AIPMM CPM cheat sheet

Product management spans three horizons: strategy (why/what), planning (when/who), and execution (how).

A product manager owns outcomes (value, adoption, revenue) rather than outputs (features shipped).

The product lifecycle stages are introduction, growth, maturity, and decline; strategy differs by stage.

Value proposition = customer segment + underserved job + differentiated benefit + proof of superiority.

Total addressable market (TAM) bounds opportunity; serviceable obtainable market (SOM) bounds near-term revenue.

Product-market fit signals: organic growth, low churn, high willingness to pay, and unprompted referrals.

Three core roles: product manager (what/why), product owner (backlog/priorities), project manager (schedule/scope).

Prioritization rule: rank by expected value divided by effort; expected value = impact x confidence x reach.

Idea funnel stages: ideation, screening, concept development, concept testing, business analysis, development, testing, launch.

Concept test measures purchase intent, liking, uniqueness, and believability before any engineering spend.

A concept statement includes target user, need, product form, key benefit, and reason to believe.

Validation hierarchy (weak to strong): opinion, stated intent, simulated purchase, real pre-order, actual repeat purchase.

Minimum viable product tests the riskiest assumption with the least build; success criteria defined in advance.

Riskiest-assumption test: identify the assumption whose failure kills the concept, then design the cheapest test.

Stage-gate: cross-functional gate review passes, kills, holds, or recycles a project at each phase boundary.

Voice-of-customer interviews use open-ended questions about past behavior, not hypothetical future intent.

Scope triangle: scope, time, and cost are fixed; quality and features flex under constraint.

Critical path is the longest dependent sequence; shortening non-critical tasks does not shorten the project.

Requirements hierarchy: theme > epic > user story > task; stories follow 'as a, I want, so that' format.

Definition of done is a shared checklist; work is not complete until it passes every item.

Roadmap horizons: now (committed), next (planned), later (exploratory); confidence decreases left to right.

Launch readiness gates: legal/regulatory, pricing, support, documentation, and go-to-market assets.

Burn rate and runway: runway months = cash on hand / net monthly burn; governs release pacing.

Risk register scores each risk by probability x impact; mitigation owner and trigger assigned per risk.

BCG matrix: stars (high growth/high share), cash cows (low growth/high share), question marks, dogs.

Portfolio rule: fund stars and question marks from cash-cow profits; divest or fix dogs.

Cannibalization is acceptable when the new product's margin exceeds the lost margin of the existing product.

Product line extension adds a variant within a category; brand extension uses the brand in a new category.

Retirement criteria: declining margin, rising support cost, security exposure, or strategic misfit.

Customer lifetime value (CLV) = average margin per period x retention periods minus acquisition cost.

Churn rate = customers lost in period / customers at start of period; retention = 1 minus churn.

Product hierarchy: portfolio > product line > product > variant; pricing and investment decisions apply at each level.