The success of a product is directly related to how a company listens to its customers, synthesizes the “big market picture” and corporate strategy into the product development process. IdeaScope™ and FeaturePlan are the software tools that complement each other in the various stages of the product management process.
As a customer feedback management system, IdeaScope collects feedback from customers, which is then brought into FeaturePlan and analyzed among the nine other types of market input, including enhancement requests, win/loss reports, competitive analysis, call reports, and market research, among others. Once all the information is analyzed and product requirements are defined within FeaturePlan, IdeaScope allows selected product stakeholders to monitor, validate and prioritize these product requirements.
FeaturePlan gives product management the tools to automate the data collection process and make sense of the flood of market inputs. It provides the essential tools to gather data, analyze and synthesize complex data relationships to define problem statements, prioritize and communicate requirements, plan releases and produce roadmaps for a complete product portfolio.
A product manager for a software company gathers product and market information on a continuous basis. The collection of market data is automated and centralized within FeaturePlan. The product manager then may collect contextual feedback and engage other product stakeholders by providing an IdeaScope link to them. More customer ideas are collected and moved back into FeaturePlan. Having the data centralized in one place makes it easy to synthesize the “big market picture” and identify the common market problems to derive the right business and user requirements.
Using IdeaScope in conjunction with FeaturePlan, the product manager calls upon the product stakeholders to validate and rank the problem statements, requirements and features. This keeps a close, two-way communication throughout the process, ensuring that their voices do not go into a proverbial black hole. Using IdeaScope, the product manager can view the ranking as determined by the stakeholder community.
With IdeaScope and FeaturePlan in place, roadmaps and release plans include the integration of customer feedback into the product management process. No more product development based on gut feel or the ideas of a few people. The product management process is validated at every step by product stakeholders and market data, and development is prioritized accordingly. Ultimately, the company develops a product aligned with what the market wants.
