There are two parts to product discovery. This involves gaining a deep understanding of customers and then using that information to create vital products for customers. Product discovery is a critical part of product teams’ decision making about which products or features to build. It also sets the stage for product excellence.
What is the History of Product Discovery and Innovation?
Product discovery was born in the early 2000s out of frustration with the long-standing, often years-long and requirements-driven product development process.
The Agile Manifesto, which was published in 2001, provided an alternative to documentation-driven, slow and often imprecise product development. Agile encouraged product teams to work in smaller batches and was revolutionary. This allowed them to create products that customers could use. This was the time UX design and Design Thinking were taking hold. They were helping product teams ask bold questions about what customers want.
This customer-centric approach to product design is the heart of product discovery services.
Product Discovery is Essential for Product Teams.
Product teams can create products that customers actually want and need by developing a deeper understanding of customers. This allows teams to go beyond the “nice to have” products and features to create products that solve problems and are a necessity for customers.
Product discovery adds value to the product team and company (e.g. not wasting resources on the wrong ideas or developing products no one wants), as well as value to customers by providing something they might consider essential. Product discovery helps product managers and teams to prioritize and build a product that is successful.
What are the Key Steps of the Discovery Process?
1. Increase your empathy for customers by understanding their underlying needs.
2: Collect diverse perspectives from your team to create a complete picture about your customer
3: Listen–really listen. Instead of rushing to find a solution, suppress your natural urge to do so and instead try to understand the root cause of the problem.
4: Use visual mapping to get clarity
5: Collect customer feedback via various channels, such as email, social media, and customer service. ).
6: Be objective. Are you objective or biased when evaluating potential solutions. Don’t forget: Not all ideas will work.
7: Check your assumptions.
The next step after product discovery is product development. This involves identifying a market problem, researching the competition, designing a solution, creating a product roadmap and building a minimum viable products.