How to Manage Your Product Throughout its Life Cycle

There are two fundamental tasks that every product manager is responsible for, whichever stage of life their product is at:

1. Define a clear product strategy
2. Create and manage a healthy roadmap

If you do these well, you will create higher ROI in digital products and reduce risk and wastage in delivery.

However, these tasks can vary wildly depending on the product’s life cycle stage.

In this article, I’ll provide an overview of how the product manager role shifts throughout the life cycle with specific reference to the product strategy and roadmap. At each stage, I will also describe common pitfalls and opportunities at each stage to be mindful of.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, so if you have additional thoughts, please leave a comment — I’d love to hear about your experiences!

The life cycle of a product is a lot like that of an ocean-going ship

It’s useful to think of the product life cycle like the life of an ocean-going ship. You design it, launch it, hope it doesn’t sink or hit something hard and cold, then it’s full steam ahead until you reach the destination (or decide to head back out for more adventures).

As the crew of that ship, it’s your job to know how to anticipate and react to changing conditions. You need to keep your…