An Article by Bash Bello- Product Manager at Enyata
We discussed the product discovery process in part one of this article and explained how it serves as a crucial framework for determining the course of product development.
This framework adopts the common route used by most firms and the division of the product discovery process into stages. Teams can internalize a laid-out technique and avoid repeating the same operations by adhering to it.
There are several essential stages:
1. Determining the goals and principles of creating a product.
It can be composed of:
● Founders’ personal goals
● Goals of a business or organization
● Product principles
Businesses often start by opening themselves up to an opportunity or business problem they want to solve. This is a good starting point. However, it is even more important to make sure that the solution delivers the desired result, is valuable to the users, and can be delivered. These assumptions—especially those that pose the greatest risk to product success—are key to guiding research efforts. To do this, a fully balanced team works together to form a shared understanding of the motivations of the business, users, and technologies that make up the problem space.
2. Evaluating the capabilities of the product.
This can be done by answering the following questions about evaluating the capabilities of the product:
What specific problem does the product solve? (value proposition)
Who are we solving this problem for? (target market)
How will we measure success? (business metrics)
How big are the opportunities? (market size)
What are the alternatives? (current competitors)
Why is our product better suited to solve the problem? (our
differences)
Why is now the right time? (market window)
How will we launch the product? (exit strategy)
What factors are critical for success? (requirements and risks)
All of these answers can help you have a clear vision for your product.
3. Prioritize the key issue to be resolved
The discovery process will find various validated user issues and invalidate many others. Solving any of these problems can create value for the user and the business; however, this value will only be recognized once we provide a solution. Products often fail when they don’t solve a real user problem, but they can also fail when the team building them tries to give too many solutions.
Prioritization is the best way to mitigate this risk. Unfortunately, prioritization can be difficult because issues are often intertwined, and our empathy for users tends to tempt us to take on the best we can. Ranking issues by their relative value to the business and users is a great way to start the decision-making process. A team that has shared experience in conducting interviews with stakeholders and users — and summarized this knowledge — is well-placed to do the hard work of discussing this important aspect
4. Identifying key customers and users
Identification, description, and selection of key users and customers at each stage of development is an important part of the work on the vision and product, and it is useful to include the entire product team in this process if it is already assembled.
5. Conducting user research
The well-known and widely used methods for conducting user research are surveys and interviews.
An interview is a method that’s conducted to get to know the potential customer better—their beliefs, attitudes, and experiences. It’s usually carried out through a one-on-one interview with users. Interviews can be done online via video chat applications.
A survey is the most commonly used method of user research. It collects data about a person and their interests. Surveys are usually conducted online. Aside from conducting surveys, other forms of user research can also be utilized.
Common research methods:
Attitudinal Research: To understand or analyze the attitude of the user. It focuses on performance and actions.
Behavioural Research: To understand the behaviour of the users. It can be done by interviewing people about the product.
Quantitative Research: This refers to the process of collecting large amounts of data through surveys, questionnaires, and polling methods for statistical analysis.
Qualitative Research: This involves collecting and analyzing non-numerical data (e.g., text, video, or audio) to understand concepts, opinions, or experiences. It can be used to gather in-depth insights into a problem or generate new ideas for research.
6. Building a map of interaction with the product
Essentially, a user story map is a high-level, multi-dimensional requirements model that describes product usage scenarios. This tool is good for both feature design brainstorming and release scoping.
7. Prototyping
A prototype is a set of pictures that show the interface of your future app. It serves as a visual representation of the product’s final design and navigation.
Even though it may look like a basic version, a prototype is not a final product and cannot be presented to actual users.
8. Choosing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
At the output of the previous step, get an idea of the minimum set of functionality that will be valuable for delivery to the market. The minimum viable product is a kind of final app that doesn’t have many features, doesn’t have high code quality, and has a limited design. This version of the product allows teams to collect the most amount of validated learning about their customers.
9. Testing
Testing helps determine if the proposed solution can actually solve the problem. Popular tools include customer interviews, product beta testing, and user testing.
The outcome of the product discovery process
The most important thing is this process is not just about validating an idea. It also helps gather important data that will support your product development.
As a result, you will get
● Clear problem statement
● Business Value
● User personas
● User-needs statements
● User-journey maps
● Functionality features
● Working wireframes
Now that we understand the processes involved in product discovery, we can provide value to the product team, value to the company (e.g., by not wasting valuable resources pursuing the wrong ideas and developing products that no one wants), and value to customers by delivering something they may consider vital. Product discovery guarantees that product managers and teams are prioritizing and building a successful product.
