The weekly curated resources list for
Product professionals
Receive a hand picked list of the best reads on building products that matter every week. Curated by Anders Toxboe. Published every Tuesday.
The best resources on Product Discovery.
Continuous discovery is all the rage—but what is it, why is it popular, and where does it fall down?
A practical guide on the details of how to test different pricing, whether thats globally, by country, or in an A/B test
We strive to be data-driven in our decision making. And barring that, data-informed, overlaying our intuition and thoughts on top of the data. We certainly don’t want to be ignorant, and just make decisions with our gut. And yet sometimes that is exactly what happens — and some argue, better than being data-driven.
Who should participate in your customer interviews? Your customer is whoever buys or uses your product. Although, it's not always so straightforward.
In this article, Meltem Naz Kaso, a UX Research leader, explores how to approach user interactions with the right intentions to create truly user-centric products.
AI says YES, but reality says NO
Baseline skill: Clear communication
OKRs are the tactical implementation of managing to outcomes.
Jeff Gothelf just updated his Lean UX canvas.
When feature bloat can hurt more than help your business goals.
What is Jobs to be Done (JTBD)?
What would it take to change your mind? The default is the action you’re okay with falling into passively whereas the alternative action is something you need to be actively convinced to do.
Spend enough time talking with entrepreneurs, product people, designers, and anyone charged with proving something, and youll bump into questions about validation. How do you validate if its going to work? How do you know if people will buy it to not? How do you validate product market fit? How do you validate if a feature is ...
It’s all too easy for product teams to prioritize more experiments and interviews in search of the one “correct” insight that will unlock their product discovery. Product teams need to consider the context of their insights.
"AI is quite possibly the most important – and best – thing our civilization has ever created, certainly on par with electricity and microchips, and probably beyond those."– by Marc Andreessen
"What if I'm spending all this time and money building the wrong product? How do I even know for sure where to start or what questions to ask? Am I supposed to be guessing?"
Customer interviews are one of the most impactful activities a product team can do. But only if we use the right methods.
Customer interviews are one of the most impactful activities a product team can do. But only if we use the right methods.
Learn how to use in-app surveys to build fast feedback looks so you can get quick customer feedback on your daily product decisions.
More innovations and startups fail from a lack of customers than a failure of the product or technology. Too many organisations still waste their time inventing solutions for non-existent customer needs!
When we use generative AI to replace talking to customers, we fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of good discovery.
Discover cost-effective user testing strategies for all budgets, with practical case studies and key insights to improve product development.
Low risk and high cadence activities are the best fit for self-service user research and sometimes that means you need to change your organisation's approach to research work.
There are three techniques that leaders can employ to develop insights: Look at customers and startups for signs of changeExperience new technologies rather than just read about themPractice associative thinking, which means connect two seemingly disparate concepts to develop a novel idea.
Everyone knows you cant build a startup without proper validation. But validation is not the best word to describe what you really need to do and which results you can expect from it. Here is why, and what you need to do instead.
If the output of your Discovery is a Design, then you're doing Waterfall agile, and you're probably a feature team...
There is no way to succeed without talking to customers. But whenever I say that, people bring up the famous quote about faster horses. Whether the quote itself is authentic or not, you shouldnt take it as an excuse not to talk to your customers. Instead, you should know how to do so and what to ask. Here are the concepts that you need to be aware of.
AI is a double-edged sword. On one hand, teams can move faster, validate ideas with precision, and make data-driven decisions.On the other hand, AI can reinforce biases and stifle creativity. For VPs of Innovation, the stakes are clear: adopt AI thoughtfully or risk mediocrity or even outright failure.
1. How can we assess the level of product sense in PMs, designers, and developers?
"Every couple weeks, we hold a recurring time slot in my calendar for “something customer-related”. This is a good Friday afternoon task, when (let’s be real) it’s hard to get big things done. Staring at that empty slot on my cal forces me to fill it."
Standard frameworks and tools are little help when it comes to getting non-digital stakeholders to support your work. Stop preaching Agile and start modelling it by listening, observing and adapting
Core problems should have a higher priority for product managers than remote problems.
Product discovery doesn't just happen. One has to cast the net of dedicated research to catch ideas. Ideas in the waiting.
Dont ask, cant tell: Asking people what theyd pay for and how much rarely works
One-pagers communicate the data, insights, and beliefs behind potential bets.
An Unprecedented Situation
Think about this. Our behavior is different when we are alone compared to when we are surrounded by people. Why? Because then our subconscious alert reminds us the social rules and standards we should follow. We become aware of what is expected from us as social beings.
Have you been endlessly defending why it takes 9 months to design and launch a product with no guarantee of success? Think again.
Programming is about building products that solve problems for users not about writing beautiful code for its own sake.
The origin story of Sony Walkman, Mini Cooper, and the iPhone. "A tape recorder that didn't record", "resistance and the shock of the new", and "too expensive to do well in the market".
Three-time founder Jessica McKellar tells the inside story of how she and her co-founders took a big swing with Pilot to optimize for an outsized outcome and shares her top three lessons on finding product-market fit.
Today's Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is often about building a better version of an idea, not validating a novel one. It’s not good enough to be first with an idea. You have to out-execute from day 1.
Reaching product-market fit, or any product success, requires a lot of trial and error, but that alone isnt enough. Success requires that you navigate your journey smartly. So never stop trying, but make sure you do it right.
Deciding to invest in your Product sense is among the highest ROI decisions youll make in your career. - Shreyas DoshiI want to do two things in this post:1) Give you actionable ways to build product sense.2) Explain what the hell Product Sparring is and how product leaders can use it to build product sense in their teams.
A list of the biggest lessons learned from a year of showcasing founders and their journeys.
How to manage the goal lifecycle and steer towards business and user outcomes rather than place bets on unproven ideas.
Redefine what facilitate means: In a world where the only thing we want is to be understood, what it takes to become better listeners is what we arent talking enough about.
Dealing with customer requests is not always easy. Who owns these requests? Who gets to decide? And how do you say no when it has implications? It all starts with the right mindset and thinking framework. Here is a good way to approach it.
Big-reveal research doesnt work
How to ask the right product discovery questions
Base your assumptions on various sources and dont believe in one A/B experiment to decide in which direction you want to go next.
How to run a Discovery Track
Good product discovery requires discovering opportunities as well as discovering solutions
Normally the question I focus on in my work and in my writing is How can we leverage the best practices of the very best companies in order to give ourselves the very best chance for continuous innovation?
Smoke testing is a simple way to check the most important aspect of a product: that it works. This guide will introduce you to its best practices.
Answer: Continuously - throughout the product development cycle.
Why focusing on qualitative research early in your new product role can fast-track your understanding of your customers, product, and their pain points, ultimately validating your current strategy and making you more effective sooner:
Redefine what facilitate means
There is no silver bullet for Product Discovery, but opportunity solution trees have become invaluable to structure and address some of the most complex business problems, while at the same time ensuring there is an outcome-focused approach across the entire organization.
Learn five ways internal product managers can utilize product analytics data to make better, data-driven decisions.
As user research is rebuilt into product practices, all its parts not just the interviewing will eventually be re-integrated.
On how to move faster and stop throwing away your product roadmaps
How Chayn designed a survey about abuse that over 50k people responded to
Low-performing teams choose problems based on what theyd like to solve rather than what their customers need.
Some neglect the research process entirely in the early days, instead waiting until they’ve spun up an MVP for folks to test out. Others do start talking to potential customers when the idea is still squishy and moldable, but without processes and structure in place to ensure this is time well spent.
Data without context doesnt paint the full picture. Heres how to use narratives and emotions to connect and engage your audience.
Use artificial intelligence to decode buyers' psychology and hone your marketing messaging
Hardik Chawla, a product lead at Amazon, explores how no-code and low-code development platforms empower product managers to build and launch MVPs without extensive coding knowledge. This article features layered insights from his own experience with these tools.
Research, my old friend, why did I ignore you for so long?As UX designers, one of the most valuable tools in our toolkit is the skill to validate our design decisions with user research. It’s invaluable to making quality design decisions. And I’m sorry to say (at least in my my organization, particularly on my team) we rarely use it.
Regulating Big Tech will be a crucial part of leveling the playing field and ensuring that the basic duties of a democracy can be fulfilled. But another battle may prove even more difficult and contentious.
A Heuristics-based Scorecard For Opportunity Evaluation
The Problem Is Focusing on the Solution
Marty Cagan: Agile and Lean Wont Solve all Your Problems
Enter Product Discovery...
Varying Scopes and Why They Matter
The most effective interviews center around open questions, which encourage the customer to share their stories and let us sit back and listen, keying in on (and responding to) details that take us in a useful direction.
Here's how to utilize it as a tool to build better products from day one.
1) Share power, 2) Prioritize relationships, 3) Leverage Heterogeneity, 4) Legitimize All Ways of Knowing, and 5) Prototype Early and Often.
A Customer Forces Story describes the causal forces that shape a customers journey as they hire a specific product to get a job done and move from an initial triggering event to some resolution event, like acquisition, activation, or cancellation.
Enhance your design skills by developing your ability to listen actively, empathetically, and with intention.
Solving pain points is not enough
How to prevent costly mistakes by learning what you don't know, now.
Financial ROI and social ROI are complementary, not competitive. Innovation for the community requires participation from the community. Artificial intelligence will soon be considered part of the community rather than just a tool we use.
In the product world, we often forget how we came to know certain things. When someone doesn't appear bought into a product-oriented way of working, its easy to chalk things up to mindset, intent, attitude, strength as a leader, etc. Its easy to feel frustrated and not trusted.
Why nesting pain points within jobs-to-be-done can be a useful mental model during product planning.
How to avoid the "feature factory" trap and create products customers love with insights on empowering teams and fostering collaboration.
Learn how to foster a culture of experimentation. Explore the experimentation lifecycle, practical tips, and the importance of embracing failure to drive innovation and growth.
AI says YES, but reality says NO
Product managers often face the challenge of prioritising customer feedback and makes the case for focusing on profitable and repeatable customers rather than catering to the loudest voices.
In this article, Alejandro Torrico shares a storytelling framework to unlock innovation when finding a solution for a problem.
Good discovery is continuous. The day we stop being curious about our customers is the day our competitors start catching up.
A tremendously important article by Marty Cagan about dev teams, feature teams, and actually empowered product teams.
Are you doing real Product Discovery? If youre a product leader and recognize your companys approach in any of these anti-patterns, I hope this post will provide language to characterize the problem and guidance on fixing it.
Your job is to come up with solutions – not to say no
If we want to truly be outcome-oriented, we need to communicate the intent.
If you use the MVP framework, youre still faced with a big challenge- what exactly constitutes a viable product?
Vision and strategy are foundational pieces without which even a good product cannot withstand the weight of its market.
The road to scale: How long does it usually take to go through all four stages and what type of investment fits every stage?
It shouldn't be set in stone. What matters is the value you provide to your customers.
The types of questions we ask (and how we ask them) are the compass of the interview process, guiding the trip in directions most useful to our topic of inquiry (or at the very least preventing us from going in circles).
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More from Agile Insider
When you’re building an audience-centric and community-first business, you’re delaying finding your business idea and building your product for as long as possible. First, you look into your market, validate the existence of a budget, and zero in on a critical problem to which people need a solution.
How do you come up with fresh, transformative ideas?
Letting them know you've heard what they said.
Product lead Peter Yang taps into his decade-plus career to explain why staying focused on the craft is a product managers superpower.
A common pattern is doing a lot of incremental work but little-to-no iterations. Following a big idea (often framed as an initiative) and being solely focused on breaking it down often leads to a series of epics, and that epic becomes a series of user stories, and so forth.
Validation is crucial for startups, but its not the best word to describe what you need to achieve. Heres why discovery is a better term and what you should do instead.
Research rides three waves of technology: one receding, one rising, one forming in the distance.
AI + Your Team = A fast-track to real product insights
How do you find potential customers to interview before you have a product, a website, or even a name?
A Tale of two Brands: bankrupt Gibson Guitars and thriving Fender Guitars.
The problem with business plans is that the expectation is to implement them.
A Scorecard-Based approach to Opportunity Evaluation
Short and recurring discovery cycles are better than long discovery phases.
Here's your checklist for Evaluating Experiments
Identify your riskiest assumption, find the smallest possible experiment to test that assumption, and use the results of the experiment to course correct.
If you’re a product leader and recognize your company’s approach in any of these, I hope this post will provide language to characterize the problem and guidance on fixing it.
Why Startups that Survive are Learning Organizations
Customer journey maps are a great way to understand users' problems, assess what you're doing well (or not), figure out where to focus and what to track and more.
Two essential strategies for integrating research and product development that optimize organizational learning.
How good ideas get stopped in their tracks
Business agility is not a specific methodology or even a general framework.
Use dot voting to whittle a list from lots to some. Use experiments to evaluate the smaller set.
There are two kinds of work, and there's no way around it: Discovery Delivery
A hierarchy to make your product profitable
It takes practice for a team to move beyond the feature factory.
Synthetic insights are not research. They are the fastest path to destroy the margins on your product.
Greater Goods v. Passable Products.
How do you know if the features you release are leading to positive business outcomes?
Product research needs to be timely, actionable, and believable for a product team to act upon it. Tweet This
Break down of what makes a good decision and what we can do to improve our decision-making processes.
Innovation strategy is about more than tackling whats in front of you. You have to know how to find, and manipulate, the advantages of hidden markets.
Receive a hand picked list of the best reads on building products that matter every week. Curated by Anders Toxboe. Published every Tuesday.