Approach to Re-engineer a Product

In most scenarios, we do not work on creating new products. Rather, improve an existing product or a feature. There are few things we did as part of this.

• Technology shift : To Micro services
• Adding two major features to the existing product (Scaling the product for new markets)
• Re-defining the entire data model
• User Experience change

The following is the approach that we took in re-engineering the product which received good feedback from our senior management, service teams and clients. Not only about the end product but also about the approach driven by data points and research.

Market Research : This includes competitive research (Both direct as well as indirect), Market strategic direction and review some of the technological progress to understand the capabilities and use cases which it can solve.

Understanding Feedback on the Product : How the current product is doing and what customers are saying directly & Indirectly is an important part of product management. To improve the product as well as understand what is doing really well so that we can incorporate those aspects into other features and products.

• Understanding feedback from Clients
• Understanding How Users are using your product/feature
• Feedback from Sales/Marketing/Consulting

Identifying Patterns based on feedback : User behavior in using the product can give great insights into the product. If it is based on SaaS based products, the product company holds the client data which can be used to understand the patterns and see how the users are using your product. This can help to understand re-engineer to make better use of the product. Understanding the following help to make improvements.

• Most used features
• Very less used features
• Usage patterns
• Low Hanging Fruits

User Experience (UX) Research – Prior Designs : How users are using the product do not give insights on what their processes are. So, by talking to the clients about new features and some of the existing patterns identified can validate the thought process and give better insights into the product.

• Understanding the Process
• How clients are using the most used features
• How clients are using the least used features
• Confirming the usage patterns

User Experience (UX) Design : The design process should include all the data points identified from usage behavior, research and insights derived based on market research. UX Design is not just about creating screens rather working on the entire end to end process based on how user want to experience the product/service.

• Defining End to End Experience of each of the personas
• Coming up with Designs
• Incorporating feedback from UX Research

User Experience (UX) Research – Post Designs : This is to validate the concept, designs and the process to ensure we are right on track.

• Validating Designs & Taking Feedback

Demo to Clients & Stakeholders