Product Lifecycle: Discovery, Build, Launch, Grow, Retire

Discovery is the stage where the manager learns whether a problem is real, who has it and whether they will pay to solve it. The manager interviews twenty or thirty customers, watches how they work today, and tests the idea with a simple prototype or a paper description. For an instant payment product for small businesses, discovery might reveal that a plumber in Birmingham waits three days to be paid by invoice, and would pay 50 pence per payment to receive the money in seconds. Discovery also checks the competition, for example whether Faster Payments already solves the problem, and checks the regulation, for example whether the bank needs a new licence. A discovery phase of six to eight weeks is normal, and it ends with a decision to proceed, to change the idea or to stop. Build is the stage where the idea becomes a working product, and it is where the manager spends most time writing requirements and making trade offs. The manager writes user stories, such as a small business owner can send an instant payment of 500 pounds from a mobile app and see confirmation in ten seconds, and agrees the scope with technology. The manager must decide what is in the first release and what can wait, because a team that tries to build everything at once will deliver nothing on time. For the instant payment product, the first release might support single payments only, while bulk payments and scheduled payments wait for the second release. Build typically takes six to nine months for a payment product, including testing and security review. Launch is the stage where the product reaches real customers, and it is planned as carefully as the build. The manager chooses a pilot group of fifty customers who are willing to give feedback, prepares training for sales and operations, and agrees the support model for the first weeks. The launch plan includes a clear price, a simple onboarding journey and a way to measure success, such as the number of customers who make a second payment within a week. A launch that is rushed will create complaints and refunds, while a launch that is too slow will lose momentum. Most banks launch in stages, starting with one customer segment and one region, then expanding once the first customers are happy. Grow is the longest stage, and it is where the manager improves the product based on real usage. The manager watches how many customers use the product each month, which features they use most, and where they drop out of the journey. If data shows that 30 percent of customers abandon the payment at the beneficiary confirmation screen, the manager asks technology to simplify that screen. Growth also means adding new features, such as recurring payments, and expanding to new segments, such as larger companies that need to send 5,000 payments a day. Pricing may change in this stage, for example from a free trial to 35 pence per payment, once customers see the value and the bank needs to cover costs. Retire is the stage most managers avoid thinking about, but it is essential, because an old product costs money to maintain and confuses customers. A product is retired when usage falls, when a better product replaces it, or when regulation makes it uneconomic. The manager plans the retirement in stages, giving customers at least six months notice, offering a migration path to the replacement product, and providing help to move their data. For example, when a bank retires an old file format for bulk payments, it may support the old format for twelve months while helping 2,000 corporate customers move to ISO 20022 pain.001 files. A well managed retirement protects the customer relationship and frees the bank to invest in the future.