The Launch Doctor - Email Newsletter

Hello fellow launchers, and welcome to this month’s edition of The Launch Pad Newsletter.
April’s newsletter is about launch processes: why, what, how and when.
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Feedback and questions are welcome. Send to: ckitcho@launchdoctor.com (note: This Opt-In email newsletter is sent monthly. If at any time you wish to Opt-Out from the distribution list, reply to this email requesting removal. Your name will be removed immediately.)
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The Launch Pad
April 2003
PROCESS MAKES PERFECT

Mention the word process to any launch team, and you are likely to hear: “Who needs processes? Don’t we have enough to deal with already with trying to get this product out the door, and now we have to create and follow some convoluted, bureaucratic process? By the time we do all of that paperwork to figure out the process and follow the process, the launch could be done!” Before the members of your launch team run screaming from the building, or threaten to quit, just do the following:
1. Approach slowly.
2. Explain what you mean by process (see below).
3. In one-half a whiteboard or less, diagram your simple, launch-friendly process.
4. Invite questions.
5. Duck.

Whether you are part of a large launch team or a lonely entrepreneur launching your first product, having a simple process will, believe it or not, save you time and sanity in the long run.

PROCESS 101
For decades, companies have used processes in order to run their organization and do business. We just didn’t know it at the time. Until the early 90s, when all those books and consultants started touting “Business Process Re-engineering”, we didn’t know what to call it. We just thought we were doing business, and now it had a name – we had PROCESSES. Not only that, but all those consultants claimed that companies on the average had a lot of broken processes that needed to be fixed, or had too many processes and therefore they had to get rid of some – hence the use of the term “re-engineering”. Every company, regardless of size, suddenly became very conscious of its processes. Employees would whisper in the hallways about how many company processes were (sadly) broken, and felt obligated to spend a certain amount of time each day thinking about process improvement. After all, everybody in the company was responsible for its processes; no one was immune. Thankfully, this era and trend have passed, and people just got back to using common sense when developing business processes. If it works, keep it. If it doesn’t, throw it out. Works for me!

HERE IT IS, THE DEFINITION
So what the heck is a process, anyway? Well, as a graduate of seven and a half employee courses on continuous process improvement, I could give you the textbook definition, but I won’t. I will spare you that pain. Instead, here is my keep-it-simple view of a process:
A process is a series of interactions during which individuals transfer or communicate information in order to accomplish a business objective. Individuals may be involved in the process in two ways: contributing input, or creating output. The event of communicating information is a handoff point. A process follows a logical flow of actions that take place between individuals, and helps the individuals determine the order in which the handoffs take place. It is who, what, and when.

LAUNCHING
By its nature, launching is chaotic. Often, people don’t know where to start. Do I do market research first? When do I write marketing materials? Do I wait until the product completes the final testing? When should price be determined? It seems as if everything happens at once.

You have to know where to start because no matter when you start the work of launch, you’re always in a schedule crunch – it’s just the nature of the beast. Having a process that is a simple, one-page map of who does what when will save you lots of pain. The first time you get together with your launch team, go through the process with the team. Make sure people understand it, and change it if there’s some reason that it won’t work. Keep clarifying and simplifying it until everyone can live with it, but don’t spend more than half a day on this exercise. Then give everybody a copy of the process to post in a prominent place in his or her office.

Having a simple process in place as a reference also helps the team better address crises that come up and implement contingency plans. By knowing what is affected downstream, plans can be adjusted accordingly.

FIRST THERE WAS A PRODUCT (OR WAS IT A MARKET?)
To set up a launch process, you start at the end. You know the approximate date of the launch: when the product will be available for sale to the market. That’s the last (or nearly the last) step in the process. You work backwards from there. That gives you a timeline. Choose a point about 3 months before, and then you will need to put in the following steps in this order:
1. Customer definition, value proposition
2. Market research, validation, characterization
3. Product definition and update
4. Competitive Analysis
5. Strategy
6. Pricing
7. Positioning
8. Messages
9. Marketing Materials
10. Sales Force Training

This list may vary slightly, but the order should be relatively the same. These are the actions that need to be done. The next step is to determine the people involved in providing input and output for each of these actions. Input takes place via a conversation between two individuals or an email or a transfer of documents of some sort. Sometimes other companies or vendors are involved, and sometimes your target customer may provide input. You have the relative order now, so you can begin to map a workflow with the names of people who are providing inputs. You can use lines for the actions on the list above, and circles for inputs and outputs. Draw arrows between the circles and the lines, which indicate the handoff points and the dates that they need to occur. Ta da! You have a process.

QUICK AND QUIRKY EXAMPLE
Let’s assume that you’ve just been hired by a medium-sized company to come in and manage a launch. Your boss, Ed, greets you with, “Boy, everyone’s so glad you’re here.” Uh oh. So, your assignment is to “just finish up the marketing stuff” for the current launch, and he wants you to also document a process for the next launch because they’re not sure if next quarter’s results will be high enough and the company may have to eliminate your position (again). Just in case, he wants something for the next person to follow for next time. Okay, then! That should get you motivated.

You find out that luckily, there is very little “marketing stuff” for the current launch. The sales training is done, and there is only a brochure that needs to be finished for the new software product being launched. The first order of business is to contact the graphic designer, an outside vendor, who has been waiting for final approval before she finishes up the brochure. The brochure will be printed for a tradeshow, and a version of it will also go on the company website, and she has a tight deadline to get it done in time. You find out that the product engineer gave her all of the technical details for the product, and your boss had given her a draft of the text. She sends you an email attachment to review.

You decide to do a quick check of the websites of some of your company’s competitors. After doing a quick look, you realize that the draft brochure looks identical to a competitor’s brochure. Alarmed, you call your boss and ask him if he knew that. His reply: “I thought those words sounded vaguely familiar when I wrote them!” He explains that no, they definitely want to differentiate the company from that competitor, so he asks you to rewrite the copy and get with the graphic designer to re-design it. You call the designer and work out a contingency plan for re-doing the copy, graphics, and layout, and decide to postpone the print version of the brochure for a future trade show.

After this little adventure, your process now includes the following steps:
1. Detailed product description
2. Validate/update customer need and value proposition
3. Competitive analysis
4. Strategy and Positioning
5. Approval / Sign-off of Positioning
6. Messages
7. Marketing Materials Development
8. Approval / Sign-off of Marketing Materials

Adding step 5 to the process ensures that your boss is aware of how the product needs to be positioned before time and money is spent on development of materials. It also becomes an opportunity to obtain his input as to the messages that should be used in the marketing materials before they are developed.
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Prepare to use the word PROCESS on your resume, and happy launching!!

Catherine Kitcho
The Launch Doctor