How can you encourage team ownership during a product launch?

I have developed a framework that I find highly effective—CARE: Communication: Clearly communicate goals, set expectations, and provide regular updates to ensure everyone is aligned and moving in the same direction. Appreciation: Recognize and celebrate the team's hard work and contributions to boost morale and motivation. Respect: Listen to team members' opinions and ideas, providing constructive feedback rather than dismissing them outright. Empathy: Show empathy by understanding and addressing team members' challenges and concerns. It's crucial for problem-solving and building a supportive work environment. Implementing this framework enhances the overall dynamics of the team, leading to a smoother and more successful product launch

Being a B2B Enterprise SAAS, we try to follow a specific launch process. Step 1: Product Launch is generally segregated into 3 phases pre-launch, launch, and post-launch. Step 2: Each phase has a specific goal/exit criteria associated with it and success is tracked with release quality KPIs/scores. For example: Pre-launch has 3 themes - Product preparedness/ marketing, sales, legal preparedness/ Customer preparedness. Step 3: Each stakeholder/team member is assigned a specific role/goal phase-wise. Step 4: A program manager runs a weekly cadence tracks the launch phase and sends out AIs/periodic updates Step 5: After every phase, a retrospection to discuss improvements and good performers

A simple 2 step process I’ve found to be very helpful: - 1. Creating a shared understanding of the product vision, launch goals and objectives with all the stakeholders. 2. Defining clear responsibilities for each team member in achieving the vision and encouraging ownership.

In my opinion, 2 key ways to keep the team motivated: - 1. Celebrating every small win 2. Identifying and Providing constructive feedback early on

Opinion I hold is that negative feedback, when delivered constructively, is as important as positive recognition. It provides a reality check and pushes individuals to exceed their limits, fostering personal growth and ultimately leading to a successful product launch.

Most of us, just as we are not trained to receive feedback or recognition, we're also not trained on how to give them. When given in a timely, asertive and correct way, they can be the key for improvement. Tips to give awesome feedback: ? Begin with a positive comment ?? Address the Improvement Area ?? Close with encouragement, or a reaffirmation of the individual's potential. As the quote says "recognition in public, feedback in private" it can create a safe space for feedback and foster an environment where individuals even feel comfortable asking for feedback.

In my opinion, this is what helps: 1. Celebrate Milestones: Acknowledge every small achievement leading up to the launch. Celebrating milestones, even minor ones, boosts morale and highlights the team's progress. 2. Transparent Communication: Maintain open channels for updates, feedback, and queries. Ensuring that every team member is in the loop and understands their impact on the launch fosters a sense of belonging and purpose, crucial for motivation during high-pressure periods.

Ensure each team member understands their role in the product launch. Foster cross-functional collaboration. Encourage creativity and new ideas. Be open to suggestions to improve the launch plan. Show appreciation for everyone's input. After launch, facilitate an open discussion on what went well and what can be improved next time. Recognize and reward team members who went above and beyond during the launch. The key is making the team feel like active participants rather than just executors.

We used to follow an open ideation & feedback culture where we maintained a dedicated space for team members to - drop in new ideas (good ideas were rewarded) - provide feedback and suggestions on issues with existing launch (beta) This helped us identify a lot of product issues at the beta stage itself and also encouraged an innovative culture.

Celebrating a product launch is more than just a final celebration. It's about recognizing every small milestone along the way. Each team member's contribution, every problem solved, and every hurdle overcome deserves acknowledgment. While the launch is a significant achievement, building a culture that celebrates the journey—every little success—is key. After the launch, reflect, learn, and remember: it's the small wins that lead to big successes.

Post launch analysis and retrospective is very important to plan the upcoming product releases and manage customer requirements well. End of the day, product managers are always running experiments. Launch is also one of them. So, learning from what went well and what doesn’t and implementing them in the next release becomes crucial.

Pre-launch is an important step of the process where product managers spend a lot of time discussing with customer facing stakeholders the plan to launch the product/feature. Every input matters and doing this will not only help structure the launch plan but also engages the team well to work together towards a common launch goal.

The team should always know the bigger picture and what is the impact that they are creating. Once we feel part of the user journey, we start feeling ownership to whatever we are building. - I try to keep the team informed about things that I feel are interesting and they do the same. - I personally try to give access to tools like Mixpanel to all the teams' members. As a result I have seen team members looking at the data and coming up with interesting insights.