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I recently saw a post called No Winloss Blame on the On Product Management blog where they posted results of a poll discussing why product managers don’t perform win/loss analysis. Lot’s of the reasons had to do with sales interference and not having any time. The one that jumped out at me was that many product managers don’t know how to perform win/loss analysis.

I thought I’d share my experience on the topic and some good resources I’ve found in defining and performing a good win/loss analysis. In an earlier post I did a book review on Business and Competitive Analysis. There is a section that gives a great starting point for win/loss analysis processes. I found some good sample questionaires from Pragmatic Marketing and also an article from Ellen Naylor. My friend and colleague Stewart recently had a post called Your Strategic Friend, Mrs. Winloss Analysis that gives some great insight on pointers on win/loss analysis.

The key I’ve found in working with product management teams, is trying to use it as a form of market research as opposed to a sales improvement tool. We don’t have enough time to go over every win/loss opportunity that sales has.

We need to define a target segment of opportunities to talk with based on our information needs in product management. Ex: Perhaps we have a new offering in a specific industry and want to know if our go-to-market strategy is working.

Define specific goals and information that we’re trying to validate or find out.

Get some background on accounts selected before talking with them. This could help you identify areas that you may want to dig deeper if possible.

I believe one of the biggest problems we have is that we don’t explain the value of win/loss analysis to others in or organization, inorder to get the support we need. I will try to sum up what I think are the three value propositions of win/loss analysis:

1) Be able to define more competitive products by understanding the product selection criteria of the buyer.
2) Create and validate competitive “Go to Market” strategies
3) Identify market gaps and increase product differentiation

Strategy Execution: Win/loss analysis is one of the tools that product managers can use to validate how well their product strategy is being executed, and if it is an effective strategy. Is the competitive strategy working with regards to positioning, product & service offerings, marketing, and sales and distribution?

DerickWorkman Product Management

I went to lunch with a friend of mine last week at the great BBQ joint Rudy’s. (Good food by the pound) We were discussing a current issue he’s having trying to manage a portfolio of many products by himself. All of the products are in different stages in the product lifecycle. We discussed the strategic direction he wanted to be able to take the portfolio. We then discussed how he wanted to manage and communicate these strategies. 

In brainstorming we defined a roadmap view that would be helpful showing this information in a graphical format. This roadmap would identify the types of products into different categories: Maintenance & Utilities, Enhancements & Improvements, and Breakthrough or Transformational products. We then discussed using similar techniques at the release planning level.

Based on the roadmap we’d know what type of product we were trying to launch. We would categorize features or requirements into each type: maintenance & utility, enhancements & improvements, and transformational. By setting target percentages for each of these categories, we can ensure that the product release is in line with the strategy.

This allowed us to tie the roadmap strategy down to the requirements and features being worked on in a release. I’d be interested to know how others have gone about ensuring strategy execution in release planning.

It was a great conversation with lots of possibilities and an excellent meal.

DerickWorkman Product Management, Product Portfolio Management

I was recently discussing competitive analysis and business methods with a client and I recommended the book, Business and Competitive Analysis by Craig Fleisher and Babette Bensoussan. This book helps to understand and identify better methods for competitive and business analysis. I personally found the book extremely useful in not just understanding these different methods, but also in helping me determine which methods would be applicable and useful to my organization.

It gives a brief description of the method, background and expected benefits, and then it discusses the pros and cons of the method. There are over 29 different methods in this book. I found it very useful for defining a win/loss method. It goes through a step by step approach on how to perform win/loss analysis and even gives a case study about its application.

 It was a good starting point, but it was not meant to contain everything there is to know about each method. For instance, in the Win/Loss analysis method, it tells you to develop a questionnaire and even gives some suggestions on categories, but doesn’t give you examples of questions. It turns out there is a science to the number of questions and the types of questions. These are based on the objectives of the win/loss analysis. Because of the breadth of the number of methods covered in this book, it could not go into very detailed levels of explanation of the different methods. I’m sure whole books could be written about each method discussed.

 It acts as an excellent reference guide for someone interested in doing competitive and business analysis. And will point you in the right direction for getting started. I would recommend this book to product marketing and management professionals and anyone else involved in these types of analysis.

DerickWorkman PM Book Reviews, Product Management

Welcome to Grandview Central. This blog will be dedicated to discussing topics related to strategy execution within the innovation value chain. In general, it will be focused on performance monitoring and improvement of product management, product portfolio management, and strategy across the activities of the innovation value chain.

I want to promote knowledge sharing and open discussion about what works and what doesn’t, and coming up with ways to make the Innovation Value Chain community stronger and more understood. 

I currently am a product management consultant at Ryma Technology Solutions sponsor of the Product Management View. I personally have seen the value of good product management, and know what it means to individual lives. I’ve started this blog to add my 2 cents and learn from others within the community.

DerickWorkman Welcome