product-lifecycle-plays

name	product-lifecycle-plays
argument-hint	[product or product line, and the signal that something needs to change]
description	Map a product's lifecycle stage and choose between extension, replacement, and retirement plays. Use when a product is maturing or declining and the next move isn't obvious.
intent	Diagnose where a product sits in the Product Life Cycle and choose deliberately among the three plays available at the decline inflection — extend the product, replace it with a successor, or retire it. Includes the mature-to-declining transition questions, the seven replacement hazards with a risk register, and a portfolio worksheet for deciding across a product line.
type	component
theme	product-lifecycle
best_for	["Deciding whether a fading product should be extended, replaced, or retired","Diagnosing whether a product has actually crossed from mature into decline","Running the play decision across a whole product line, not one product at a time"]
scenarios	["Revenue is flattening on our flagship and people are arguing about a rewrite versus a refresh","We have four aging SKUs and no consistent way to decide what happens to each"]
estimated_time	25-45 min

Product Lifecycle Plays

Purpose

Decide what to do with a product that has stopped growing. There are three plays — extend, replace, retire — and picking the wrong one is expensive in a different way each time. This skill gives you the stage diagnosis, the criteria that discriminate the plays, and the hazard register for the one that goes wrong most often.

Most teams skip straight to a play. Someone says "let's rebuild it" or "let's kill it," and the argument that follows is about the answer rather than the diagnosis. The diagnosis is the work.

Input

Works best with: The product or product line, and the signal that prompted the question — flattening revenue, rising support costs, a competitor move, a strategy shift.

Also useful: Revenue and margin trend, customer counts and concentration, support load, what else in the portfolio is adjacent, and how much investment appetite exists.

Anything supplied with the invocation itself — text after the skill name, a pasted context dump, or an appended ARGUMENTS: line — counts as answers already given. Use it and skip whatever it covers; don't re-ask.

Arriving empty-handed? That works too. Bring the product name and a hunch. The stage diagnosis runs off the transition questions below, which are answerable from what a PM already knows without pulling a report.

Example invocations:

• Revenue on our reporting module has been flat for six quarters — extend, replace, or retire?
• Run the play worksheet across our four aging SKUs.

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Key Concepts

The Product Life Cycle

Five stages, each with a different economic job:

Stage	What's happening	The job
Design	Concept, prototype, launch planning	Prove the problem is real
Introduce	Launch, awareness, first sales	Find the early adopters
Grow	Rapid sales, market expansion	Build the customer base
Mature	Peak sales, peak profitability	Defend position, maximize margin
Decline	Falling sales, phase-out planning	Maximize remaining value