Product sunsetting, and PM role in it!

Product sunsetting, also known as product end-of-life (EOL), is the planned process of discontinuing a product or service. This involves ceasing all marketing, sales, development, and eventually, support for the product. It's a natural part of the product lifecycle, allowing companies to reallocate resources to more promising ventures. ☀️

Product sunsetting, and PM role in it.

Reasons for Sunsetting a Product

Companies decide to sunset products for several strategic reasons, often boiling down to resource optimization and future focus.

• Declining Performance: The most common reason is that the product is no longer financially viable. This could be due to dwindling sales, a shrinking user base, or high maintenance costs that outweigh its revenue.

• Outdated Technology: The technology stack the product is built on may become obsolete, making it difficult to maintain, secure, or update. Migrating to a new platform might be more expensive than building a new solution.

• Strategic Pivot: The company's overall strategy may change. A product, even if profitable, might no longer align with the company's long-term vision or brand identity. Resources are then shifted to projects that better support the new direction.

• Market Irrelevance: The market need that the product once served may no longer exist, or superior alternatives from competitors have captured the market.

• Product Portfolio Consolidation: A company might have multiple products with overlapping features. Sunsetting a redundant product can simplify the company's offerings, reduce customer confusion, and streamline operations.

How to Approach Product Sunsetting

A well-managed sunsetting process minimizes disruption for customers and protects the company's reputation.

1. Internal Alignment: The decision to sunset a product must be communicated and agreed upon across all departments, including engineering, marketing, sales, and customer support. Everyone needs to understand the "why" behind the decision.

2. Develop a Transition Plan: Create a detailed timeline and plan. This should cover key milestones, from the public announcement to the final shutdown date. The plan needs to address how existing customers will be supported during the transition.

3. Communicate Clearly and Early: Inform your customers well in advance. Explain why the product is being discontinued and what their options are. This communication should be honest, empathetic, and transparent. Provide a clear timeline for the cessation of sales, feature development, and support.

4. Provide Migration Paths: Whenever possible, offer a migration path to a newer product or a partner's solution. This could involve providing data export tools, discounts on replacement products, or detailed guides for switching to an alternative.

5. Wind Down Support: Gradually reduce support as the final date approaches. This might mean moving from full phone and email support to a self-service knowledge base before finally ceasing all support.

6. Analyze and Learn: After the process is complete, conduct a post-mortem. Analyze what went well and what could be improved for future product sunsetting initiatives.

Key Considerations Before Killing a Product

Before making the final call, it's crucial to evaluate the potential fallout and prepare accordingly.

• Customer Impact: How many customers will be affected, and how critical is the product to their operations? A high-impact shutdown requires a more delicate and extended transition period.

• Brand Reputation: A poorly handled sunset can damage your brand's reputation and erode customer trust. Will customers be hesitant to adopt your new products in the future?

• Contractual Obligations: Review all customer contracts and service level agreements (SLAs). Ensure you are not violating any legal commitments by discontinuing the product or its support.

• Data Archiving and Migration: What will happen to user data? You must have a clear policy for data export, transfer, or deletion that complies with privacy regulations like GDPR or CCPA.

• Employee Morale: The team that built and supported the product may feel a sense of loss or failure. It's important to manage this internally, celebrate the product's successes, and reassign team members to new, exciting projects.

Examples of Product Sunsetting

• Google Reader (2013): Google sunsetted its popular RSS feed reader, citing declining usage and a desire to focus on fewer products. Despite a passionate user base and public outcry, Google provided users with a few months to export their data.

• Apple's iPod (2022): Once a revolutionary product that transformed the music industry, the iPod was gradually made redundant by the iPhone. Apple slowly phased out different models over the years, with the final model, the iPod Touch, being discontinued in 2022 as its capabilities were fully integrated into other Apple devices.

• Microsoft's Internet Explorer (2022): After decades as a dominant web browser, Internet Explorer became technologically outdated and plagued by security issues. Microsoft developed a modern successor, Edge, and officially ended support for Internet Explorer in 2022, actively encouraging users to migrate for better performance and security.

PM Role in Product Sunsetting

The product manager (PM) acts as the strategic leader and central coordinator throughout the entire product sunsetting process. They ensure it's handled efficiently, empathetically, and with minimal disruption to the business and its customers. 🎯

Analysis and Decision-Making

The PM is responsible for building the case for or against sunsetting a product. This involves:

• Data Gathering: Collecting and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data. This includes financial metrics like revenue and cost of maintenance, product usage data (e.g., daily active users, feature adoption), customer support ticket volume, and market trends.

• Strategic Alignment: Evaluating how the product fits with the company's current and future strategy. The PM must answer the question: "Does this product still help us achieve our company goals?"

• Business Case Creation: Synthesizing the data into a clear business case that outlines the rationale for sunsetting. This document justifies the decision to stakeholders and leadership by weighing the costs of maintaining the product against the benefits of reallocating those resources.

Planning and Execution

Once the decision is made, the PM orchestrates the entire shutdown plan.

• Creating the Sunsetting Roadmap: The PM develops a detailed timeline with key milestones. This roadmap includes dates for internal announcements, public communication, ending sales to new customers, ceasing development, and the final end-of-support date.

• Internal Coordination: The PM is the primary liaison between all internal teams. They ensure engineering, marketing, sales, customer support, and legal are all aligned on the plan, understand their roles, and have the resources they need to execute.

• Developing a Communication Plan: Working closely with marketing and support, the PM crafts the messaging for all communications. The messaging must be clear, transparent, and empathetic, explaining why the product is being retired and what the next steps are for users.

Customer and Stakeholder Management

This is one of the most critical roles for the PM during a sunset.

• Being the Customer's Advocate: The PM ensures the customer's perspective is represented throughout the process. This means anticipating customer needs, friction points, and questions.

• Managing Communications: While marketing may send the emails, the PM is often the one who speaks directly with key accounts, answers tough questions on forums, and serves as the public face of the decision.

• Defining Migration Paths: The PM is responsible for providing customers with a viable path forward. This could involve creating data export tools, identifying a suitable replacement product (either internal or external), and offering incentives or discounts to ease the transition.

Post-Sunset Activities

The PM's job isn't over when the product is turned off.

• Conducting a Post-Mortem: The PM leads a retrospective analysis to document what went well, what could have been done better, and key learnings. This information is invaluable for improving future product lifecycle decisions.

• Resource Reallocation: The PM plays a key role in transitioning the team and their knowledge to new projects, ensuring that valuable talent is retained and refocused on the company's new strategic priorities.