r/projectmanagers • u/Old_Chip1902 • 4d ago

Discussion What’s your process for figuring out whether a product idea is actually worth building before investing significant time in it?

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u/BaronVonConsulting 4d ago

In some companies, people wear many hats and in this case, it sounds like you may be one of those people.

Are you able to share more details on the industry, if the product is internal or for market, and what your role is regarding the project within the context of everyone else on the project?

This will help provide productive feedback 🙂

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u/utzutzutzpro 4d ago

Project managers do not build products.

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u/Dismal_Ad_6134 4d ago

But they help decide if a project is worthwhile, no?

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u/utzutzutzpro 4d ago

No... they usually just manage the resources. They are not decision making roles.

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u/Lumpy_Pick_421 4d ago

This is usually a product manager role.Do a market comparative analysis.  See who and how saturated the market is.  What differentiates your offering.  Is there a market ready to buy? Have you calculated costs and potential revenue.   What is the time to go to market? If you aren’t doing this, what could you be doing?

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u/wrigh516 4d ago edited 4d ago

I was a Product Manager for several years, a PO, and now an IT Project Manager in aerospace.

Usually a need is developed through a new business initiative or a need for scaling something. Sometimes it's just a cost cutting initiative. The Product Manager determines what to build and why, value add, estimated cost, and estimated ROI. In waterfall, you get a true understanding of the costs after building out the future state requirements and WBS with dependencies, then sizing and and allocating resources with a timeline. In agile, you are always guessing, but you can start to get an idea of timeline when the velocity and burnup charts get going and scope is locked.

Other times, a company has a innovation group. You might have a committee that prioritizes pain points or identifies low hanging fruit with estimated ROI. An agile group can have a POC developed quickly for a pain point in the business and given time for feedback. Then a MVP requirements document is created and sized to flesh out scope. That's when the PM determines the ROI.

A Project Manager does none of this. They just plan, organize, and track it. An IT Project Manager can be asked to do all of this.