Product Maturity

To help us to understand how mature a product of ours is, we define several aspects of documentation a successful product needs to have. Each product is assessed against these definitions like a checklist.

We keep the assessment internal, it’s available in our Wiki under Product Maturity Assessment.

Basics

Product Vision

We have a well-defined vision for the product in our company handbook. It must describe the idea and where we want to go with this product.

Implementation

The product is actually implemented and can be used by customers and VSHNeers:

  • A well-defined value stream team takes care of it

  • A product owner is assigned

  • Technical documentation is available

Business and Growth

Existing Customers

The product has existing customers actively using it any are paying for the usage.

Pricing Model and Automated Billing

A price model is described in our product documentation. Internal documentation is available, describing for example how discounting works or how the cost structure looks like. Billing is fully automated for the product, according to its pricing model.

Investment Budget

We have an investment budget defined for the further progress of the product.

Business Plan

A business plan is available for the product, discussing the following points:

  • Market demand

  • Goals

  • ROI

Cost/Revenue Transparency

We have full transparency over the costs for running and developing the product, and we know about the exact revenue of it. Reporting is fully automated, no manual process is involved to get the transparency.

Sales Material

Sales materials are available, which help a salesperson qualify potential customers for the product.

Marketing

Customer Journey

The customer journey is worked out, properly documented and kept up-to-date.

Personas

The personas for the product are properly defined and documented, including a "Pains and Gains" analysis which is kept up-to-date.

Sales Website

A sales website is available which describes the product matching the target personas.

Detailed Product Description

The detailed product description is available in our product documentation website.

Advertisement

Advertisement is being made for the product, for example Ads on various places or by attending conferences and talking about it.

Analytics

Analytics for the product website and customer journey materials to continuously analyze where visitors are finding our product, what steps/materials in the customer journey they consume, and to iterate our marketing based on this information.