Stefano Cornacchia
Product Manager
My Approach to Product Management
A strategic, user-centric, and iterative approach to delivering impactful products
Product Management is about solving real problems through a structured, data-driven, and user-focused approach. My method integrates Design Thinking, Agile methodologies, and a continuous iteration mindset to build scalable and meaningful solutions. This framework ensures that every product decision is based on insights, validation, and business alignment while fostering innovation at every stage.
Below is an overview of my end-to-end product approach, from discovery to post-launch growth.
Discovery & Research
Before building any product, the priority is to DISCOVER and UNDERSTAND which PROBLEMS are worth solving. Without this step, even the best-designed features can end up solving the wrong issue.
The goal here is to identify user pain points and market opportunities, ensuring that the product addresses real needs rather than assumptions. To do this, I leverage data insights from competitors and market analysis and conduct user research. This helps to define:
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User personas and segmentation
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Empathy maps
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Opportunity Solution Trees
Everything in this phase lays the groundwork for the next step: defining a clear problem statement and a solid strategy.
Ideation & Strategy​
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Once the research phase delivers a deep understanding of the problem, it’s time to TRANSFORM INSIGHTS INTO STRATEGY. This is where the product starts taking shape—defining the problem statement and establishing the product vision, missions & OKRs in alignment with business goals and strategies.
At this stage, it is important to have a clear Product Value Proposition - defining what needs to be solved and why - to ensure product/market fit. With that in place, the development strategy is prioritised using the most appropriate framework and objective for the specific business case (guaranteeing both feasibility and impact), helping in defining the:​
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MVP
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Roadmap
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User Story Maps
This phase is crucial because it serves as the blueprint for everything that follows. It ensures that development efforts are focused and aligned, reducing wasted time and resources.
Prototyping & Validation ​
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Ideas are great, but before committing to full development, they need to be tested. This phase is all about creating prototypes, gathering feedback, and refining concepts. The goal is to VALIDATE ASSUMPTIONS before too much time or effort is spent on development.
By mapping out the user experience (UX) and using storyboards and wireframing, low- or mid-fidelity prototypes are created. With these, it’s possible to conduct usability testing iterations to observe how users interact with early versions of the product and what needs improvement.
Once the concepts are validated, the prototype can be further refined to high-fidelity (also using tools like Figma or Miro) to facilitate communication and development in the next phase. This ensures that only the most valuable and user-friendly features make it into production.
Development & Iteration ​
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This is where the validated ideas come to life. All the insights and refinements up to this point are now TRANSFORMED into a SCALABE, FUNCTIONAL PRODUCT.
The key to a smooth development process is cross-functional collaboration. Developers, designers, and product managers work together using Agile methodologies (i.e. Scrumban & Lean) to ensure flexibility and continuous iterations. Here, managing product backlogs and defining clear user stories are crucial to maintaining priorities (tools that might help include JIRA and Trello).
Effective stakeholder communication is also essential to align on progress, but also to maintain a continuous discovery approach, conduct sprint retrospectives, and drive continuous improvement through iterations based on feedback.
Launch & Market Execution​
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With the product built, the next challenge is getting it into the hands of users effectively. LAUNCHING and POSITIONING the product in the market is the aim here.
A strong Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy ensures a successful launch when aligning with the company’s business goals, user needs, and available resources. Different launch strategies work for different products—some require a soft launch to test adoption, while others need a big-bang launch for maximum impact.
Depending on the company structure and team responsibilities, various activities can be carried out:
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Pricing & monetization strategies (e.g., Freemium, Subscription, Dynamic)
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Marketing positioning statements & messaging
In this phase, it is also crucial to define the right KPIs and Metrics to address both product and business objectives and measure launch performance.
A well-planned launch ensures that the product enters the market with clarity, impact, and a strong value proposition.
Post-Launch Growth & Continuous Improvement
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The product is live—but the work doesn’t stop here. Ongoing MONITOR, ITERATION, and OPTIMISATION are essential to ensure the product meets user expectations and business objectives.
This phase is about analysing product performance, identifying areas for improvement, and driving sustainable growth. Some techniques to support growth and useful in this phase include:
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A/B testing and growth experiments
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Scaling the product using Product-Led Growth (PLG)
Here, as in other phases, it is important to create a customer feedback loop to gather valuable data and insights for product improvement. This feedback loop allows teams to revisit previous phases to reorganise development, adjust the backlog, and refine strategies to better align with user expectations.
Alternatively, it may also uncover entirely new opportunities with potential value and benefits for the company, requiring further discovery and research. If worthwhile, the cycle begins again, ensuring that the product stays relevant and competitive.
“Building great products isn’t just about launching ideas—it’s about solving the right problems, constantly iterating, and always keeping users at the centre.”
Product Management is not a linear process—it is a holistic and iterative journey, where each phase informs and influences the next. Successful products require:
✓ Strong user research to define problems.
✓ Strategic vision to guide development.
✓ Iterative validation to refine solutions.
✓ Agile execution to bring products to life.
✓ Continuous optimisation to ensure long-term impact.
By ensuring structured documentation and logical organisation, teams can seamlessly navigate between processes, adapting and improving at every step.