Step-By-Step Product Discovery Process

Product discovery involves investigating customer problems and creating products to solve them. The ultimate goal is to find problems that existing solutions don't address yet are important enough for potential users to be willing to pay for.

So then the team could go through improving and creating products for these issues.

How to Conduct Product Discovery

It usually consists of seven main phases:

1. Assemble the product discovery team.
2. Perform user research.
3. Find common problems.
4. Rate opportunities in terms of importance.
5. Engage in product brainstorming.
6. Validate product/feature concepts.
7. Create prototypes and test them.

However, this process doesn't always follow a strict step-by-step order. Some tasks happen at the same time and include smaller cycles of feedback and adjustments.

Step 1: Assemble the Product Discovery Team

Typically, product discovery teams include:

• Product Manager
• UX designer
• A member of the development team

Occasionally, having a researcher, data scientist, or analyst on the team can also be useful.

Having a diverse team helps gather and analyze reliable data to make informed decisions. And also create design solutions that are practical, workable, and in line with the research results.

Step 2: Perform User Research

Various techniques can be used for product and design research including customer feedback surveys, customer interviews, and analyzing how people use the product.

Customer Feedback Surveys

They allow product teams to collect valuable insights on a larger scale and take different forms, such as:

• In-app or email surveys to gather user opinions

• Contextual in-app surveys to evaluate how well features are working

• Passive feedback forms that let users give feedback when they want

• Feature-request tools or a public roadmap to collect customer ideas

Customer Interviews

They offer flexibility to explore ideas that participants bring up, even if you hadn't considered them before. However, it's important to note that while the interviews are flexible, they should be well-structured. To make the most of them and not waste time, set clear goals and prepare thoroughly.

Schedule regular user interviews, even if you believe you've already perfected your product-market fit. That’s how you will be able to keep up with changing customer and market needs and have interviewees available to explore new concepts.

Product Analytics

They provide objective insights into how users interact with the product. By studying heatmaps, session recordings, or funnel conversions, you can notice new pain points that require attention.

Step 3: Find Common Problems

Review the data and customer feedback you collected during the research stage to spot recurring patterns.

The main goal here is to find opportunities to improve the product and provide a more satisfying user experience. So, you should look into user issues, requirements, or wishes.

Step 4: Prioritize Opportunities

You can’t solve every problem because some of them may not align with the product vision. My advice here is to use an Opportunity Solution Tree (OST), which helps you visualize user pain points and needs in relation to business goals.

But, even after using the OST, you'll likely still have more problems to address than you can handle. That's why it’s important to spend some time prioritizing these opportunities.

Use frameworks like the Kano Model, Cost of Delay, or Dot-voting, among others, to make these decisions.

Step 5: Engage in Product Brainstorming

During the ideation phase, there are various techniques you can use, like story mapping, brainstorming, and mind mapping.

Remember, product discovery is a collaborative effort, so it's important to involve everyone on the team. Each team member brings their own expertise and viewpoint, so you can have more creative ideas, better feasibility assessment, and a sense of ownership.

Step 6: Validate Product/Feature Concepts

Don’t forget to continuously check and verify product features, using techniques like fake door testing.

Let's take an example related to Asana. To validate the concept of a "Goals" feature, we could simply add it to the menu and catch users' attention with a tooltip. Their interaction with this feature would reveal how interesting it is.

When users click on the feature, they'll realize something is not quite right. In that case, you'd need to explain what you've done and why.

Step 7: Create Prototypes and Test Them

Start simple, like with sketches, and improve based on customer feedback. Eventually, you'll have a working product.

To test prototypes, you can use methods like interviews or focus groups for basic versions, and as they get more advanced, techniques like guerrilla testing.

Before launching, beta testing lets real users try it out in their own settings, and you gather insights through analytics, surveys, and interviews to make it better.

All in All

The product discovery process plays a highly important role in product development. It creates a foundation for creating products that not only meet market and customer requirements but also bring satisfaction to users.