Updated: August 21, 2024 - 21 min read
If you’re a Product Manager or interested in Product Management, then you’ve almost certainly encountered the term “product discovery.” But what exactly does it mean, and why is it so important? In the article below, find out all you need to know about product discovery, including its benefits, importance, the potential risks of skipping it, and the ideal moments to integrate it into your product life cycle. We’ll cover different product discovery frameworks, and, of course we’ll be sharing some handy resources for Product Managers along the way.
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What is Product Discovery?
“You have to understand deeply your value proposition, your differentiation, your purpose in life and really how you are adding value and solving a problem 10 to 100 times better than anything else that's out there.”
— Francois Ajenstat, Chief Product Officer at Amplitude in How Francois Ajenstat's Unique Leadership Led to a $15.7 Billion Success on The Product Podcast.
Product discovery means finding and validating Product opportunities. It's a critical early step in the Product Management process as it helps Product Managers identify customer needs, understand market trends, and seize potential opportunities for growth.
Product Discovery is the process of figuring out what needs to be built. It validates your Product Vision, gives you a clearer picture of user needs, and gives you key answers to roadmap-building questions.
Is the problem worth solving?
Will your solution work?
Is it better than anything else out there?
If the answer to any of these questions is "no", you need to go back to the drawing board. Product Discovery is the process of working on your idea and asking questions of customers until you get three emphatic "yes".
Before you spend precious time and resources building something, it’s absolutely key to find your product-market fit. What’s the point of building something that no one wants?
Product Discovery also helps you to make the best, most informed decisions. Your product may well be a great idea, but Product Discovery will help you to make sure people actually need it.
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Why Product Discovery Matters
Product Discovery is like turning on a light switch in a dark room. Instead of guessing or relying on intuition, a thorough discovery process allows you to plan the release of your new product or feature based on hard data. Use Product Discovery frameworks (see below) to understand opportunities in the market, test assumptions, and ensure your Product Development efforts are going towards a product that people actually want.
Imagine you’re a baker who receives an order for a woman’s 21st birthday cake. You’ve made countless cakes like this in the past, so you waste no time getting to work. The result is a masterpiece – a three-tiered showstopper covered in creamy pink buttercream frosting, decorated with edible glitter, and elaborate flower motifs. It has to be a hit, right?
But when you proudly hand it over to your client, their disappointment is clear. It turns out they’re lactose-intolerant, hate pink, and would actually have really loved a simple dark chocolate cake topped with strawberries. If only you had taken the time to find out more about your customer – you could have saved time and money and made the cake of their dreams!
This is why it’s essential to lay the right foundation with a product discovery phase before any development work starts. This will make sure you’re working on a product that your target user actually wants and is willing to pay for, as well as helping you to prioritize those features that your users really find valuable.
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Product Discovery Process
There are many ways to uncover your next product or feature, but you can’t go wrong following the Product Discovery phases outlined below. In the next section, we’ll cover specific Product Discovery techniques for different situations and teams.
1. Know your why
Have a clear Product Vision that fits with the company's goals. Make sure everyone involved is on board with this from the outset, as you’ll use The Why as a unifying force later on.
You can express this as creatively as you like, but something as simple as a powerful mission statement can be enough.
2. Think about your metrics
Knowing how you’ll measure success gives you a concrete goal to aim for rather than chasing the more intangible ‘Why’.
How many paid users do you need to make growth sustainable? Set a timeline for where you want to be and decide what your milestones should look like.
Develop OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) to keep keeping your product accountable.
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3. Decide what your limits are
Lots of things are limitless in a Product Management career. Potential, innovation, opportunity…
However, resources, time, and money are not limitless.
Sit down with people from different areas (design, engineering, marketing, etc) and go through the hard limits. Whether that be setting a launch date or allocating resources, it’s useful for everyone to know what they’ve got to work with.
4. Identify the risks
You don’t want a crisis on your hands, but if that happens, the best thing you can do is be prepared for it.
With your team, think about what could go wrong, and how you might handle the situation. Some things will be out of your control, like a competitor product launching before yours, or even a natural disaster!
Break down your worries into two categories: things you have control over and things you don’t.
For the things you don’t have control over, write up a brief contingency plan. For things you do have control over, come up with steps for how to avoid them.
It might seem pessimistic to start a product’s journey like this, but you’ll be so glad you did if a crisis hits!
5. Get to know your users
This is perhaps the most crucial stage in Product Discovery. As a Product Manager, your customers mean everything to you. Buckle up, because there’s a lot involved…
a. Conducting user research: for qualitative and quantitative data
You need both qualitative and quantitative data to get a full picture of your users and their needs.
You can gain qualitative data, through surveys, interviews, focus groups, and reading user feedback. This is some of the most useful data for creating your product vision and User Journey maps.
With quantitative data, you’ll need to challenge your assumptions. These are the ‘hard’ numbers. What percentage of users work on a tablet versus a desktop? How many of your users make $50-60K per year? Use these hard, objective numbers to back up the assumptions you make based on quantitative data.
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b. Make your maps
Once you understand your customers, you need to make sure everyone involved in development understands them too. There are two really useful tools for communicating your customer understanding with others; User Journey Maps and User Personas.
A User Journey Map shows the different points of interaction a user has with your brand/product. Using both quantitative and qualitative data, it paints a picture of the overall relationship you want with your ideal user, from discovery to adoption, to them becoming your #1 fan.
Your user personas help you to flesh out who you are building for, and they’re incredibly useful to keep as a reference. Split your users into segments like and decide how to best treat each of those segments. It’s useful to bring marketing in to this exercise, as they have both the skills to contribute and the need to use these segments in the future.
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Online surveys are some of the best ways to conduct research, as they can be done remotely and require fewer resources than in-person interviews.
The best way to get useful feedback is to answer open-ended questions, allowing people to provide more details. This doesn’t mean that you should write or expect long, complicated paragraphs. Keep your answers simple. Rather than ‘do you like the homepage?’ ask ‘what do you like about the homepage?’
To keep it interesting, feel free to get creative. Use multiple-choice answers or sliding scales to add a little variety.
6 Product Discovery Frameworks
It wouldn’t be Product Management if we didn’t frameworks to talk about, would it? Product Discovery is so essential that many Product people have developed techniques to optimize the process.
Dual-track: Discovery and Delivery
Dual-track Agile is a product development framework that separates the discovery and delivery phases, enabling continuous discovery of user needs while simultaneously delivering product features. The concept of Dual-Track Agile owes its beginnings to a paper by Desiree Sy, then at Autodesk, published in 2007.
This framework is ideal for teams working in dynamic environments where user needs and market conditions change rapidly. It suits organizations focused on iterative development, such as startups or tech companies, where ongoing user feedback and quick pivots are essential. It's particularly useful when there is a need to balance exploring new ideas with the timely delivery of product increments.
How to apply:
Set Up Two Parallel Tracks: Create two parallel workstreams: one for discovery (validating ideas, gathering user feedback) and one for delivery (implementing and shipping features).
Discovery Phase: Engage in activities like user research, prototyping, and testing hypotheses. The goal is to continuously identify and refine the most valuable features to be developed.
Delivery Phase: Take the validated ideas from the discovery phase and work on developing them into shippable features. This phase should follow Agile practices like sprints, daily stand-ups, and continuous integration.
Regular Syncs Between Tracks: Ensure frequent communication and alignment between the discovery and delivery teams to avoid disconnects and ensure that the most valuable features are prioritized and built.
Iterate and Adjust: Continuously cycle between discovery and delivery, using insights from the delivery process to inform further discovery, and vice versa.
Design Sprint
A Design Sprint is a five-day process for rapidly solving problems, designing solutions, and validating ideas through prototyping and testing with real users.
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The Design Sprint was developed by Jake Knapp at Google Ventures (GV) in 2010. It was designed to condense months of work into a single week, bringing together design, prototyping, and testing in a structured and time-bound process.
Design Sprints are best used when a team faces a significant problem or challenge that requires innovative thinking and rapid iteration. They are particularly effective for startups, product teams within larger organizations, or any business looking to quickly validate a new idea or solve a complex problem without committing extensive resources. This framework is suitable for situations where there is uncertainty about the direction of a product or feature.
How it works:
Day 1 - Understand: Gather your team to define the problem and set a long-term goal. Map out the challenge and decide on a target to focus on for the sprint.
Day 2 - Sketch: Generate a wide range of ideas by sketching potential solutions. Encourage each team member to independently create detailed solutions based on the problem identified.
Day 3 - Decide: Review the sketches, discuss the pros and cons of each solution, and then choose the most promising one to move forward with. Create a storyboard that outlines the user journey and how the solution will work.
Day 4 - Prototype: Build a realistic prototype of the chosen solution. The prototype should be just good enough to test the concept with users, focusing on speed rather than perfection.
Day 5 - Test: Test the prototype with real users and gather feedback. Use this feedback to validate the solution or identify areas for improvement. The outcome of the sprint should guide the next steps, whether it's refining the idea, pivoting, or moving forward with development.
The Design Sprint is a highly structured process that enables teams to quickly move from idea to validated solution, reducing the risk of developing products or features that don't meet user needs.
Jobs To Be Done (JTBD)
Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) is a framework that focuses on understanding the underlying tasks or "jobs" that customers need to accomplish, which in turn drives product discovery and innovation by identifying what solutions customers are truly seeking.
JTBD is particularly useful when Product Teams need to uncover the deeper motivations behind customer behavior and identify opportunities for innovation. It’s ideal for businesses looking to shift from feature-centric development to user-centric design, and it’s effective in industries where customers have complex needs that aren’t fully addressed by existing solutions. This framework is essential when a Product Team is struggling to understand why customers use their product or how to differentiate their offering in a competitive market.
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The JTBD framework was popularized by Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor, and author, who applied it in the context of disruptive innovation. Since then, it has been the subject of many articles and books, including The Jobs to Be Done Playbook by Jim Kalbach, interviewed about his book here.
How to identify Jobs To Be Done:
Identify Customer Jobs: Conduct in-depth interviews and observations to discover the specific "jobs" your customers are trying to accomplish. Focus on understanding the context, triggers, and desired outcomes of these jobs rather than just the product features they use.
Analyze and Prioritize Jobs: Categorize and prioritize the identified jobs based on how underserved they are by current solutions and the potential impact of solving them. This step helps to focus the product discovery process on the most significant opportunities.
Design Solutions Around Jobs: Use the insights gained to brainstorm and design product features or new products that directly address the prioritized jobs. Validate these solutions with customers to ensure they effectively meet the identified needs, refining your product strategy accordingly.
Double Diamond
The Double Diamond is a design framework that divides the creative process into four phases—two diamonds representing divergent and convergent thinking—to guide teams from problem discovery to solution delivery.
The Double Diamond framework is ideal for teams needing a structured approach to problem-solving, especially when dealing with complex challenges that require thorough exploration before deciding on a solution. This framework is particularly beneficial when the problem space is unclear, or when there's a need to ensure that the final solution is closely aligned with user needs.
The Double Diamond framework was developed by the Design Council, a UK-based organization, in 2003. It is grounded in design thinking principles and provides a visual representation of the design process that emphasizes the importance of both divergent and convergent thinking.
How it works:
Discover (First Diamond - Diverge): Begin by conducting thorough research to understand the problem space. This includes user interviews, market analysis, and gathering contextual insights to explore the issue from various angles without jumping to solutions.
Define (First Diamond - Converge): Synthesize the research findings to narrow down and clearly define the core problem. Focus on identifying a specific challenge that will be addressed, ensuring that the problem statement is well-articulated and based on real user needs.
Develop (Second Diamond - Diverge): Brainstorm and create multiple potential solutions to the defined problem. This phase involves ideation, sketching, and prototyping, allowing the team to explore different approaches and expand the range of possibilities.
Deliver (Second Diamond - Converge): Refine and test the most promising solutions, converging on the final product to be implemented. Iterate based on feedback from user testing, and ensure that the solution effectively solves the identified problem before launching it to the market.
Lean Startup
Lean Startup is a methodology focused on building and launching products quickly through iterative cycles of testing, learning, and adapting, with the goal of achieving a sustainable business model based on validated customer feedback. It’s particularly useful in situations where there is high uncertainty or when resources are limited. This approach helps teams minimize waste, reduce time to market, and increase the chances of product success by continuously validating assumptions with real users.
The Lean Startup methodology was developed by Eric Ries and is based on principles from Lean Manufacturing, Agile development, and Steve Blank’s customer development process. It emphasizes rapid experimentation, customer feedback, and iterative development.
Check out how Nesrine Changuel breaks down the iterative development process based on her experience as a Senior PM at Google:
Applying the Lean Start-Up Model:
Build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP): Start by creating an MVP, which is the simplest version of your product that can be released to early adopters. The MVP should focus on the core features that address the primary customer problem, allowing you to quickly gather feedback with minimal investment.
Test and Learn: Release the MVP to a small segment of users, gather feedback, and measure key metrics to test your hypotheses about the product, market, and customer behavior. Use this feedback to understand what works, what doesn’t, and what needs improvement.
Pivot or Persevere: Based on the feedback and data collected, decide whether to pivot (make a fundamental change to the product or business strategy) or persevere (continue refining and expanding the product). This decision-making process is central to iterating towards a successful product-market fit.
Balancing Innovation with Feasibility: As you iterate on your MVP and gather insights, use the Balanced Breakthrough approach to ensure that you are not just making incremental improvements but also exploring more radical innovations that could provide a competitive edge. However, these innovations should be filtered through feasibility assessments to avoid pursuing ideas that are too risky or impractical.
Opportunity Solution Tree
The Opportunity Solution Tree is a visual framework that helps teams systematically explore, map out, and prioritize opportunities to achieve a desired outcome. It links potential solutions directly to customer needs and business goals.
This framework is particularly useful when a Product Team needs to navigate complex problems with multiple possible solutions. It’s ideal for organizations focused on continuous discovery and improvement, ensuring that the team’s efforts are always aligned with key objectives and avoid wasting resources on low-impact initiatives.
The Opportunity Solution Tree was developed by Teresa Torres, a product discovery coach, to provide a structured way for teams to visualize and explore various opportunities, ensuring that they focus on the most impactful solutions. It’s grounded in user-centered design and continuous discovery practices.
How to build an OST:
Define the Desired Outcome: Start by clearly identifying the specific outcome or objective your team is aiming to achieve. This could be a business goal, such as increasing user retention, or a customer outcome, like improving user satisfaction. The outcome should be specific and measurable to guide the subsequent steps.
Map Opportunities: Conduct research, including user interviews and customer data analysis, to uncover opportunities—problems, pain points, or unmet needs that, if addressed, could lead to the desired outcome. Organize these opportunities on the tree, branching out from the central outcome. This step involves divergent thinking, where the goal is to explore as many relevant opportunities as possible.
Explore and Prioritize Solutions: For each identified opportunity, brainstorm potential solutions and add them to the tree, branching out from the respective opportunities. Apply criteria such as impact, feasibility, and alignment with strategic goals to prioritize these solutions. Consider integrating elements of the Balanced Breakthrough framework here, ensuring that solutions are innovative yet practical, balancing creativity with business viability.
Test and Iterate: Begin testing the prioritized solutions, using MVPs, prototypes, or experiments. Gather feedback from users and analyze results to refine the solutions. Iterate based on what you learn, moving down the tree as you validate opportunities and solutions, ensuring that each step brings you closer to achieving the desired outcome.
The Benefits of Product Discovery
We get it, as a Product Manager, you’re always short on time. But while you may be tempted to rush or even skip the product discovery process altogether, you’d be missing out on so many benefits. The following list was inspired by the webinar Product Discovery 101 by Amrita Mallick, currently Director of Product Management at Fiserv and formerly Senior PM at American Express:
1. Gain a better understanding of product or feature value
For example, the integration of 'dark mode' in various apps isn’t simply a design trend. Through product discovery, it’s been determined that users find this feature not only aesthetically pleasing but also easier on their eyes, especially in low-light environments. What's more, dark mode has battery-saving properties, particularly for OLED screens, adding significant value for users.
2. More precise budgeting and reduced chances of overspending
Precise product discovery allows for a more detailed roadmap, reducing the chances of unexpected costs cropping up. Take the development of a new e-commerce platform. Without clear guidelines on feature integration, the project could easily balloon in costs due to last-minute additions or changes. With a thorough discovery phase, the budget can be tailored accurately to the project's true needs.
3. Prioritize high-value features within budget constraints
Product discovery assists in distinguishing 'must-have' features from 'nice-to-haves'. For instance, while an augmented reality try-on feature might sound enticing for an online eyewear store, discovery might reveal that users prioritize a simpler virtual try-on tool or clearer product images.
4. Avoid wasting time and money
Imagine spending months developing a feature that, in the end, doesn’t address the user’s primary needs. Scheduling the time for product discovery reduces the risk of you sinking time and money into features that users find redundant or irrelevant.
5. Price the product accurately based on its true value
Understanding the unique selling points and the problem-solving capabilities of a product can lead to more informed pricing decisions. For example, if discovery reveals that your software offers unique automation features not present in competitors, you might be able to price it at a premium.
6. Discover more valuable ideas than the initial product concept
For example, while brainstorming for a fitness app, the initial idea might center on workout tracking. However, product discovery could unveil a significant user interest in dietary tracking or mindfulness practices which can be monetized.
7. Ensures the product targets the right customer segment
Take, for instance, a new smartwatch. While it has a wide range of features, discovery might reveal that it's most valued by fitness enthusiasts due to its advanced health-tracking capabilities. This insight ensures marketing efforts can be laser-focused on this segment, resulting in better sales and more satisfied customers, which ultimately benefits stakeholders and OKRs.
The Consequences of Skipping Product Discovery
Sometimes knowing the benefits of taking a certain action isn’t enough to convince key stakeholders, so let’s look at this from a different angle. What are the risks of skipping product discovery? This list is also inspired by Amrita Mallick—see the full webinar below.
1. Building a product that doesn't address the actual needs of the target customers
Consider a company releasing a new photo-editing app thinking users want more filter options. However, in reality, users might have been looking for better photo-organizing capabilities. Skipping discovery could lead to a significant mismatch in product offerings versus customer expectations.
2. Wasted time and resources on a product that may not get market acceptance
The tech graveyard is filled with products like Google Glass that, while innovative, didn't resonate with a broad user base. Without proper discovery, companies risk investing heavily in products that fail to gain traction in the marketplace, leading to lost investment in terms of time, effort, and money.
3. Potential overspending and need for more budget to rectify mistakes
Imagine a scenario where, post-launch, it becomes apparent that essential features are missing from a product. Now, not only is there a need for additional development (and the costs associated with it), but there might also be a necessary marketing push to regain consumer trust, further straining budgets.
4. Negative customer reviews due to unmet needs
In the age of online reviews, a product missing the mark can face swift and public criticism. For example, a note-taking app without a sync feature might receive backlash from users who expect seamless access across devices. These negative reviews can deter potential new users and harm the brand's reputation.
5. A lack of clear direction could lead to a product that tries to serve everyone but doesn't fully satisfy anyone
The phrase "jack of all trades, master of none" can, unfortunately, apply to products as well. A smart speaker that tries to incorporate a coffee maker, for instance, might end up being mediocre in both functions. By not focusing on a clear user need or niche, products can end up diluting their core value, leading to a lukewarm reception from a confused target audience.
There Are Many Ways to Discover Products
Product Discovery is not a one-size-fits-all process, and the process you follow should align with your team’s goals, resources, and the challenges you face. Whether you're iterating rapidly with Lean Startup, exploring opportunities with the Opportunity Solution Tree, or fomenting continuous discovery with the Dual-Track framework, each technique offers a unique path to uncovering valuable insights and driving product success.
What's more, nothing is stopping you from coming up with your own approach that works for you and your team. Take the best from all the frameworks above and create a super methodology!
One thing is for sure: Product Discovery is too important to rush through or overlook, and Product Teams who master the process have everything to gain.
Product Comparison Template
Winning products get to the core of a user need—and then solve it better than the competition. Use this template to identify your user need and evaluate other players in the market.
Get templateUpdated: August 21, 2024
