How to Plan New Products and Services: Connect a product idea to a customer problem and operating plan
A product plan starts with features and delivery dates before the team has agreed on the customer, the problem, or the evidence needed to invest.
The useful response is not more ceremony. It is a mechanism that can connect a product idea to a customer problem and operating plan.
What the skill produces
The How to Plan New Products and Services skill turns supplied context into a planning brief that connects customer evidence, value proposition, assumptions, dependencies, measures, and a decision. It should expose missing evidence instead of inventing it. The free skill packages this mechanism for explicit use. It does not fetch remote instructions, and the practitioner remains responsible for the facts and final decision.
Run the mechanism
- Define the customer and the problem using supplied evidence.
- State the proposed value, assumptions, alternatives, and material risks.
- Build the smallest test that can inform the investment decision.
The owner should review the output against the original evidence before it is used. Any unresolved assumption stays labeled, with an owner and date when it affects the decision.
Failure check
A polished roadmap cannot repair an unverified customer problem. The skill must label assumptions rather than converting them into facts.
Adoption test
Use the brief for one proposed product. Ask the decider which missing evidence would change the decision, then assign an owner and date to obtain it.
Keep the skill only if it improves the artifact or decision against that baseline. Revise the playbook when the same failure survives more than one review cycle.
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