PM Wargame: Manage Meta Workplace’s end-of-life
The board
The Meta overlords have decided to shut down Workplace. You are put in charge of its end-of-life (EOL) process.
In ‘PM Wargames’, I take on a hypothetical PM challenge and attempt to unpack the strategic & tactical approaches I would take to solve it. Unless sources are specifically cited, all information (including the challenge itself) is purely for illustrative purposes.
In this case, fiction meets facts slightly as Meta have indeed decided to shut Workplace down.
Game plan
The board tells me very little about this decision. Why is Workplace being shut down?
Understand the decision
My first task is to understand why this decision was made. This will inform crucial parts of the EOL process such as internal & external communication.
It’s dangerous to speculate but for this exercise, I’ll assume Workplace is being shut down because it’s just not profitable enough. The competition is steep (Microsoft likely leading the way). The CEO clearly wants to focus most of the company’s time and resources on future-looking technology like the metaverse and AI. Workplace may no longer play a role in this vision.
There’s also a chance Workplace has naturally reached its EOL.
Define goals
Based on these assumptions, I doubt we will provide customers with an in-house alternative to Workplace. My goals, therefore, are to:
Manage customer relations.
Minimise potentially negative impact on the Meta brand.
Manage internal communication.
Define a clear timeline of events.
Help reallocate resources
Customers
Since we’re not offering an alternative product in-house, I want to do some research. What product, out there, is best suited to take over for our customers?
I will prepare a list of a handful of options along with a feature comparison chart.
To help manage customer relationships and minimise impact on our brand, I want to make sure the transition is as easy as possible for our customers. I will aim to strike a partnership with the best alternative product I can find.
We will pick a single provider, develop a partnership with their team and create migration plans and perhaps even tools to facilitate the process.
On top of good karma, this is also a good PR opportunity. There’s a chance shutting down our product will incur negative sentiment in the press; a great migration plan should help us with that.
Once we’ve offered them a suitable alternative, our customers will likely move on to their next worry: their data. Will it all get lost?
I want to get ahead of this as well. I will engage our data and development teams to understand the situation and minimise any negative impact. In an ideal world, we would migrate all data from Workplace to our chosen provider without any data loss.
Internal
Internal teams too will feel the blow of shutting our product down. I want to clearly communicate this process with three teams in particular:
Product team. I would expect the Workplace product team to be informed of its EOL at roughly the same time as me. We should connect, debrief on what happened and what we can learn from this decision, and lay down my plans (and their parts in it) clearly.
Sales team. The loss of a product might mean the nuking of entire pipelines and commission streams for the sales team. Since we’re not replacing the product, I will focus on organising retraining opportunities into other products on the portfolio.
Marketing team. Closing down our app will be very public. We need to control the narrative, involve PR, and do all of the ‘small’ admin tasks of removing Workplace from ads, documentation, marketing material, and more.
Thinking of the customers in such a situation is evident. Having empathy for the internal teams, however, may not come as easy.
Some of these conversations will be tricky. Some of these people have been working on or around this product for years, tying some of their career goals to it, and more.
I will want to be extremely empathetic in all internal conversations. This means clear, straightforward, and transparent communication.
Timeline
Believe it or not, the timeline has already begun.
By the time I had been instructed of Workplace’s EOL, a floury of events had already happened: the leadership has already flagged Workplace as potentially a losing product, an EOL assessment has already been carried out, a decision was made, and more.
We’re now jumping into a moving river.
I want to centre the rest of the timeline around these key dates:
Internal communication
Public communication
1o1 communication with key customers
End of product sale
End of product maintenance
End of product support
We need to set these dates now and not change them. This is an important part of the plan and communication.
I will group all internal communication with an initial (embargoed) announcement email to everyone at once. Following that, I will work with each team or individual following the plan mentioned in the ‘internal’ section above.
Marketing will be the tie between internal comms and public comms. I will work with them to put a PR together, contact the right outlets, and coordinate the public messaging.
By the time the public announcement has been made, I want to have a list of our biggest customers and be ready to start dialling. I’d rope the sales and success team on those calls, too, to ease the pain.
For our biggest customers, I’ll aim to offer a white-gloved migration to our new recommended tool.
Finally, throughout all these conversations, I will communicate the final three dates. Given the size of the product and our customer base, I want to give enough breathing room in this part of the timeline:
I expect the ‘end of product sale’ date to be almost immediate.
‘End of product maintenance’ date may be about a year from the public announcement.
‘End of product support’ will be 3-6 months later.
Resources
Bringing Workplace to an end-of-life will release a bunch of smart humans and capital from an unprofitable product. Where could their talent best be used?
As the first mad rush of public announcements and internal/external conversation quietens, I want to help reallocate these resources.
I will create a resource map of everyone available to work on something else. While it’s not my job to assign them new work, I’d like to hand over something my boss (and their boss’ boss) can use to assist in the resource reallocation process.
With a clear migration plan, a clear communication plan, and a clear handover plan, I believe we’re ready to go.
This is my game plan. What do you think of this approach? How would you play this PM wargame?