Holistic Product Discovery

Holistic Product Discovery

Author

Martin Christensen and Marcus Castenfors

Year
2023
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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.

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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 favouring 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. Realising your creations.
Value
  • Rule of thumb: Discovery should take about 10% of build time

Product Discovery Principles

Problem-first approach over solution-first
Outcomes over outputs
Team diversity, trust & openness over individual effort
Holistic view over local optimisation
Continuous discovery over unplanned exploration

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? Fulfil 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 fulfil needs?
What solutions fulfil 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 visualise 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 artefacts 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. Prototype: create something tangible that you can test on users
  4. User test: Test your prototype on real users.
    • Book recommendation: Rocket Surgery Made Easy
  5. Team Pitch: playback to a larger group of stakeholders and colleagues. Get feedback from a business/ organisational perspective

UnKnown Playbook focused on User Value:

  1. 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.
  2. User research: Use 3 sources to gather research data (e.g. analytics, user interviews, customer support), Triangulate and validate the data from multiple perspectives
  3. Design Sprint: Synthesise insights and create tangible solutions.
    • Benefits: focus, time-boxed, functional , invite people from diverse perspectives, you have all the tools at your disposal
  4. 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:
Known
Hypothesis · Project A · Project B
Design Studio
Prototyping · Project C · Project D
User test · Project E
Team Pitch
UnKnown
Research Questions
User Research · Project F
Design Sprint
User test · Project G · Project H
Team Pitch
  • Doing so will…
    • More discoveries will move into delivery
    • Relationships will improve between product and deisgn
    • 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

6. 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 → prioritise 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
  • Outcome
    x more of y by z
    Target Groups
    Group A
    Group B
    Group C
    Needs
    Need X
    Need Ya Need Yb
    Need Za Need Zb
    Actions
    Action Ta Action Tb
  • Set and continuously measure the outcomes of business value and user value goals helps us to be strategic about product development from start to finsih.
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 organisation 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

7. 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
  • Illustration:
  • 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)
      Diagram
  • 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:
    Transitioning:
    Freezing:
  • 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
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Deep Summary

Longer form notes, typically condensed, reworded and de-duplicated.

  • This book is aimed at demystifying product discovery
  • An effective product
    • Business: makes money
    • User: makes users happy
    • Technical: is feasible to build
  • Don’t just focus on your own part of the equation
  • Why it’s so hard to build technology that achieves outcomes:
    • Confirmation Bias: Undervaluing facts that don’t confirm what you believe, and favouring 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.
  • Product is hard.
    • Features: Only 20% of features built are often used by users, 30% are used infrequently or hardly ever (50%).
    • Companies: 42% of startups fail because there’s no market need
  • Product lessons:
    • Don’t always listen to the customer
    • Acknowledge test results
    • Don’t be under time-pressure
    • Excess capital creates complexity
  • Software projects have two distinct stages:
Stage
What it’s for
Currency
Discovery
Figuring out what to build. Ensuring what you’re creating is valuable.
Knowledge
Delivery
Building it. Realising your creations.
Value
  • How important is discovery to success? (source nngroup.com)
Successful
Neutral
Unsuccessful
With Discovery
83%
13%
4%
Without Discovery
52%
32%
16%
It takes just as much effort to build the wrong thing as it does the right thing. John Allspaw
  • Executives focus more on delivery than discovery. It’s easier to measure progress.
  • Discovery is about:
    • maximising impact be figuring out what to build
    • minimising waste by figuring out what not to build
  • 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 optimisation
    • 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

  • Any approach requires a good feedback loops. Good feedback loops are iterative and incremental
    • Iterative: repetition of a process to collect feedback and improve things for next time around
    • Incremental: working in small batches, each increment builds on what came before
  • 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? Fulfil 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?
  • How can we fulfil the needs of customers, build the product in a sustainable way and build a sustainable business?
  • The three types of risk: user value, business value, feasibility
    • Highlight the risks upfront
    • What’s the least amount of discovery we need to do to address a particular risk?
  • See other books to learn about Ethical risk:
    • Digital Compassion by Peter Axbom
    • Future Ethics by Cennydd Bowels
    • A designer’s code of ethics by Mike Monteiro
  • Double Diamond (British Design Council)
    1. Diagram
    2. User-centred design (UX) is one of the better existing frameworks
      • Divergence: Exploring an issue more widely or deeply
      • Convergence: Taking focused action
    3. Diamond 1 (Explore the problem space)
      • Spend time with customers, gather insight, define the problem
    4. Diamond 2 (Explore the solution space)
      • Generate potential solutions, validate them through prototypes
    5. Not a linear process, can loop through it a few times
  • Four stages for clarity
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

4. The powerful holistic framework

Diamond 1
Diamond 2
1. Explore problems
2. Structure problems
3.Innovate solutions
4. Validate solutions
Business Value
User Value
Feasibility
  • Imagine an iterative and incremental process that systematically considers the three risks at each stage of the double diamond
  • You can use the cells in the table to highlight questions or actual techniques
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 fulfil needs?
What solutions fulfil 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 visualise 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?
Diagram for how activities can be mapped
  • It can help you evaluate your toolbox, do you have questions, workshops and artefacts you can use in each box?
  • You can run a workshop with your team to brainstorm product-discovery methods
    • User value row: UX Design, Design Thinking, Service Design, Design Sprint, Lean UX
    • Business value row: Business Model Generation, Customer Development, Jobs to be Done, Sense & Respond, Discover to Deliver and Lean Startup)
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.
    • Early on: qualitative methods are to be preferred
    • Later on: quantitative methods are better (as they can understand what users are doing)

5. Product Discovery Playbooks

  • Playbooks help teams navigate discoveries
  • Known vs Unknown Playbook:
    • Problems can have a varying degree of complexity
    • Sometimes problems are easy to solve, else problems might need a lot of research
    • Harder problems require more work, to find the root cause

Known Playbook: Focused on User value:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. Prototype: create something tangible that you can test on users
  4. User test: Test your prototype on real users.
    • Book recommendation: Rocket Surgery Made Easy
  5. Team Pitch: playback to a larger group of stakeholders and colleagues. Get feedback from a business/ organisational perspective

UnKnown Playbook focused on User Value:

  1. 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.
  2. User research: Use 3 sources to gather research data (e.g. analytics, user interviews, customer support), Triangulate and validate the data from multiple perspectives
  3. Design Sprint: Synthesise insights and create tangible solutions.
    • Benefits: focus, time-boxed, functional , invite people from diverse perspectives, you have all the tools at your disposal
  4. 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:
Known
Hypothesis · Project A · Project B
Design Studio
Prototyping · Project C · Project D
User test · Project E
Team Pitch
UnKnown
Research Questions
User Research · Project F
Design Sprint
User test · Project G · Project H
Team Pitch
  • Doing so will…
    • More discoveries will move into delivery
    • Relationships will improve between product and deisgn
    • 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

6. 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 → prioritise 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
  • Outcome
    x more of y by z
    Target Groups
    Group A
    Group B
    Group C
    Needs
    Need X
    Need Ya Need Yb
    Need Za Need Zb
    Actions
    Action Ta Action Tb
  • Set and continuously measure the outcomes of business value and user value goals helps us to be strategic about product development from start to finsih.
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 organisation 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

7. 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 doesn’t always inform us that we should build something.
    • Focus is on finding the right problem to solve → finding the right solution for that problem
  • Discovery → Learning → Knowledge
  • Delivery → Creating outcomes → Value
  • It’s not easy to switch between discovery and delivery, they focus on different things and have different personalities.
  • 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
  • Look for virtual walls between discovery and delivery → replace them with collaboration and feedback loops
  • Sprint Zero: Don’t misunderstand it, it’s getting ready for build, it’s not discovery
  • Design Sprints: can break down silos, and help delivery teams learn discovery
  • Holistic Product Discovery: a structured way of doing discovery.
  • Dual track scrum: Make sure it doesn’t divide discovery and delivery.
  • Cadences and signals:
    • A cadence is the beat and rate of a rhythmic sequence, they enable feedback loops and shifts between discovery and delivery mindsets
      • A signal is an indication that we need to do something else. E.g. running continuous quantitative and qualitative tests → switching mindsets if you get certain results.
        • Do we have enough knowledge? Is the risk low enough?
  • 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: (inspired by Spotify Data, Insight, Belief, Bet)
    • 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
  • Illustration:
  • Cynefin Model (Dave Snowden)
  • Complex
    Complicated
    Enabling constraints Loosely coupled Probe → Sense → Respond Emergent Practice
    Governing constraints Tightly coupled Sense → Analyse → Respond
    Chaotic
    Clear
    Lacking constraint De-coupled Act → Sense → Respond Novel Practice
    Tightly constrained No degrees of freedom Sense → Categorise → Respond Best Practice
  • 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?
  • Do we know that the solution solves the problem effectively, efficiently and sustainably?
  • Lean Startup:
    • Loop: Build → Measure → Learn
      • Mimics the scientific method and experimentation
    • Combine two loops:
      • Discovery or Idea based: Build, Measure, Learn
      • Delivery or backlog based: Build, Measure, Learn
      • Ideas that are promising make the backlog
      • Learning from implemented backlog items feed ideas/discovery
  • Lean UX is like Lean Startup but is based mainly on qualitative where the Lean Startup method is Quantitative
  • 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)
      Diagram

8. How to get started

  • Understanding the culture is important. 4 main reasons for not being able to do 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
  • Existing processes can make it hard to do a good discovery
  • Three types of change:
    • Operational: improve what you do already
    • Transitional: change what you do (process)
    • Transformational: change mindsets and behaviours, organisational and cultural change

Know Your Change Models:

  • ADKAR Model (Jeff Hiatt)
  • 8 Step Change Model (John Kotter)
  • 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
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