Fundamentals of Product Management: Product Discovery Tools

Product Discovery ToolsProduct Management Fundamentals

Nathan RhodesDirector of ProductProduct Owner: Platformnrhodes@vendasta.com

CONTACTCONTACT

Props toMarty CaganSilicon Valley Product Group

Much of what is discussed here comes from Marty Cagan - svpg.com

Product Discovery TechniquesIdeationOpportunity AssessmentsCustomer DiscoveryStory MappingMVP TestPrototypesUser TestingLive Data Testing

Ideation

Product TeamsObserving Users“Customer Misbehavior”Hack DaysData Spelunking

Opportunity Assessment

Framing Product Discovery:What problem are you trying to solve?Who are you solving the problem for?How will you know if you have succeeded?

Customer Discovery

Discovery and cultivate a group of reference customers in parallel with discovering and developing the product.

Customer Discovery

Product Market Fit

Defined as, “the smallest possible product that meets the needs of the Early Adopters.”

But, Product Market Fit is just the beginning...

Story Mapping

A technique to visualize and deconstruct the big picture of a problem or solution.Provides shared understandingFinds holes in your thinkingFrames prototype or release scopeImproves planning and estimating

MVP Testing: Demand Testing

Landing Page TestingFake Door TestingVideo TestingKickstarter Testing

MVP Testing: Solution Testing

Concierge TestingWizard of Oz TestingPrototyping

Solution MVP Testing: Prototyping

Feasibility PrototypesUser PrototypesLive-Data Prototypes

Exercise: Story Mapping

Exercise: Story Mapping

Lessons learned:Provides shared understandingFinds holes in your thinkingFrames prototype or release scopeImproves planning and estimating

Additional Learning1. Build Great Product: “Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love” - Marty Cagan

2. Building a Successful Product Business: “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” - Ben Horowitz

3. “Fail Fast” Startups: “The Lean Startup” - Eric Ries

4. Rapid Prototyping: “Video on Rapid Prototyping and Product Management” - Tom Chi, Google X

5. Product Vision & Leadership: “Start With Why” - Simon Sinek

6. SaaS Analytics: “Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster” - Alistair Croll & Banjamin Yoskovitz

7. Saas Analytics (2nd to Alistair Croll’s): “Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data” - Charles Wheelan

8. User Story Mapping: “User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product” - Jeff Patton

9. Lean UX: “UX for Lean Startups: Faster, Smarter User Experience Research and Design” - Laura Klein

10. Qualitative Testing: “The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems" - Steve Krug

11. Scaling: “The Art of Scalability: Scalable Web Architecture, Processes, and Organizations for the Modern Enterprise” - Martin Abbott & Michael Fisher

12. Product Culture: “How Google Works” - Eric Schmidt

13. Management (recommended by Ben Horowitz): “High Output Management” - Andy Grove

PM Blogs to Follow

Silicon Valley Product Group: svpg.comMind the Product: mindtheproduct.com