Continuous Discovery Habits

Everything in your backlog is a “bet” whether we do discovery or not. Discover helps us to make a better bet.

Product discovery: Decide why to build. Goal Product delivery: Building it. Goal -> Ship fast.

Define a clear desired outcome. Outcome can be very abstract. i.e. reduce churn. Discover opportunities to drive that desired outcome. Opportunities are unmet customer needs, painpoints, and desires. We interview to learn what people did in the past, we uncover the frictions, and we capture all in the opportunity space. We need to develop the skill to dig in from the stories of users. Discover solutions that deliver on those opportunities.

                         ┌─────────────────┐
                         │ Desired Outcome │
                         └────────┬────────┘
                                  │
                                  ▼
                    ┌─────────────────────────┐
                    │ Discover Opportunities  │
                    │ through customer        │
                    │ interviews & research   │
                    └───────────┬─────────────┘
                                │
                                ▼
                         ┌─────────────┐
                         │ Opportunity │
                         └──────┬──────┘
                                │
                    ┌───────────┼───────────┐
                    ▼           ▼           ▼
               ┌────────┐  ┌────────┐  ┌────────┐
               │Solution│  │Solution│  │Solution│
               └────┬───┘  └─────┬──┘  └──────┬─┘
                    └────────────┼────────────┘
                                 │
                                 ▼
                    ┌─────────────────────────┐
                    │ Prototype & Experiment  │
                    └───────────┬─────────────┘
                                │
                                ▼
              ┌──────────────────────────────────┐
              │ Validate four questions:         │
              │                                  │
              │ 1. Is the opportunity a real     │
              │    pain, need, or desire?        │
              │                                  │
              │ 2. Does the solution address     │
              │    the opportunity?              │
              │                                  │
              │ 3. Is the solution usable and    │
              │    feasible?                     │
              │                                  │
              │ 4. Does the solution address     │
              │    the opportunity in a way that │
              │    drives the desired outcome?   │
              └────────────────┬─────────────────┘
                               │
                               ▼
                    ┌─────────────────────────┐
                    │     Learn + Iterate     │
                    │                         │
                    │ • Refine opportunities  │
                    │ • Refine solutions      │
                    │ • Refine understanding  │
                    │   of the outcome        │
                    └───────────┬─────────────┘
                                │
                                └──────────────► Repeat

Do not show solution and ask their opinions. It’s terrible, humans are nice, they will say nice things. People are positive about future, so generally thinking they will use the feature/product.

Start asking: Tell me how you solved the issue with the product as not-designed, so give