Product Discovery Cheat Sheet | Product Discovery 101

Product Discovery is the most critical area for a PM. But, it is largely misunderstood.
Teams waste time and energy delivering ideas that do not work and do not drive the expected outcomes.
Product Discovery 101:
1. Why do we need Product Discovery?
„The first truth is that at least half of your ideas are just not going to work” - Marty Cagan, Inspired
I’d argue that Product Management is, at its heart, about managing risk. And for every product, there are 5 risks that can materialize:
- Value. Will it create value for the customers?
- Usability. Will users figure out how to use it?
- Viability. Can our business support it?
- Feasibility. Can it be done (technology)?
- Ethics. Should we do it? Are there any ethical considerations?
What will happen if we throw random ideas into the Product Backlog?
This is agile "learning by delivering."This approach results in a waste and rework.
So, we would like to understand:
- How can we come up with better ideas?
- How can we validate those ideas before the implementation?
And the answer is Product Discovery.
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2. When Does it Happen?
There are two streams that run in parallel:
- The goal of Product Discovery is to discover the product to build.
- Product Delivery aims to deliver that product to the market.
Product Discovery results in a validated Product Backlog. In particular, high-risk assumptions are tested before the implementation.
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3. Who's Responsible?
Some say that the Product Manager decides what to build, and Engineers and designers should focus on how to build it.
Have you heard that before?
It hurts my ears because Product Discovery is not a task for a single person.
Make sure that a Product Designer and at least one Engineer are included. This will help you build a shared understanding and stay open to different perspectives.
And if we believe that customers don't know how to solve their problems, why should a Product Manager know it?
Product Managers may be tech-literate, but they are not tech experts.
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4. What’s inside Continuous Product Discovery?
There are two groups of activities:
- Exploring the Problem Space to understand and define opportunities (problems, needs, desires). My favorite approach to mapping opportunities is using the Opportunity Solution Tree, as defined by Teresa Torres.
- Exploring the Solution Space to explore possible solutions, formulate testable assumptions, and run experiments to prove or disprove those assumptions.
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What's the state of Product Discovery in your company?
What is one improvement you can implement starting Monday?
Hope that helps!
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🎁 P.S. In my free post, I described Product Discovery in depth. You can also download a few high-resolution PDFs.
No email, no paywall. Forever: bit.ly/pdisc101