When launching a new product, it’s a lot easier to see the pros than the potential cons. Excitement about a new product or feature can mask some of its potential problems or drawbacks, which can be problematic for your business in the long run.
Before rolling out any new offerings, leaders need to be sure they’ve exercised due diligence to ensure the product is being used the way it was intended, rather than being exploited for nefarious purposes. There are several steps leaders can take to do this, as outlined below by the experts at gotechbusiness.com Business Council†
gotechbusiness.com Business Council members share how companies can reduce the chances of a new product or service being used for nefarious purposes.
Photos courtesy of individual members.
1. Be ready to upgrade or restart
When you launch a new product or new feature, it will always have some flaws and you will learn them only with time and consumption. Your development team needs to be ready for an upgrade and a relaunch, so always keep the door open in any development for quick and easy upgrades. † Haitham Kalakesh† Riversong Technology
2. Perform stress tests
Stress testing features with a small, engaged audience of existing users or customers can help identify failure points and less desirable use cases. † Genevieve Ryan Bellaire† Real world
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3. Phased roll-out of features
Don’t go too big out the gate. It’s always good to roll out things in phases. By having a controlled group test your product or service function, you can spot potential problems and eliminate them before they reach your entire target market. † Robert Depalo† National Financial Network
4. Design an implementation plan
If you’re planning a product launch, try to see if you can break a product down into small features. From there, you can roll out small features to small groups of users to gather insight and feedback. But before doing all this work, make sure you have an execution plan somewhere. † Ethan Lu† SME Finance
5. Discuss the pros and cons
Before implementing a new feature in our product, we discuss the pros and cons with the internal teams and also with our existing customers. We plot the negative and positive use cases to ensure that the new feature does not negatively impact the product. Only after everyone has weighed in, we implement the improvement. This process helped us build a robust platform. † Piyush Jain† duckbill
6. Think of the worst-case scenarios
Have your team act out all the imaginary horrible things your product can be used for. No matter how silly or far-fetched, have your team imagine everything that could possibly go even remotely wrong. By loosely holding onto the optimism of a new offering and seriously (and foolishly) exploring how consumers might use your offering in unintended ways, you can develop the offering before it launches. † Christopher White† Equis, Inc.
7. Get an outside opinion
Discuss the idea with someone and/or a focus group not affiliated with your company or service. Ask them what they think. It’s amazing how quickly people are drawn to applications that hadn’t emerged internally. † Howard Rosen† LifeWIRE Corp
8. Set up ‘Pre-mortem Rituals’
“Pre-mortem rituals” assume that the initiative has failed from the start. By mapping all possible risks with the broader multifunctional team, these problems can be addressed. This also helps the project leaders to think through the nuances clearly and potentially create more opportunities. When done right, the pre-mortem ritual will eliminate the need for a post-mortem meeting. † Parth Pareek† Loopin HQ
9. Discover the intentions of end users
While nothing can guarantee that a product or feature will not be exploited, companies can reduce their supply by reverse engineering their process. A critical step is to work with a selection of end users to understand how they use or plan to use your product. This will help identify potential vulnerabilities that could lead to cyber threats, code leaks and IP breach. † Susan Sly† Radius AI, Inc.
10. Conduct Focus Groups and Surveys
To test. To test. To test. You should never start something without running it through the gamut. Hold focus groups or surveys to ensure customer needs are met. Run small beta tests to get feedback on how the product or feature is being used. If it’s digital, make sure you use detection and prevention tools that go beyond virus or malware protection. Finally, pay close attention as it hits the market. † Deyman Doolittle† ShipSigma
11. Look at the whole image
When adding a new product, the supply and demand aspect must be taken into account, as well as the time for production and shipping costs plus any underlying or hidden costs such as the product warranty. † Tammy Sons† Tn Nursery
12. Create a staging environment
Making sure a product or feature can’t be exploited before it’s made public is nearly impossible, so it’s important that your development team is ready to tackle these types of exploits with a quick patch. Prior to release, it is imperative to have a staging environment in which your QA technicians have the ability to run through multiple use cases inspired by your actual target users. † Udi Dorner† Set schedule
13. Consider Delta Testing
You can test internally, but if it’s important, consider delta testing. You have heard of alpha and beta testing, but delta is the future because it thinks about the lifelong relationship with the user. Large groups of users test the smooth transition to upgraded phones, devices, software suites, etc. Then add penetration testing into the process. † David Perry† carro
14. Carry out a risk assessment
Leaders can ensure that new offerings are not exploited for nefarious purposes by conducting a risk assessment. This assessment should identify potential risks and vulnerabilities associated with the new offering and help establish controls to mitigate these risks. By doing this, leaders can ensure that new offerings are not used for illegal or unethical purposes. † Matthew Ramirez† reformulate
15. Start small and expand later
Start small, land and expand. Ask your users and internal departments for feedback, but never fight. Also try to have one team come up with all the good things and one that acts the way they want it to fail. Then put that together and see what you can avoid or add from the start. † Bram Weerts† Kea | Analyst Relations
