Thread by @hey_rick__

Why Product Discovery?

It's been a popular discussion topic on Product Twitter recently.

But most of the focus is on the what, not the why.

A thread

First, let's start at the top.

You've just been hired as a Product Manager. Congrats!

Follow @jackiebo's advice on your first 90 days.

https://twitter.com/jackiebo/status/1468368840039882753

@jackiebo In my experience, there are 3 things you need to quickly learn:

- Product Strategy
- Product Goals
- Product Roadmap

@jackiebo 1/ Product Strategy

This is how you plan to win the market you're in.

- What problem are you solving?
- How do your potential users solve that problem now?
- What makes your product unique vs other solutions?

@jackiebo If your product strategy is undefined, lot's of great templates in this tweet from @lennysan

https://twitter.com/lennysan/status/1301602856005369856

@jackiebo @lennysan 2/ Product Goals

Also known as Outcomes or OKRs.

This is what you expect to happen if you execute your Product Strategy - and how you will be measured personally.

If you're not familiar, this thread from @cwodtke is perfection.

https://twitter.com/cwodtke/status/1408525820281360385

@jackiebo @lennysan @cwodtke 3/ Product Roadmaps

Hopefully it's a list of potential solutions to a problem that you need to build and validate.

But in reality, it's a list of stuff to build. Maybe displayed as a timeline with due dates.

@jackiebo @lennysan @cwodtke As @simplybastow points out, a raodmap with dates is bad. But you just started so you roll with it for now.

https://twitter.com/simplybastow/status/1168531672335343616

@jackiebo @lennysan @cwodtke @simplybastow How does that stuff actually get on the roadmap?

That's where Product Discovery fits in.

@jackiebo @lennysan @cwodtke @simplybastow A quick refresher - what is Product Discovery?

Product discovery is the act of learning what to build to solve a specific problem.

- User interviews
- Assumption mapping
- Outcome mapping
- Story mapping

@sambhigham has a great thread on his approach

https://twitter.com/sambhigham/status/1483114223186194432

@jackiebo @lennysan @cwodtke @simplybastow @sambhigham Why is Product Discovery needed?

The three things I always think about are:

- Frontloading impact
- Opportunity cost
- Feature bloat

@jackiebo @lennysan @cwodtke @simplybastow @sambhigham 1/ Frontloading impact

By spending time on the problem, you're verifying you can deliver the most impact upfront

Without interviews, assumption mapping, etc, you're making uneducated guesses.

This leads to...

@jackiebo @lennysan @cwodtke @simplybastow @sambhigham 2/ Opportunity Cost

Choosing to build the wrong thing means the right thing isn't being built.

Resources are finite. The real world has a time cost.

And even if you do have a ton of resources, you still wind up with...

@jackiebo @lennysan @cwodtke @simplybastow @sambhigham 3/ Feature bloat

A lot of features that fall into one of these categories...

- Low usage but lack a culture to deprecate them
- High usage from small set of customers and hard to deprecate
- High interest from a single, powerful customer that you have no control over

@jackiebo @lennysan @cwodtke @simplybastow @sambhigham This especially a problem in the B2B space

Great visual thread from @shreyas that represents it better than I can.

https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1376033582305615873

@jackiebo @lennysan @cwodtke @simplybastow @sambhigham @shreyas When you go through Product Discovery, you're going to have a huge list of ideas for solutions to solve your problem.

You can't do them all. The harsh truth is you won't ever finish the backlog.

@jackiebo @lennysan @cwodtke @simplybastow @sambhigham @shreyas This can be a challenging spot to be in.

You want to build cool stuff, but it's vital to stay focused on the problems.

Everyone around you will be jumping to the solutions. Especially engineers :)

@jackiebo @lennysan @cwodtke @simplybastow @sambhigham @shreyas Spending a lot of time up front on the problem itself - not the solution - pays dividends.

For example, @Padday has his team at Intercom focus 40% of their effort on defining the problem.

via herbig.co/product-discov…

@jackiebo @lennysan @cwodtke @simplybastow @sambhigham @shreyas @Padday Tying it all together...

Product Discovery builds a Product Roadmap that helps execute a Product Strategy to meet the Product Goals.

For more on #prodmgmt, don't forget to follow me @hey_rick__

Back to the top...

https://twitter.com/hey_rick__/status/1487057870348853248