How to do a product discovery? Well, product discovery plays an important role. Especially, in helping product teams decide which products to focus on and build. While at the same time, setting the stage for achieving product excellence.
So, how will you do product discovery? Well, you can do it in few simple steps.
Steps On How To Do A Product Discovery
- Hear your customers. Understand their underlying needs and feelings.
- Create a complete picture of your customer. How? By crowdsourcing different perspectives across your team.
- Listen. Do not rush to a solution. Rather, ponder the customer’s root problems.
- Try visual mapping to gain clarity.
- Gather customer feedback and reviews.
- Be objective. Take note: Not every idea will stick.
- Test your assumptions.
Those are the simple steps in doing a product discovery. But, there are also proposed product discovery techniques. Now we’ll discuss the most common methods you’ll likely encounter.
The Product Discovery Techniques
Design Thinking
Others define it as a way of solving problems through designs and creativity. Besides, it can be a universal approach to solve any kind of problem.
So, that’s what makes it a great tool. Moreover, Design Thinking focuses on four pillars.
Empathy
It’s all about understanding your customer’s needs. Meaning, you’re putting yourself into their shoes and dive into the feelings.
It’s also connected with interviewing people. Or finding real user stories. Participants then define the problems that they’ll be trying to address next.
Ideation
This stage means coming up with many ideas as much as possible. So, these ideas should be the possible answer to the established question.
Participants may also collect the ideas of others. Thus, proving a way of getting even better ideas.
Prototyping (Experimentation)
This stage analyzes each idea produced from the previous stage. This helps the team to come up with ideas for prototypes. After then, they will break it into pieces and put it in motion.
Testing
This is to measure how a prototype is performing. Thus, during the testing, the team gather as much data as possible. But, depending on the results of the testing, the team might repeat the flow of Design Thinking.
Job To Be Done
‘Jobs To Be Done’ is a powerful framework that takes a different approach to solve a problem. That’s because it focuses on a job a target is trying to achieve. Rather than looking at the problem from a user’s perspective.
Objectives And Key Results (OKR)
What’s the use of OKRs? Well, it’s a way of making ambitious plans and setting specific goals. It also allows you to measure if you meet your objectives.
However, don’t provide much support at the brainstorming stage. That’s because it focuses on the product’s objectives. But, the bright side is they make pretty good metrics for product discovery.
Riskiest Assumptions Test (RAT)
It focuses heavily on doing multiple tests of even the smallest prototypes. Thus, the team can gather valuable data from clients. And as early in the process as possible. Furthermore, RAT determines the biggest assumptions about a product.
Inception
It’s a two-day intense meeting led by a facilitator called an inceptor. It begins with introducing a concept, mock-ups, ideas, and user stories.
Participants then analyze customer roles, thinking about issues, benefits, and risks. After that, they generate ideas, something similar to Design Thinking.
