“Product Discovery Workbook” — Ramblings

This is the fifth and final article in the “Product Discovery Workbook” series. Here are the links for the previous ones:

• Discovery vs Inception;
• DoR (Definition of Ready);
• Hands-on Product Discovery;
• DoD (Definition of Done).

Here we will share some ramblings about Discoveries. Remember the key to a Discovery is that we are not doing it TO the client, we should be doing it WITH the client.

Rambling Nº1 — Be Here

Make sure that you repetitively are clear before starting working with the client that they need to “Be Here” for the Discovery. We will need to have access to a lot of stuff (logins, access to systems) and fundamentally people (i.e decision makers, product teams,…). It is important that this is clear on your RAID log!

Rambling Nº2 — The RAID log is your friend

Risks, Actions, Issues and Dependencies (or decisions depending on your preference). During the discovery you will be dealing with a multitude of each of these different data points, each of which you want to re-play to your key stakeholders as soon as possible. Keeping a RAID log and using it as a basis for your regular playback sessions is a great way to build trust with your stakeholders by making your progress and direction methodical and transparent. It also gives your stakeholders something to use if they need to give an update internally on your progress.

Rambling Nº3 — Time Constraints

Be careful with how many weeks you book for the Discovery. From our experience it can go from 3 to 8 weeks or more, depending on the depth and breadth you want/need to go.

Be aware that during summer there are usually more annual leaves and bank holidays may be a factor, similar during Christmas time. Make sure the people that will work on this Discovery can all start at the same time and if there is an impact of annual leave. If that is the case, factor it in and extend the duration to give the team time to properly do the work. Don’t cut on quality!

Rambling Nº4 — Planning

Be flexible! It’s important to have a plan A, but don’t get hung up on sticking to it, we can tell you for sure that you will need to pivot it. Availability of people on the client side may make you change course or adapt on a daily basis. The client may actually want to know in advance who you need to be made available, but that is not always possible as you might not know who you need to talk to until you start. And for sure that you find you will need to talk with a second and third wave of people.

Rambling Nº5 — Remote

With all that we have been facing with the COVID pandemic, by now we should be used to running these sorts of Discovery sessions remotely. Keeping it simple is key! Most likely you have to work with the tools that the client allows you too. If you can use your own, tools like MIRO are very powerful allies of keeping the work being developed accessible to everyone and the classing video app at your own taste, personally we prefer ZOOM.

Rambling Nº6 — Expectations

It’s fundamental that from Moment Zero that you are very clear with the client what the output from the Discovery is going to be and set some realistic expectations about the level of detail to expect from the whatever duration Discovery you are doing.

Have also a conversation up front about how they want the output to be delivered and how they want us to capture it. This will impact all your planning!

Rambling Nº7 — Next Steps

• How is it all going to end?
• What are the next steps?
• Is the intention to roll straight into delivery?
• Are we expecting a break between them?
• Are elements of the Discovery team going to be rolling into Delivery?

In order to start properly Delivery don’t forget to document as you go that will help the people potentially delivering this. Always think about what you would like to be left with if it was you picking up the project!

And remember that starting up a Delivery team doesn’t happen overnight!

Disclaimers:

• This articles and the series was written together with Simon Shepard;
• This article is the first one in a series entitled “Product Discovery Workbook”;
• The articles were written based on work done @ Equal Experts, so it’s written mainly from a consultancy point of view, but they can be either used in any “product” company.