How to manage the product scaling process?

Article 20/25 about #productmanagement with a focus on Soft skills.

Scalability has become a buzzword, but not everyone understands what a scalable business model really means, and few understand the actual driving forces.

Not the strongest and not the smartest survive, but the most adaptable to change.

Charles Darwin.

Product Growth is a strategic approach to product development aimed at increasing the number of active users, improving user experience and expanding product capabilities. Product growth is often associated with the addition of new features, optimization of existing ones, as well as increased customer satisfaction. This may include activities such as marketing campaigns, optimizing the conversion funnel, improving the interface, and other measures aimed at attracting new and retaining existing customers.

Scaling is a strategy that is associated with increasing the ability to serve more users or customers without increasing proportional resources. Scaling can relate to technical infrastructure, processes, teams, and business models. It provides the ability of the product to service the growth of the user base, data volume or transactions without significant increases in costs and resources.

It is important to understand that product growth and scaling are interrelated. If the product is successfully growing and attracting more users, then it may be necessary to scale the technical infrastructure and team to support this growth. On the other hand, if you scale the product, it can contribute to its growth, as you will be able to serve more users and customers.

As a result, the effective interaction between product growth and scaling helps the company achieve greater sustainability, competitiveness and long-term success in the market.

How do I understand that the product needs to scale?

1. Increasing the number of users: If the number of active users of your product starts to grow and reaches a level where the current infrastructure cannot provide stable and fast service for all requests, this may be a signal for scaling.

2. Increased load on servers: If servers begin to experience increased load and problems with availability, speed or performance begin, this may be a sign of the need to scale.

3. Performance degradation: If the performance of a product deteriorates with an increase in the number of users or the amount of data, this may be a sign that the current architecture is not coping with the growth.

4. Increased Response time: If the response time from the product servers starts to increase, this can negatively affect the user experience and signal the need for scaling.

5. Lack of resources: If you are running out of computing resources (for example, CPU time, memory, network bandwidth), this may be a sign of the need to increase resources through scaling.

6. Business Growth: If your business starts to grow and requires more users, orders, transactions and other activities, the product must be able to scale to ensure uninterrupted growth service.

7. Launching new Markets or products: If you plan to expand geographical markets or introduce new products, this may require scaling to support additional loads and needs.

8. Increased Customer Response: If your product receives a lot of requests from customers expressing a desire to see new features or improvements, this may be a sign that the product needs to scale to meet customer requests.

9. Competitive Environment: If your competitors scale and offer more powerful and productive products, it may require scaling your product to remain competitive.

It is important to maintain constant monitoring of performance and load on the product, as well as listen to user feedback and analyze business trends. When you notice signs of growth and the need for more resources, it can be a hint about the need to scale the product to ensure its sustainability and growth.

Let’s look at a detailed example when a product needs to scale:

Scenario: You are the owner of an online store that sells health and fitness products. Throughout the year, your business has been growing successfully, and you have several thousand active customers. However, you begin to notice the following signs that indicate the need for scaling:

1. Increased server load: In recent months, the servers of your online store are beginning to experience increased load, especially during sales and holidays. Page loading time began to increase, and users began to complain about long waits.
2. Increasing the number of orders: Your business is growing, and the number of orders has become much larger. This is good on the one hand, but it also requires large computing resources to process all transactions.
3. Scalability issues: Your current architecture is not designed to scale. The servers are close to their performance limit, and you can’t just add new servers without revising the architecture.
4. Customer Feedback: Users have started complaining about the long wait for responses from your support team. They also complain about the slow website and delays in processing orders.
5. The need to expand the range: You plan to expand the range of products and attract new customers. This will require a lot of resources to manage a large amount of data and products.

Based on these signs, you understand that your product needs to scale:

Step 1: Defining Strategic Goals:

You want to provide stable and fast service to all customers, improve user experience and support business growth.

Step 2: Identification of key metrics:

Key metrics include page loading time, number of orders per hour, customer support response, and customer satisfaction level.

Step 3: Technical preparation:

You analyze the current architecture and determine that you need to revise it to scale. This may include switching to cloud computing, using CDN (Content Delivery Network) to improve download speeds, as well as database optimization.

Step 4: Develop a Scaling plan:

You are developing a scaling plan that includes migrating to cloud servers, increasing network bandwidth, and optimizing code for more efficient order processing.

Step 5: Communication and Training:

You inform your team about scaling plans and teach them new technologies and working methods.

Step 6: Monitoring and Analysis:

After the implementation of scaling, you regularly monitor the metrics and performance of the product to make sure that the goals are being achieved.

Step 7: Adaptation and optimization:

In case of changes in needs or challenges, you are ready to adapt and optimize the scaling strategy.

This example demonstrates how to understand that a product needs to scale, and what steps can be taken to ensure successful scaling in response to business growth and customer needs.

Product scaling risks

When scaling a product, there are various risks that can affect the success of this process. It is important to take them into account and develop strategies for their management. Here are some of the most common risks when scaling a product:

1. Technical risks: Insufficient performance: An increase in the load on the system may lead to its slowdown or unavailability. Inefficient architecture: The inability to scale the current architecture may require its revision and changes. Data Loss: During migration or infrastructure changes, data loss issues may occur.

2. Financial risks: Inefficient use of resources: Scaling may require additional financial investments, and improper use of them can lead to losses. High operating costs: Expanding the infrastructure and team can increase operating costs.

3. Organizational risks: Team Inconsistency: Inefficient interaction between development, operations, and marketing teams can slow down the scaling process. Lack of skills: Insufficient qualifications of personnel to work with new technologies or scaling methods can be an obstacle.

4. Security and Privacy: Security Vulnerabilities: Infrastructure expansion can make a product more susceptible to cyber attacks and vulnerabilities. Data leakage: Incorrect scaling and data management can lead to leaks of confidential information.

5. Dependence on suppliers and third-party services: Failures of third-party services: If your product depends on third-party services (for example, cloud services), failures in their operation may affect the availability of your product.

6. Product quality and user experience: Deterioration of quality: In the process of scaling, the quality of the product may suffer due to faster development and implementation of changes. Increased Response Time: If scaling fails, it may lead to an increase in response time from the product.

7. Legislative and regulatory risks: Non-compliance with legislation: Scaling may entail new requirements for compliance with the law, and inconsistency may lead to legal problems.

8. Complexity of migration:

Migrating data and applications when scaling can be a complex and risky process.

In order to manage risks when scaling, it is important to develop risk management strategies, conduct regular audits and monitoring, and be prepared for quick reactions to possible problems.

How to manage the product scaling process?

Managing the product scaling process requires attention to a variety of aspects, ranging from technical aspects to strategic planning. Here are the key steps and principles for managing the product scaling process:

1. Definition of strategic goals: Define strategic goals and vision for scaling the product. Ask yourself questions about how scaling will help achieve business goals and meet customer needs. 2. Identification of key metrics: Identify the key metrics that will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of scaling. These metrics can include product performance, user activity, profitability, customer service level, and others. 3. Technical training: Take care of the technical training for scaling. Ensure high availability, scalability and security of your infrastructure and application. 4. Development of a scaling plan: Develop a detailed scaling plan that includes time frames, resources, budget, and steps to implement. Determine the scaling sequence, starting with the most critical components. 5. Communication and training: Ensure clear communication within the team and with interested stakeholders. Prepare your staff and customers for the changes that may occur as a result of scaling. 6. Monitoring and analysis: Install a monitoring system that will allow you to monitor performance and scaling results. Analyze the data and regularly evaluate how successful the scaling process is. 7. Adaptation and optimization: Be ready to adapt and optimize. Scaling can lead to unexpected calls and changes. It is important to react flexibly to changes and adjust the strategy if necessary. 8. Risk management: Assess the risks associated with the scaling process and develop a plan and strategies to manage them. Consider Plan B options and scenarios to be prepared for any unforeseen circumstances. 9. End-to-end management: Provide end-to-end management of the scaling process. Collaboration between different functional areas such as development, operations, marketing and support plays an important role in successful scaling. 10. Iterative: Scaling is a process that can be iterative. Continuously improve scaling processes, taking into account experience and new knowledge. Managing the product scaling process is a complex and dynamic task that requires planning, coordination and readiness for change. Effective scaling can help your product grow successfully and reach new heights.

Seven signs of a business that is too early to grow

Sign 1. Ambition ahead of logicSign

2. The team is not readySign

3. There is not enough demand for growthSign

4. Cash gaps are your faithful companionSign

5. Plan growth with the old staffSign

6. The company does not know how to planSign

7. There is no airbag

Total:

Today, the key aspects of product management and scaling were discussed. It is important to emphasize that successful product management requires flexibility, customer orientation and risk management, especially when scaling. You should always remain attentive to the needs of customers and ensure the safety and reliability of the product.