Understanding your Product - Product KPIs

Many times, Product Managers focus on the launch of the product and then they are off to focusing on the next product or the next feature. They don't realize that the launch of the product is just the beginning. It's time to understand and validate those assumptions you made when building the product. Do you really understand how customers are using and interacting with your product? Do you understand how the product impacts the customer?

Here are some key metrics to measure and ideas to help you better understand your customers:

• Think about Measurement when Building - Often times we are so focused on building the features, we don't think about how making sure we can measure and understand the product's usage afterwards. It's OK to pay a little bit of a cost penalty to make sure you have the data you need to inform your future decisions and your management. 
• Weekly KPI Dashboard - Collect the data on a regular basis. I prefer to aggregate that data in Excel with a sheet called "Dashboard" that has a visual display of several graphs while all the other sheets contain all the raw data. There are several benefits to collecting and knowing this data. For example, any time an executive asks me about the product's usage I typically know the answer right off the top of my head while other product managers are left scrambling to find this data. While you may have data warehouse systems or analytics packages that help with this, I prefer using them to store all in the information in one place. Collecting and aggregating this weekly is one sure way to stay on top of what is going on with your product! Use that data to drive conclusions!
• Talk to your Customers - Ask your customers. I know that sounds simple, but too many product managers are not talking to their customers. What problems do they face in general? Or using your product? What features would they like? Why?

 Let me know what you think about these ideas...feel free to post a comment.