Review

This is a great product discovery reference book. It brings together product discovery and delivery, and provides a great overview of the theory to date. It’s a book without ego, introducing just a couple of frameworks whilst signposting other important work. It doesn’t quite achieve a single theory that ties everything together, which is a shame. I do love though that it assumes a little product knowledge, which is refreshing as it allows for brevity. Well worthy of a read.

Key Takeaways

The 20% that gave me 80% of the value.

Why it’s so hard to build technology that achieves outcomes:
- Confirmation Bias: Undervaluing facts that don’t confirm what you believe, and favoring information that does
- Optimism Bias: We are less likely of experiencing a negative event compared to others
- Valuing outputs over outcomes: ideas are useless unless they solve a problem
- IKEA effect: If we ourselves are the creators, we perceive our creations as more valuable that what they really are
- Unchallenged assumptions: assumptions often remain unchallenged due to confirmation bias. It’s really easy to underestimate what happens if an assumption is false
- Sunk cost fallacy: when people involved feel like they’ve invested too much time and effort. They don’t want that to be a waste
- Siloed work: everyone just focuses on execution, rather than challenging existing assumptions
- More output fallacy: the belief that the more work we do the better it will be.

Stage	What it’s for	Currency
Discovery	Figuring out what to build. Ensuring what you’re creating is valuable.	Knowledge
Delivery	Building it. Realizing your creations.	Value

Rule of thumb: Discovery should take about 10% of build time

Product Discovery Principles

Problem-first approach over solution-first
- Fall in love with the problem not the solution
- Drill down to the core of the problem.
- Keep the problem top-of-mind, never forget the problem you’re solving.
Outcomes over outputs
- it’s the outcome and impact that counts
Team diversity, trust & openness over individual effort
- Diversity, inclusion, psychological safety, collaboration
- Diverse teams are 20% better at innovation and reduce risk by 30% (Source: Deloitte diversity and inclusion revolution)
Holistic view over local optimization
- Get the valuable perspectives of different disciplines
- Look beyond your silo, beyond your job, focus on what the company needs to achieve
Continuous discovery over unplanned exploration
- The future is unknowable if you work in a complex domain. The only way to operate is to sense and respond

Discovery Frameworks

Being iterative and incremental allows good feedback loops
Three Qualities of Successful Products:

Qualities	Questions
Viability Business value. A product that will generate profit (in the short-run and long-run)	Should we build the product? Help meet business goals? Help meet business needs? Part of business strategy?
Desirability User value. A product that will solve a problem for the user.	Do they need the product? Help the customer produce the right result? Help them in an efficient way? Fulfill the needs of the customer?
Feasibility Practical feasibility. A product that can be reasonably made given current conditions.	Can we sustainably build the product? Fit within ecosystem of products and services? Fit in the current business? Have the competencies and resources? Reasonable to build in the long-run? How to build it? With what technology?

The three types of risk: user value, business value, feasibility
What’s the least amount of discovery we need to do to address a particular risk?
Four stages for clarity / The double diamond

Diamond 1 Find the right problem	1. Explore problems	Discover the problem Who are the stakeholders? Who are the users? What is the context?
	2. Structure problems	Making sense of insights and creating once concise explanation of it Clustering problem areas Drawing conclusions Validating problem definitions Decide on scope for solution discovery
Diamond 2 Find the right solution	3.Innovate solutions	Coming up with possible solutions Generating a broad set of ideas
	4. Validate solutions	Making certain the solution actually solves the problem Create something that can be tested quickly Ends in a decision of what to build

The powerful holistic framework

	Diamond 1		Diamond 2
	1. Explore problems	2. Structure problems	3.Innovate solutions	4. Validate solutions
Business Value	Market Landscape?	Gap in the market?	How to exploit gap?	Does exploit give intended outcome?
User Value	User context?	Most important user needs?	What solutions could fulfill needs?	What solutions fulfill needs best?
Feasibility	What is our current capability?	What is our main practical opportunity?	What could we build?	What should we build, sustainably?

The framework can help you understand what you historically did, or are presently doing:
- It can help you identify how ‘holistic’ is the approach you’re taking to discovery
  - Are we assessing the risks well?
  - Do we understand the full scope of the problem?
  - Are we choosing the smartest way to visualize the solution at this stage?
  - Are we evaluating with the right kind of people in a way that fits them?
  - Will this activity make us learn the most?
It can help you evaluate your toolbox, do you have questions, workshops and artifacts you can use in each box?

	1. Explore problems	2. Structure problems	3.Innovate solutions	4. Validate solutions
Business Value	· Stakeholder Interviews · Business analysis · Competitive analysis · Assumption Mapping · Requirements elicitation	· Business goals · Business model canvas · Lean canvas · Opportunity solution tree · Impact mapping · OKRs · Requirements analysis · Hypotheses · User stories · Job stories	· User story mapping · Value prop. design	· Lean startup validations · Requirements validation
User Value	· User interviews · Customer service interviews · Analytics review · Task analysis · Heuristic evaluation · Assumption mapping	· Persona · Hypotheses · User stories · Job Stories · Customer journeys · Opportunity solution tree · Impact mapping · Service Blueprint · Empathy mapping	· Design studio · Participatory design · Oblique strategies · Future user journey · Prototypes · Idea generation, development & selection	· User testing · Usability testing · Wizard of Oz · Role playing · Concierge · Landing page
Feasibility	· Gartner’s hype curve · Wardley mapping · Competitive analysis · Event storming	· Tech choice canvas · Service blueprint · Emergent architecture · Architectural model	· Thoughtworks tech radar · Spikes · Proof of concept	· Spikes · Proof of concept

Use the power of triangulation throughout discovery: Use several methods for each part of the matrix to make sure you cover as much ground as possible.

Known Playbook: Focused on User value:

Hypothesis: We believe customers have [problem x]. If we provide [solution y], we will see [desired outcome z].
- Don’t be rigid about structure, but mention the problem you want to solve, a high-level solution statement and intended outcome.
Design Studio: Illuminate the problem with a presentation. Sketch solutions with everyone. Present back. Critique to highlight key concerns, does it solve the problem?. Iterate and loop back multiple times until you have a shared understanding of the problem and some good ideas.
Prototype: create something tangible that you can test on users
User test: Test your prototype on real users.
- Book recommendation: Rocket Surgery Made Easy
Team Pitch: playback to a larger group of stakeholders and colleagues. Get feedback from a business/ organizational perspective

UnKnown Playbook focused on User Value:

Research questions: Host a workshop with the team to gather research questions they have about the subject. Create an affinity map of the stickies, cluster them in different categories. Dot-vote on the most important research questions.
User research: Use 3 sources to gather research data (e.g. analytics, user interviews, customer support), Triangulate and validate the data from multiple perspectives
Design Sprint: Synthesize insights and create tangible solutions.
- Benefits: focus, time-boxed, functional , invite people from diverse perspectives, you have all the tools at your disposal
Team Pitch: Invite a wider group to review what you’ve accomplished and feedback

Bring your product and design functions together

Avoid your design function continually working in a studio model without other functions. You risk their discoveries not being linked to the priorities of the business, getting stuck half finished with no clear learnings as a result
Get to transparency, show where every initiative is:
Doing so will:
- More discoveries will move into delivery
- Relationships will improve between product and design
- Product will get better at discovery
- Discovery items will be linked to business goals
- More transparency on what’s in flight
- Common vocabulary and toolkit

Strategic Product Discovery

Set measurable goals early for business value and customer value early on.
- Follow up on them as often as possible
Express goals as desirable outcomes (or impacts → what happens when you achieve a goal)
Establish and keep a clear connection between the goals throughout the process
- Tool: Opportunity Trees (Teresa Torres)
- Tool: Impact mapping (InUse by Gojko Adzic)
- Structure problem space exploration → prioritize throughout development
SMART goals are great. Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time based
Goals should be outcome based → so they’re solution agnostic
Impact mapping is good for when the emphasis is on different types of users
Set and continuously measure the outcomes of business value and user value goals helps us to be strategic about product development from start to finish.

Explore Problems	Structure Problem	Innovate Solutions	Validate Solution	Build Solution	Measure Outcomes
Find outcomes	Set Goal		Estimate goal reach		Measure outcomes
Find needs	Baseline Measuring		Measure needs		Measure needs

Feasibility Discovery in a nutshell:
- What skills do you have in the company?
- What technologies that you’re using might soon be obsolete
- What new technologies are there?
- How should we build things sustainably?
- What new competencies we need to develop?
- How we need to restructure organization to meet future?
- Use Wardley Mapping to map: user needs → capabilities
- Use Thoughtworks Tech Radar to find a new potential solution and then build a spike to check if works

Discovery and Delivery sitting in a tree

Product Discovery: Figuring out what to build
Product Execution: Building it
- Product Definition
- Product Delivery
Don’t confuse product definition with discovery.
Discovery → Learning → Knowledge
Delivery → Creating outcomes → Value
Discovery isn’t a phase → It’s a mindset. Ideally we’d do it continuously.
Feel you’ve learnt enough? → Be confident and move to delivery
Feedback shows you don’t understand enough? → Be confident you should discover more
Empowered teams and the Trio:
- Designer → customer point of view, user value
- Product → business view, value of the product
- Engineer → technology view, responsible for feasibility
- All → bring in additional expertise as required
Discovery Brief
- Data: What trends are we seeing? (customer, sales, technology)
- Insight: Based on data, what are some clear insights we can leverage?
- Assumption: What are we assuming based on insights?
- Value: What’s the initial idea of the value proposition?
- Success: What does success look like?
Discovery Stories: You can mix discovery and delivery by having discovery stories.
Discovery Kanban: Work on the highest priority thing, balance learning rate and development rate over time

Not all problems are complex, and demand an iterative approach.
Divide risk into 4 levels:
- No risk: Obvious problems → straight to delivery
- Low risk: Complicated problems → discovery process using playbook (mitigate risks)
- Medium risk: Complex problems → holistic discovery (iterate and increment through it)
- High risk: Complex problem, where if invalidated the product fails → quickly validate or invalidate our assumptions (e.g. Lean Startup)
Ask the questions…
- How well do we understand the problem?
- How well do we understand the solution?
Continuous Collaborative Discovery and Delivery:
- No risk? Go straight to delivery: Build, Measure, Learn
  - Step A: No discovery Required
  - Step B: Delivery (Build, Measure, Learn)
- Low/ Medium risk?
  - Step A: Discovery Playbook (Triangulation Methods, double diamond)
  - Step B: Delivery (Build, Measure, Learn)
- For high risk do Build, Measure, Learn loop before building
  - Step A: Discovery assumption exploration (Build, Measure, Learn)
  - Step B: Delivery (Build, Measure, Learn)

Barriers to good discovery:
1. Lack of time and budget
2. Lack of buy-in and hard to prove value
3. Lack of involving the right people
4. Lack of access to users
Change Model (Kurt Lewin):
- Thawing:
  - Getting ready to change
  - Establish that change in necessary
  - Getting ready to leave comfort zone
  - Compelling message required to get people to let go
  - Having insight into the disease when you’re ill
- Transitioning:
  - Making the changes that are needed
  - A process, a transition
  - Involve people in the process changes
    - Get people’s feedback?
    - Is it working
  - Get to a shared understanding
- Freezing
  - Make the change permanent
  - Develop ways to sustain the change
Peter Axbom’s Building Blocks for Change
- Lippitt-Knoster Model for Managing Complex Change, helps focus effort on a goal

Goal	– Missing –	Goal	Goal	Goal	Goal
Competence	Competence	– Missing –	Competence	Competence	Competence
Motivation	Motivation	Motivation	– Missing –	Motivation	Motivation
Resources	Resources	Resources	Resources	– Missing –	Resources
Action Plan	Action Plan	Action Plan	Action Plan	Action Plan	– Missing –
=	=	=	=	=	=
Change	Confusion	Anxiety	Resistance	Frustration	Restarts

bookworm

Holistic Product Discovery – Martin Christensen, Marcus Castenfors