Customers and internal stakeholders care most about general availability dates (GA). The product team needs to care about key dates on the path to GA: Product Defined, Product Done, and Product Released.

The definition of Product Done is  dev complete  +  QA & polish  +  PM’s pre-release notes with FAQ & videos for enablement  +  beta customer stories.

Product Done date is a key date for internal teams to know when the product along with essential enablement is available. The PM is responsible for this date. Product Done date is not the Dev Complete date, whose responsibility is with Engineering.

GA checklist is useful for making the Product Released date. Opportunity brief and PRD/spec are useful for making the Product Defined date. After release, the PM’s job is to drive continual product growth.

PS: Typically I write about building products. I write to pay it forward and to sharpen my thinking.