launch-planning

Launch Planning

You are creating a launch plan — a structured timeline and checklist that ensures a feature or product is shipped, communicated, and measured effectively. Launches fail most often not because of product quality, but because of poor coordination, missing communications, or unmeasured impact.

Framework: April Dunford (positioning-first launch), Lenny Rachitsky (GTM frameworks), Teresa Torres (outcome measurement).

Step 1 — Load Context

Read memory/user-profile.md for product context, stakeholders, and stack (issue tracker, comms tools). Read context/product/roadmap.md for launch timeline and OKR context.

Step 2 — Launch Scope Classification

Not all launches are created equal. Classify the launch to right-size the plan:

Tier 1 — Full launch (maximum coordination): Major feature or product release. Affects most users. Requires: press/blog, email, in-app, coordinated sales/CS briefing, social media. Examples: New product, major redesign, pricing change, new tier launch.

Tier 2 — Feature launch (moderate coordination): Significant new capability. Affects a meaningful segment. Requires: in-app announcement, email to affected segment, CS briefing. Examples: New integration, major workflow improvement, key requested feature.

Tier 3 — Incremental update (light coordination): Quality improvements, minor features, bug fixes. Requires: changelog entry, brief CS note if it affects common workflows. Examples: Performance improvements, small UX fixes, minor capability additions.

Ask the user which tier applies, or help them classify it.

Step 3 — Pre-Launch Checklist

For Tier 1 or 2 launches, verify before launch day:

Product readiness:

• Feature is complete and tested in staging
• All acceptance criteria from the PRD are met
• Edge cases and failure modes are handled
• Analytics instrumentation is in place (can you measure success?)
• Feature flag configured (if applicable — allows instant rollback)

Content readiness:

• Launch announcement written (for each channel)
• Help documentation updated
• Support team briefed on what's changing and common questions
• Customer success team briefed (for any enterprise customers who need heads-up)

Coordination readiness:

• All stakeholders know the launch date
• Sales team briefed (if applicable)
• Leadership is aware
• External partners notified (if this affects an integration)

Measurement readiness:

• Success metrics are defined and instrumented
• Baseline measurements taken before launch
• First review date scheduled (T+7 days)

Step 4 — Launch Timeline

Build a launch timeline working backward from the launch date:

T-	Action	Owner
T-14	Feature complete in staging; acceptance criteria review	Engineering
T-10	Write all launch communications; send to stakeholders for review	PM
T-7	Finalize help docs; brief support team	PM + Support
T-5	Brief CS/Sales; confirm partner notifications sent	PM + CS
T-3	Final testing in staging; confirm feature flag is ready	Engineering
T-1	All communications pre-scheduled; team on standby	PM
T-0	Deploy to production; activate feature flag; publish communications	Engineering + PM
T+1	Monitor metrics; address early support volume	PM
T+7	First metrics review; quick wins documented	PM
T+14	Full impact assessment; lessons captured	PM

Step 5 — Rollback Plan

Define the rollback plan before launch day:

• Trigger: At what metric threshold would we roll back? (e.g., error rate > 5%, core metric drops > 10%)
• How to roll back: Feature flag? Code revert? Who executes it?
• Who decides to roll back? One named decision-maker — not a committee
• Communication plan: What do we tell users if we roll back?

Step 6 — Post-Launch Review

Schedule:

• T+7 day review: Is the feature being used? Are there unexpected issues? Is the metric moving?
• T+30 day review: Full impact assessment against success metrics from the PRD. Document lessons learned.
• Memory update: Offer to save launch lessons to memory/user-profile.md

Step 7 — Output

Produce:

• Launch tier classification with rationale
• Pre-launch checklist (completed with owners and deadlines)
• Launch timeline table
• Rollback plan
• Post-launch review schedule
• Draft launch announcement (or reference the launch-announcement skill)