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Decision trail · Enterprise AI · product strategy

Align the whole company before launch

An AI product every team understood differently, and a team that wanted to launch anyway. The result: the whole company now tells the same story about the product, and the go/no-go criteria held back a premature launch.

5
teams telling the same story about the product
Avoided
the premature launch, held back by the go/no-go criteria
1
single product plan, already in execution

Context

The product started as an AI chat for querying data and generating reports. I joined as Product Manager and Strategy Consultant, in a 3-month consulting engagement with full autonomy.

Problem

Over time, each team came to understand the product differently, and sales was selling something it didn't do. After a few POCs, the team wanted to launch anyway.

Evidence

  • I interviewed about 12 people across engineering, design, marketing, sales and leadership.
  • I mapped features, architecture, experience and positioning to separate what the product did from what people said it did.

Hypotheses

  • Teams told different stories because there had never been a single definition of what the product is and who it is for.
  • Sales oversold the product because there was no MVP scope or packaging to anchor the pitch.
  • The rush to launch came from POCs, which showed interest but did not prove the product was ready. Without go/no-go criteria, launching became a matter of opinion.

Metrics

North Star Metric

Go/no-go criteria met

The launch only happens once every defined criterion is met.

Secondary

Teams telling the same story

Engineering, design, marketing, sales and leadership describing the product the same way. 5 of 5.

Secondary

Sales within the MVP scope

Commercial proposals that promise only what the MVP delivers.

Decision

Don't launch until everyone tells the same story. I defined the MVP scope, go/no-go criteria for launch and the direction for packaging, pricing and rollout.

Execution

  • Session 1: what the product is.
  • Session 2: which processes need to exist for it to work.
  • Session 3: how we will go to market.

Outcome

  • The go/no-go criteria stopped the premature launch.
  • The teams started telling the same story about the product.
  • The plan is in execution.

Learning

While each team told its own story, sales was selling what the product did not do. Today, before any launch, I write go/no-go criteria every team signs off on, so the decision to launch does not depend on who speaks loudest.