Chief Product Officer
The success of a brand or company is a direct result of the product – or products – within its brand portfolio. Without laser-focused oversight throughout the product development lifecycle, costs can spiral out of control, product teams can lack efficiency, and as a result, company growth can falter or stagnate.
As visionary leader of the product development team, a Chief Product Officer manages the entire lifecycle of a product, including all aspects of design, development, delivery, and launch strategy. The knowledge that a CPO brings to the table includes extensive experience in the areas of product engineering, research and development, process mapping, technology, data analytics, marketing/PR, and consumer behavior. In just one role, SMEs can gain access to a wealth of knowledge and proven experience, rather than breaking the budget to hire an expert in each of these product development areas.
Even though the role of CPO is in high demand, hiring a full-time CPO can be cost-prohibitive for SMEs who haven’t yet gained traction within their target product market. By hiring a Fractional CPO to provide tailored product development support, you can leverage the experience of a seasoned product executive, without the burden of a long hiring process and a significant salary demand.
Why Hire A Fractional CPO?
A Fractional CPO understands the integral roles of technology, automation, roadmapping, and efficient sprint planning, in supporting cost-efficient design and development throughout the product lifecycle. An outsourced CPO will also work to drive optimal efficiency of organizational teams in every relevant product department, including product management, UX, product analytics, product marketing, IT, and PR.
One of the greatest benefits of hiring a Fractional CPO for SMEs is the opportunity to leverage their expertise in product management to help validate product/market fit. By collecting feedback through surveys, qualitative research, and focus groups, you’ll gain a better view of your target market, along with the associated customer pain points. Driven by this deep dive into UX research, your brand can more effectively position your product to gain an edge over the competition, and can properly prepare for successful design, development, and launch.
Your Fractional CPO will simultaneously retain an objective view of your company’s goals, needs, and growth objectives, while ensuring that product innovations, key features, and deliverables align with the long-term vision of the organization.
Benefits Of Hiring A Fractional CPO
A Fractional CPO will seamlessly lead all product development efforts, while overseeing day-to-day product management tasks, in order to ensure that resulting deliverables support the vision, mission, strategy, and long-term objectives of the organization.
Hiring a Fractional CPO can help your enterprise to:
Work seamlessly together to rapidly improve time to market, implement agile product roadmaps, and increase speed of product sprints.
Present consistent organizational messaging that aligns with the company narrative surrounding the product features and product launch.
Keep product design and development costs under control.
Drive efficient development of products that aligns with a clear and consistent value proposition. Establish market-led pricing strategies based on current product demand, along with comparative analysis of competitors and/or similar product markets.
Brainstorm and implement innovative strategies to build out product offerings, driven by in-depth UX research and current customer feedback.
Fractional CPO Roles and Responsibilities
Although services are tailored to meet the needs of your organization, below are the strategic tasks and responsibilities that are typically executed by a Fractional CPO:
- Setting short-term and long-term product development goals, in addition to defining and implementing all components of organizational product strategy.
- Serving as product development liaison to the Board of Directors and external shareholders.
- Managing product manager responsible for day-to-day development of the product.
- Product roadmap review and evaluation, with recommendations for strategic improvement.
- Compilation of Market Requirements Document to establish consistent priorities, define market opportunity, and set a schedule for launch timing.
- Collaborating closely with marketing team to align GTM strategy with product development lifecycle, and working together to ensure successful execution of key deliverables.
- Conducting sprint reviews, including assessment of sprint backlogs to prioritize essential tasks for upcoming sprints.
- Supporting efficient issue tracking to ensure timely resolution of consumer problems or complaints, while collecting feedback for purposes of product improvement.
- Tracking, recording, and analyzing product-related metrics to facilitate informed decision-making across all product teams.
