🔧 システム製品は、製品の進化や機能の追加を通じて、顧客への価値を提供し続けることが重要です。
- 📦 パッケージングは顧客体験に影響を与えるため、環境に優しいパッケージングを検討し、プラスチック使用量を減らす取り組みが必要です。
- 📈 システム製品の計画と開発では、品質の向上、顧客のニーズへの対応、競合環境の分析など、幅広い要素を考慮する必要があります。
- 🔄 システム製品のライフサイクルを管理するためには、製品の開発から市場投入後のサポートまで、継続的なフィードバック収集と改善が必要です。
Q & A
システム製品とは何ですか?
-システム製品とは、電子部品を含むもので、例えばスマートロック、スマートコーヒーメーカー、スマートカーなどが該当します。これらの製品はハードウェア、ソフトウェア、ファームウェア、アプリケーションとの協調が必要です。
システム製品の開発において、ハードウェアとソフトウェアの開発サイクルの違いは何ですか?
-ハードウェアの開発サイクルは比較的長いです。1年未満の開発サイクルは攻撃的であり、通常は1年以上かかります。一方、ソフトウェア製品は反復的な方法で開発され、期間的にリリースされ、MVPで顧客とテストできます。
システム製品のプラットフォームとして追加されるサービスの価値は何ですか?
-システム製品のプラットフォームにサービスを追加することで、顧客体験の簡素化、ブランド忠誠度の向上、そして収益の増加が期待できます。また、ハードウェア開発コストを削減する助けとなります。
システム製品の開発において、リバースロジスティクスとは何を指しますか?
-リバースロジスティクスとは、顧客が製品を返品した場合や修理、再在庫、リサイクルが必要な場合の物流プロセスを指します。これは製品開発の最初の段階から計画する必要があり、後から追加することはできません。
システム製品の開発で直面するコンプライアンス問題とは何ですか?
-コンプライアンス問題とは、製品が各国の規制や安全基準に適合していることを確認するプロセスです。例えば、FCCやUL、RoHSなどの規制に適合させる必要があります。これに違反すると、製品の出荷が遅れ、コストが増加する可能性があります。
システム製品の開発において、エビデンスギャップを埋めるためにPMがすべきことは何ですか?
-PMは、市場から得られるフィードバックを焦点として、時間とリソースを有効に使用する必要があります。市場が提供していないフィードバックや顧客のニーズに焦点を当て、システム製品を改善することで、エビデンスギャップを埋めることができます。
システム製品の開発において、ユーザーテストの役割は何ですか?
-ユーザーテストは、製品の最終的な形態を顧客に提示し、フィードバックを得ることによって役立ちます。これにより、製品の仕様、寸法、外観、重さなどを調整し、最終仕様を設定できます。また、ユーザーテストは計画段階の早期に行われることが重要です。
システム製品の成功を維持するために、PMが継続的にすることは何ですか?
-システム製品の成功を維持するために、PMは顧客からのフィードバックを収集し、分析し、改善策を立てることが必要です。また、次期製品へのイテレーションや製品のサポートとスケーリングにも力を入れる必要があります。
システム製品の開発で Esto が重要な原因是什么ですか?
-Esto は、製品の計画段階で重要なハードウェア仕様を早期に設定し、製品の成功を保証する上で重要な役割を果たします。これにより、製品が顧客のニーズに合致し、主要な使用形態で機能することを確認できます。
システム製品の開発において、製造業者と連携するために必要なことは何ですか?
-製造業者と連携するためには、製品の需要予測、生産指示の提供、納品スケジュールの調整などが必要です。また、製品の品質やコンプライアンスに関する問題を解決するために、製造業者と密接に協力することも重要です。
Outlines
🌟 序論と個人のキャリア体験
このセッションでは、AWSの高級プロダクトマネージャーであるNit Janen氏が、システム製品の構築と管理について語ります。彼は自分のキャリアについても触れ、ソフトウェアエンジニアからプロダクトマネージャーにまで進化した経験を共有します。彼は、システムエンジニアリングの専門知識を身につけ、Intelでシステム研究者として働くことで、徐々に製品マネージャーとしての役割に適していることに気づくまで進んでいます。
🔧 システム製品の特徴と計画
システム製品とは、電子部品を含むものであり、スマートロックやスマートコーヒーメーカー、スマートカーなどが該当します。これらの製品は、ハードウェア、ソフトウェア、ファームウェア、アプリケーションの間で調整が必要であり、複雑なシステム製品となります。製品マネージャーとして、製品が顧客のニーズに合致していることや、主要な使用方法で動作することを明確にすることが必要です。また、ハードウェアを含むため、開発サイクルが長く、1年は攻撃的なタイムラインとなり、通常1年以上かかることがあります。
🛠️ 製品開発の計画と実施
システム製品の計画と開発は、ソフトウェア製品と同様に進められますが、物理的な製品であるため、顧客に代表的な最終製品を提示し、フィードバックを得る必要があります。ハードウェアチームが機械的、工業設計、熱的ニーズを最終化させる必要があるため、反復の繰り返しは非常に少なくなります。また、競争のレンズも戦略的な要素となり、顧客中心であるとともに、競合他社を注視する必要があります。
💡 価値を追加するサービスと製品の持続性
システム製品を構築することで、より多くの価値を提供し、顧客の体験を簡素化することができます。例えば、コンピュータプラットフォームを構築すると、顧客は約4~6年間保有し、その間に追加のサービスを販売することができます。これにより、顧客はあなたの生態系に慣れ、同じようなプラットフォームを繰り返し探求し、ブランド忠誠度を向上させることができます。また、サービスを追加することで、製品の総利益を向上させ、ハードウェア開発コストを削減することができます。
🚀 製品の開発から市場投入まで
製品の開発が完了し、リーダーシップからの承認を得た後、製品マネージャーは計画をまとめて正確に実行する必要があります。システム製品は多岐にわたる努力であり、長い期間をかけて管理する必要があります。開発キットを使い、初期テストを行い、問題が発見された場合は修正する必要があります。また、製品の最終的な形を確定し、すべてのベースソフトウェア、ハードウェア、ファームウェアが連携することを確認する必要があります。
🔄 市場投入後の製品維持とスケーリング
市場投入後、製品マネージャーは顧客からのフィードバックを収集し、問題を特定し、解決策を見つける必要があります。製品の採用が安定状態に達した後、顧客からのフィードバックを継続的に分析し、必要に応じてソフトウェアを更新することが重要です。また、製品の返金や修理、リサイクルなど、顧客が製品を返送する可能性があることを考慮し、事前に物流計画を立てることが必要です。
📌 重要な学びとまとめ
システム製品には多くの前期計画と調整が必要です。リーダーシップがなぜ製品を構築し、どのような利益を提供するかを理解することが重要です。また、製品マネージャーは、顧客が注文した際から製品を受け取るまで、そして返金する可能性がある場合の物流を考慮しなければなりません。仕様が確定された後、プランからの逸脱は高価になるため、正確に製品を構築することが重要です。そして、製品の使いやすさやパッケージングなど、製品マネージャーがコントロールできる側面に焦点を当てることが、顧客体験を向上させるために重要です。
Mindmap
Keywords
💡システム製品
💡製品マネージャー
💡ハードウェア
💡開発サイクル
💡多岐にわたるチーム
💡リソース
💡市場投入
💡顧客体験
💡競合分析
💡価値追加サービス
Highlights
The webinar focuses on building and managing system products, with the speaker sharing their transition from an engineer to a product manager.
The speaker's career progression from software engineer to product manager was gradual and involved gaining experience in various engineering fields.
The realization that product management was the right fit came after working in systems research and product architecture.
System products are complex, involving coordination between hardware, software, firmware, and applications.
System products are challenging to pivot from their original design, unlike software products.
Long development cycles are typical for system products, often taking over a year due to hardware and architecture considerations.
The speaker emphasizes the importance of communication for product managers, especially during the long development phases of system products.
System product development requires significant capital expense and multi-disciplinary teams.
The evolution of physical products into smarter devices is driven by the desire to add value and simplify customer experience.
Building system products can lead to brand loyalty and long-term customer engagement through added services and ecosystem familiarity.
The planning for system products involves understanding the layers of services, system software, and hardware, each with different levels of iteration.
User testing with 3D printing has made it easier to gather accurate feedback from customers regarding the form factor and look and feel of products.
Compliance with various international standards is critical and often requires third-party testing, which can impact the schedule and planning of system products.
The product launch phase requires careful coordination with manufacturers, marketing, and sales teams to ensure a successful launch and availability of products.
After the launch, product managers must focus on sustaining the product, scaling with customer demand, and managing both forward and reverse logistics.
Continuously curating customer feedback and iterating on the product is a foundational job for product managers in the long term.
The webinar concludes with key learnings, emphasizing the importance of upfront planning, critical thinking, and focusing on controllable aspects of system products.
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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