Drawing upon her decade-long expertise in product management, Hala Jalwan, product lead at Apple, shares her insightful knowledge on navigating product launches and cross-functional collaboration. Hala's impressive career trajectory, spanning Meta's Oculus, Google Assistant, and now Siri for Home at Apple, has equipped her with key perspectives and expertise on how to launch successful products. 

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How does Hala define a launch? 

“In Hardware a launch can be any new hardware or product line and in Software any code that will ship to create a user impact.” 

Given that each launch type engages multiple stakeholders and presents varying risk profiles, it is good practice to segment them at a macro level. For instance, here’s how a product area can categorize its launches into three segments, all aimed at achieving the same objective:  

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Which stakeholders are involved in a launch? 

In general, a core team or squad should drive the launch. This squad is composed of product, design, engineering and marketing. This squad's collaboration ensures strategic alignment and collective success, as they cohesively work towards achieving shared launch objectives.

As the launch progresses, the core team engages with a fluctuating set of stakeholders at various stages of the process. This dynamic involvement can be envisioned as two funnels facing opposite directions: 

"Imagine stakeholders' engagement as two funnels facing opposite directions. The funnel widens during the initial stages, narrows and focuses during implementation, and then broadens once again during the launch/GTM stages."

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Hala’s recommended launch checklist 

Launch checklists can be templatized to suit different launch categories. However, let’s go through the following launch example, and Hala’s recommendations about the steps the team should follow. The crucial aspect is to remain flexible and not dogmatic to the established process.

Setting up the scene: 

1. Problem to be solved → on the Google Display team, users faced challenges in understanding how to use the product due to a lack of discovery features for the Display and non-Display products.

2. Goal → Build in-product discovery to grow engagement (# of queries per week per user).

3. Potential solutions / launches:

• Hardware with screen → launch a new page displaying action cards.
• Hardware without screen → launch a voice tutorial during onboarding.

Launch checklist: 

1. Agree on and prioritize the problem to solve: this step is led by the PM, but involves actively listening to users and collaborating with the whole squad (engineering, data science and design). For certain problem areas, incorporating input from customer support teams can prove highly beneficial → Your responsibility as a PM is to gather buy-in and alignment around the problem.‍

2. Define the solution / launch: the problem can lead to one or more launches, each requiring prioritization. The specific solution will determine the stakeholders to engage. For example, the design team will be very involved in a new feature launch, but not involved in a quality improvement launch.

“The PM is not the one who has answers to all solutions, more a person able to synthesize and prioritize, but everyone has good ideas, if you think you’re the only one, you’re making a mistake.” 

3. Write the PRD! (Hala’s recommended template)

• PRD’s status: it is not a finished document, it is like a conversation with stakeholders, which aims to align everyone around the same language.
• PRD’s owner: it is authored and led by one person (the PM), but can be modified and commented on by many people, to give them the opportunity to actively contribute to the launch. 
• PRD’s participants: at its core and start, you can think of the following participants working hand in hand to finalize the PRD. Hala has found the “square level of engagement” to be particularly effective for her launches. Each team works in parallel and adds their work to the PRD: Data fills out the data section, Design fills out the design and prototype section, Engineers might just review or add inputs.

• Weekly product forums are a great avenue for PMs to get feedback from their peers: anyone can bring a topic to the table. Topics can 1) still be at ideation phase - needing assistance with key points or 2) be completed with PRD - seeking feedback about a particular section. 

4. Checkpoint #1 - Product Review: all stakeholders agree on the scope of what they are aiming to build and get the sign off from organization leaders. 

5. Development of the feature: as a PM: 

• You either work closely with PgMs and TPMs, or have to take care of the project management aspect of the development, along with your engineering team.
• Stay close to your engineers to answer any questions they have, while also providing them with the necessary space to build.  
• Keep changes up to date in the PRD, including new decisions and trade-offs.
• Involve other teams within the company at the right time if dependencies exist.
• Start the conversation with privacy and legal team.
• Finalize GTM planning by the time development is done.

6. Internal product demo: this is a significant internal milestone for engineering team to showcase what they have built and get recognition for their efforts.

7. Internal testing: begin with your own team, providing everyone with the opportunity to test and offer feedback. Implement P0 feedback before the launch.

8. Experiment: the feasibility of experimentation depends on the launch type. Time sensitivity or event-specific launches may limit the ability to experiment.

9. Checkpoint #2 - go/no-go: hold a meeting to discuss results, assess the experience and agree on a decision to launch or gradually launch.

10. Launch!

11. Post-launch … to land it: reconvene with your core team to analyze the impact of the launch, agree on potential improvements and plan fast follow ups.

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Best practices and tips to launch successfully

1. Documentation is crucial:

• Acknowledge that you will not launch exactly what you said you will be launching. Circumstances evolve a lot over time. Reduce information bottlenecks by ensuring the product manager or program manager is not the sole repository of knowledge.
• Maintain your documents up to date as a single source of truth that you can point people to. This will eliminate the need to continuously inform everyone about changes → Your PRD can be used as such, where all changes are highlighted there.
• A disciplined and high quality documentation will help you save a lot of time not having these alignment conversations.

2. Conduct in-depth reviews with each stakeholder separately, at the beginning: recognize that individuals may interpret messages differently. Make sure you are all aligned from the beginning.

“At the end, you need to make sure everyone knows what is happening, because everyone will have specific actions within their role to ensure the launch is successful.” 

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Launch challenges to keep in mind

• In fast-paced environments, not everyone can independently stay up to date. Establish effective alignment and communication mechanisms to ensure everyone is included and coordinated.
• Merely sharing status updates may lead to varied interpretations or delayed awareness. Cross-functional teams, such as legal and marketing, may comprehend the significance of a status change too late.
• Continually asking yourself “How can I ensure everyone gains a comprehensive understanding of what is being built, rather than a superficial one.”

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Concluding thoughts

Hala's insights, derived from a decade of experience in launching products within major tech companies, serve as a crucial guide for achieving successful and impactful launches. She emphasizes the significance of engaging stakeholders at the appropriate times, ensuring their voices are heard, and fostering a thorough understanding of the launch. Moreover, she underscores the importance of maintaining a single source of truth for launch data. These insights, combined with an adaptive approach and a commitment to high-quality work, will undoubtedly help you launch high quality products that will benefit your users!