Change Management in Fast-Paced Product Launch Environments

Most companies suck at launching products. They’re like Alice in Wonderland — chasing shiny objects and getting lost along the way. Here’s the 11-step process we perfected after 25 years of product launches (in a collaboration with Jason Oakley): 1. Competitive Research The key to great strategy is to look externally. Take notes on competitor's features and how they grow. Build a database so you can counter-position appropriately. 2. Segmentation A launch aimed at “everyone” will miss everyone. Instead, build a laser-focused Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Follow this chain of thought: What are they craving? → What frustrates them daily? → What job are they trying to accomplish? 3. Pricing & Packaging Even the smallest feature can have a ripple effect on your pricing and packaging. Don’t wait until launch week to figure this out. Before launching, assess things like: Will this be a paid feature or free? Who will get access? What’s the plan for feature gating? 4. Positioning Now it’s time to craft a message that resonates. Speak to their deeper desires, not just their immediate problems. Communicate the outcome your product delivers and why you’re different from the rest. 5. Assemble Your Launch Team You can’t do it alone, and you shouldn’t. A successful launch involves stakeholders across the company. Use the RACI framework to assign clear roles. 6. Clear Objectives Too many teams dive into a launch without defined goals. And that’s why they miss the mark. Set clear objectives and key results. 7. Distribution Channels Many teams fall into the trap of trying to be everywhere; LinkedIn, email, ads, you name it. Reality check: Most startups only have 1-2 effective distribution channels. Find yours and double down on it. 8. Launch Milestones Planning your entire launch around individual tasks will overwhelm you. Instead, focus on major milestones and build a work-back plan. Some key milestones to include: Early access launch → Customer launch → Kickoff meeting. 9. Bill of Materials Your Bill of Materials is the content engine of your launch. Focus on: → Writing the message they want to hear → Designing visuals that captivate and appeal to them → Creating email sequences tailored to every user flow 10. Sales & Customer Success Teams Too many launches fail because these teams are looped in at the last minute. Enable them early with a messaging deck, internal FAQs, and demo materials... And they’ll become powerful advocates for your product. 11. Launch Day Make sure everything is launched smoothly and on time. If you achieve early wins, be the first to celebrate them and rally the team. And don’t forget to keep pushing the momentum forward. There's much more in the deep dive: https://lnkd.in/eB7s6umA If you don't plan your launches, even the best products will fail.

A lot of product marketers are told to “own the launch.” But what that really ends up looking like is a glorified checklist. This is a problem. A good product launch is a strategic GTM motion that builds internal alignment, drives external clarity, and supports real business goals. And recently, Natalie Marcotullio from Navattic shared a great launch, when they rolled out Launchpad, so I want to use it to walk you through what this looks like in practice. Here’s the 5-part launch framework I coach clients on, and how it played out for this example: 1️⃣ Strategic readiness This is the part most teams skip. Everyone’s eager to “go live,” but you’d be shocked at how many can’t answer basic questions like: --> Who is this product for? --> Why are we launching it now? --> What’s the pain point we’re solving, and how do we know? This can happen a lot when PMs are under pressure to launch sooner before the product is ready (and are sucked into the build trap). What Navattic did: In Q4 and Q1, a small group of co-founders and sales reps quietly built and validated Launchpad. While marketing was not involved here, the product side ensured that this step was done. 2️⃣ Positioning & messaging Great messaging starts from the synthesis of real insights… and then ties a human story to it. What Navattic did: Natali pulled real call recordings, identified patterns, and built messaging around them. She also interviewed Navattic’s CEO about his time as an SE, grounding the narrative in the emotional reality of the demo treadmill Launchpad is designed to solve. 3️⃣ External promotion strategy Promotion should be treated as a marketing campaign, not a to-do list. Start with a clear theme or big idea. Then choose your channels and sequence intentionally based on how your audience actually buys. What Navattic did: In Q2, they quietly added Launchpad to the pricing page and iterated the copy 3–4 times. They ran lead gen through high-intent channels like SE conferences, LinkedIn, Google, and even AEO (ChatGPT and Perplexity). When launch day came, they focused on channels that mattered, like their trusted advisors and loyal customers who love them. 4️⃣ Internal enablement This is the final (and often most overlooked) step: making sure everyone inside the company understands the story and can retell it, through both documentation and training. What Navattic did: Natalie enabled everyone early: field teams, partners, even advisors. I got a detailed launch brief two weeks in advance, so I had the full context to speak confidently to my network. 5️⃣ Communications  Of course, a good launch also requires great communication and coordination throughout the entire process. Check out the post on this in the comments. ---- Ultimately, the key takeaway is that a great launch is STRATEGY-focused, not just tactical. ❓ What's the most important thing for you when launching major products? #productmarketing #launch #gtm #advising #coaching

Yesterday I highlighted Hexagon's Maestro product launch but having launched countless products that have redefined industries, I’ve learned one core truth: a product launch lives or dies by timing and alignment.   As Mary Sheehan says in "The Pocket Guide to Product Launches":   “The biggest challenge is actually getting the timing right… In order to get [product and marketing] humming together in perfect alignment, it's quite an undertaking.”   Especially in larger organizations where the product management team might be more used to a mature features/functions centric approach OR maybe not comfortable sharing with marketing until very very late in the process OR where there are too many product launches happening at similar timings.   To cut through the noise and dominate, you need to get these 5 things right:   1️⃣ Alignment & Timing -- and I cannot emphasize this more.   Misaligned timelines between product, marketing, and sales are the #1 killer of launch momentum. Marketing must be at the table early - before the roadmap becomes reality. In complex engineering products it is even more challenging since there could be an idea that "what does marketing know about products" - which needs to be shifted to "marketing can help us to be more customer-centric"   2️⃣ Positioning & Messaging   Start with the “why.” Why now? Why this product? Why does it matter to this segment? Strong positioning isn’t just for PR - it fuels every touchpoint that follows.   3️⃣ PR & Media Strategy   Plan to earn attention. That means embargoes, executive interviews, media partnerships, and a newsworthy angle that hijacks the news. Don’t just announce - take over the conversation.   4️⃣ GTM & Demand Generation   Launches are pipeline events. From campaigns to content to customer stories, your GTM motion should be orchestrated to activate both brand and demand - before, during, and after day one.   5️⃣ Sales Enablement   If your sales team isn’t ready, your market isn’t either. Train and equip them with demos, ppts, email material in SFSDC and tools that help them sell the story - not just the spec sheet.   So here’s the question:   Who owns what?   The NPI (New Product Introduction) process primarily lives in product management - but who owns building a story so good it could compete with a #Netflix series?   #ProductLaunch #GoToMarket #MarketingLeadership #ProductMarketing

This might be unpopular, but… I’m not a huge fan of “fail fast, learn fast.” I’ve led enterprise product teams through both smooth and chaotic launches. And here’s what I’ve learned: Fail fast only works if you’ve thought through what can go wrong and set up the recovery plan first. Too often, I see teams rushing a release with the promise that they’ll “just fix it later.” The result? They don’t fail fast. They fail LONGER. And they lose time, trust, and traction in the process. Here’s what usually gets skipped in the name of speed: - End-to-end experience design - Solution architecture that actually holds up - Test coverage with real-world scenarios and the data to back it ip. - Documentation that supports anyone downstream And yet, somehow, the feature gets shipped anyway. The attitude of these type of situations - “Let’s just ship it. We’ll figure it out post-launch” - isn’t agility. It’s running after short term wins and gambling with customer experience. That’s a major red flag. Especially in complex product ecosystems where one small change can ripple across legacy systems, integrations, and operational teams. This mindset won’t hold up long term ⭐️ Shipping smart doesn’t mean shipping slow. ⭐️ It means respecting complexity. ⭐️ It means minimizing recovery cycles before you create them. So how do you know when you’ve spent the right amount of time? Here’s what I’ve done that keeps working: ⚪️ DEFINE “GOOD ENOUGH” EARLY What’s the minimum that still delivers value and meets reliability thresholds? ⚪️ MAP END-TO-END PRODUCT ECOSYSTEM IMPACTS Your feature isn’t the only thing out there. Before you launch, ask “who could be affected and how?” Don’t guess. Go find out. ⚪️ HAVE YOUR MITIGATION PLANS READY TO GO Run the “what if scenarios.” Figure out what you’d do to solve them. This includes a full rollback plan. It reduces panic later. ⚪️ LOOP IN THE FOLKS YOUR LAUNCH MIGHT IMPACT. PMs often underestimate how Ops, CS, or Billing will be impacted. Don’t make it their surprise. ⚪️PROTECT THE USER EXPERIENCE Internal deadlines can move. Broken trust can’t. When this doesn’t happen…I once worked on a platform upgrade that shipped too soon. We hit the internal milestone but then spent 4x the time fixing CX issues with our top clients. It wasn’t worth it. That experience rewired how I think about velocity. The next go around when the team was pushing to ship but I knew we’d repeat the same vicious cycle, I pushed back. I gathered the data, showed the time it took to repair and improve the CX and the associated costs. As a result, we shipped two weeks later but spent 4x less in post-launch defect management mode. Short term pains for long term gains. Taking the time to ship isn’t hesitation. It’s smart. It’s strategy. It’s about putting in the right work, right now for the right customer experience later. So ship smart, not fast. Particularly not for the metric. #productmanagement #productmanager #shipsmart