Services
Product Consulting
Our product consulting services include requirements engineering, consulting on product vision, product strategy, and product roadmap, as well as product idea validation. These services complement software development and provide a solid foundation for our clients’ software products and their success.
Product consulting aligned with your needs
Our Consulting Services
Requirements Engineering
Building a product is only worth it if it is clear that it will help you achieve your goals, and that it is the most efficient way to do so. Therefore, business analysis should always be the first step to determine the true business need before starting product development. In addition, requirements analysis is useful to guide development and make it as efficient as possible. Investing in proper analysis may seem like extra work, but it pays off in the long run.
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ServicesBusiness & Requirements Analysis: We conduct a thorough business analysis to determine your real business needs. Subsequently, we carry out a requirements analysis to collect and analyze existing product requirements in order to have a common understanding of the product to be developed.
Requirements Specification: We help you create a detailed Customer Requirements Specification (CRS) to define your view of the expected solution. A clear specification streamlines development and ensures high product quality. While the requirements specified at the outset are not a substitute for agile development, but rather a guiding star for effective and efficient solutions, some or all of them can be declared mandatory requirements if needed. In such a situation, defining binding requirements that must not change during the course of the project provides a solid foundation for the forthcoming development, reducing uncertainty, effort, and cost.
Product Strategy
“If you don’t know which port to sail to, no wind is favorable.” The same is true for software development, which benefits greatly from a compelling product vision, a validated product strategy, and a coherent product roadmap to ensure the success of your software product. By investing in a solid product strategy, you lay the foundation for a software solution that not only meets functional and quality requirements but also becomes a commercial and organizational home run.
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ServicesProduct Vision: We help you define a compelling product vision based on your business needs and objectives to provide a solid foundation for product success.
Product Strategy: Based on the product vision, we help you define a solid product strategy to ensure you get the right product in the right way. A product strategy is not just about planning, it is also about validating the strategy to achieve product success with confidence.
Product Roadmap: Based on the product strategy, we help you define a detailed product roadmap that is aligned with your product strategy. The roadmap is the plan for how the product strategy will be implemented in the future.
Product Idea Validation
Uncertainty about whether a product will be accepted by the market makes validation a must. Validating a product idea ensures that it meets market needs and user expectations. Using a minimum viable product (MVP) allows to test the core functionality of the planned product with minimal resources. This process gathers user insights, refines features, and moves toward product-market-fit, reducing risk and increasing the likelihood of success. Investing in iterative validation with an MVP is a smart move to keep effort and cost down and significantly reduce uncertainty.
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ServicesUser Insight Analysis: For products that are meant for users, and where user experience and satisfaction are critical to product success, user insights are priceless. We help with data collection and analysis to understand your target audience, their pain points, desires, and jobs to be done. We also assist in data collection and analysis after your product is released to understand how your product is being used, identify areas for optimization, and suggest changes to increase the overall value of your product.
Product Idea Validation: On the path to sustainable and growing product success, it is critical to validate even the best idea. This validation is typically done by using minimum viable products (MVPs) for product idea validation and gathering real user feedback on the core features of the product (value proposition). Analyzing user feedback helps refine your product strategy to ensure it meets market needs. This process minimizes risk, reduces time and effort, and lays a solid foundation for a strong product-market-fit. We help you plan and execute validation and evaluate validation results to establish your product with your user base.
Use Cases
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Interoperability RequirementsUse Case and Results: Creating a detailed requirements specification for the development of a mission-critical software module ensures interoperability with required third-party software, resulting in seamless integration and enhanced system functionality. By defining these requirements at the beginning of the software project, development activities can be efficiently planned and executed without costly surprises.
Applied Services: Requirements analysis to determine interoperability needs, requirements specification to define development scope and constraints.
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Facelift Strategy
Use Case and Results: Creating a product strategy for legacy software to be reengineered and enhanced leads to an alignment of deliverables with current market needs, resulting in a more competitive and user-centric product, while reducing costs by eliminating marginal features not requested by the main target audience.
Applied Services: Business analysis to determine business needs, requirements analysis to understand legacy software requirements, product strategy for a reengineered software solution to replace the legacy software.
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SaaS Validation
Use Case and Results: Validating a software MVP for an engineering SaaS startup leads to identification of critical design considerations that impact user experience, resulting in a new marketing strategy and optimized monthly recurring revenue (MRR) in the first year after final product launch.
Applied Services: Product idea validation of the SaaS.
Your Benefits
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Strategic AlignmentA solid product strategy aligns with your business objectives and addresses real market needs, driving success and growth.
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Risk Mitigation
Quickly validating product ideas and gathering user feedback early in the development process reduces the risk of costly mistakes.
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Efficiency & Quality
Focusing on business-critical requirements and ensuring interoperability with existing systems reduces costs and improves product quality.
Have a project idea in mind?
Let’s find out how we can help you turn your vision into reality!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
How do you handle requirement changes during the development process?
Before we start software development, we clarify both mandatory and high-level requirements, and constraints. Often there are only a few requirements (e.g., regarding interoperability) that must not change. If all requirements are fixed and mandatory, we review or revise the customer requirements specification (CRS) with the client to ensure that the development is based on a coherent foundation.
As the project progresses, requirements may change, new requirements may emerge, or others may be removed from the backlog. Our agile project management is designed and prepared to accommodate change requests at any time.
Performing impact analysis and prioritization is critical to the successful implementation of change requests so that the customer can make informed decisions.
Does successful software development require a product strategy?
An explicit product strategy may not be necessary if the goal and general characteristics of the software to be developed are clear from the outset, especially for internal applications. In such cases, a well-defined goal can effectively guide the development process.
However, for public (customer-facing) applications, a product strategy is highly recommended. The success of these applications depends largely on user acceptance and market fit. A product strategy helps understand user needs, define key features, and position the application in the market to ensure that it meets the expectations and requirements of the target audience.
How does a product idea get validated?
Validating a minimum viable product (MVP) requires a structured approach to ensure that it meets user needs and market requirements.
The first step is to choose the right type of MVP based on the learning objective and other factors, knowing that this choice may evolve as more insight is gained. Clear objectives and success criteria are defined, focusing on key features that address the core problem. Depending on the MVP type simple web analytics or advanced user testing sessions are conducted to gather feedback that help understand user experiences, preferences, and pain points. The data collected are analyzed to identify patterns and insights by tracking usage metrics, user behavior, and feedback. Based on this analysis, we make iterative improvements to the MVP, ensuring that it evolves to better meet user needs.