Creating Market Requirement
Documents That Get Used
April 2004 - BEK Best Practices Newsletter
Metrics are part of our everyday life. We
measure our bank accounts, heart rates, and weight, as
well as gas mileage and stock funds. Without metrics we
cannot track our performance. Yet so many of us don't track
key marketing metrics that let us know how well our products
and our companies are (or aren't) performing.
As you prepare to launch a new product, you
need to write a market requirements document (MRD). But
do you know what information should be included in an MRD?
Are you writing market requirement documents, or is engineering
just documenting their work, hoping that it meets the needs
of your customers? Does the entire company use your requirement
documents, or do they just collect dust? If organizations
and groups such as engineering, marketing, training, documentation,
and manufacturing aren't using your MRD, do you know how
to make it more appealing and useful?
What is a Market
Requirement Document?
You can think of an MRD as a mini-business plan for a product.
It details the business opportunities and challenges as
well as defining the product requirements and why customers
want those features. It shows product strategy beyond the
current release. Included is the target market and why
it is being targeted, as well as the competitive landscape
(see
how to define a competitive landscape).
You can do this all in one document or two
-- one focused on the business strategy for the product
and market and the other dedicated to the information necessary
for product features. One document or two - there is no
right or wrong - as long as the information is available.
Your document(s) should be organized in such a way that
the who, what, when, where and why's are addressed. If
you have unhappy constituents of your current documents,
ask them what is necessary in order for your document to
be useful to them.
Who Uses an
MRD?
Many product marketers write market requirements just for
the engineering/development organization. It's true that
engineering needs to know what your customers want, so
they can develop the right product. However, if you want
to successfully develop, launch, manufacture, market, sell
and support your product, the rest of the company needs
this document, too! The people in Documentation, Training,
Support, Customer Service, Manufacturing, Marketing, and
other departments need to understand the what's and why's
of the current release as well as future plans. That way,
they can plan early and put the underlying infrastructure
in place for future products. Wouldn't that be nice?
Gathering Input - It's
All About the Customer
We talk to a lot of product marketers about gathering requirements,
and almost always we hear: "Yes, we talk to our customers
when we gather requirements." However, when we dig a little
deeper, we learn that companies aren't soliciting input
from their customers, prospects, partners, analysts, and
market thought leaders. What they are doing is going to
a customer and saying we are thinking about doing "x" -
will you use it? If the customer nods in agreement, development
starts without a clear understanding of the real business
problem. Sometimes a customer says, "We need 'x,'" and the
engineering team leaps ahead. But the reality is that this
customer wants a one-off feature that won't appeal to 80%
of your customer base that is your bread and butter.
Tip
from the Masters: If 80% of your customer
base won't be able to benefit from the requirement
that you are defining, you may want to think carefully
about developing it.
Don’t forget to talk to your internal
customers, too! Be sure to ask both internal and external
customers these kinds of questions:
- What, if any, new technologies need to be incorporated?
- For existing products, don't forget to include time/resources
for product defects. Even if you have maintenance releases,
every major release should strive to significantly improve
the overall quality of the product.
- How can the product be more supportable?
- What can be done to lower the cost of your product?
- What can be done to improve product documentation and
training?
For more information on how to solicit information
from your customers see The
Golden Rule: Listening to Customers.
Don't forget to ask the business questions
too. Click here for key information you need in your MRD
or in a separate business plan.
Does it have
to be Marketing vs. Engineering?
In most industries, job descriptions and responsibilities
are clearly understood. Yet, for a number of reasons, there
is often tension between engineering and product management/marketing.
Engineering is rarely satisfied with the requirements,
if any, provided by product marketing. Repeatedly, the
same questions arise in some form - who specifies, who
prioritizes and what do we have to do to create a product
that meets the markets requirements and ultimately generates
the revenue needed?
Engineering will often say that marketing
(product management or product marketing depending on your
organization) is responsible for gathering product requirements.
And they are right. However, if marketing doesn't provide
engineering with usable, believable data on time, the engineers
will take matters into their own hands and define what
they believe to be the necessary requirements. They don't
like doing it that way any more than you do.
Going in the
Same Direction Together
If you create an MRD that meets the needs of all of your
customers, everyone in the company can understand what
is needed and why. When making difficult decisions (such
as what is in and out of a release), the decision can be
based on the objectives rather than a gut feeling, or worse,
office politics. Your internal and external customers will
be happier and your company will put better products into
the market in less time.
Click here for a sample Best Practices MRD
template
Next month's topic: Creating
and Measuring Team Success
For more information, contact BEK Enterprises
at:
Web: www.bekteam.com
E-mail:
Phone: 720-304-3300
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