Gaining the trust both of stakeholders and customers is no small ask when delivering new products that have value within a product operating model. How do product teams use product discovery to make high-integrity commitments?
by Mark McKee, 19th August 2024.
The principle of product discovery
I’ve gained a lot of inspiration from a very coherent book called Transformed, by Marty Cagan (Wiley, 2024), founder of the Silicon Valley Product Group. In his insightful and case-study-based observations, Cagan talks a lot about product discovery as a killer app in the ability to get to solutions that clients love and that also work for the bottom line of your business. In many cases, this may involve not doing a lot of things!
Product discovery is a principle within the product operating model (I’ll be writing in more detail about this separately) that allows teams who have been given problems to solve to navigate four key risks related to new product delivery. Note here the distinction: teams are not being handed solutions to implement. Performing a risk assessment allows teams to determine solutions that benefit both your customers and your business: after all, we need to know if we are wasting our time as early as possible so we can pivot to other things that bring more value to the firm. As an aside, do not hire a solution architect for this: I have yet to see one who knows the problem space enough or can restrain himself from imposing his pet designs and technologies on teams. The leadership and risk management of a properly formed product team consists of these three key roles:
- Product manager
- Product designer
- Lead engineer
Between these three leaders, there are four risks to be identified and managed are (Cagan, p51):
- Value risk: will the customer choose to adopt and use our solution?
- Viability risk: will what we deliver work for our business in terms of marketing, sales, compliance, funding?
- Usability risk: can our clients and users get to grips with the solution and get the value it brings?
- Feasibility risk: can we as a firm build this solution so we can support it, scale and manage non-functional aspects such as performance and responsiveness with the skills, tools and data we have?
Risks 1 and 2 are the responsibility of the product manager and accountability for the business outcomes of the product team
Risk 3 is the responsibility of the product designer to ensure users have a great experience
Risk 4 is the responsibility of the tech lead or lead engineer who is also accountable for the delivery of the product.
Or, to put it more succinctly, the roles look like this:
| Product Risk | Responsibility for | …and is accountable for |
| Value | Product manager | Product outcomes for clients |
| Viability | Product manager | Business outcomes for the firm |
| Usability | Product designer | Product usability |
| Feasibility | Lead engineer | Product delivery |
Being better informed about the risks gives more information and signals so the team can make high-integrity commitments. Note, these are not forecasts, but are data-driven estimates that have had the opportunity for research to inform the planned date.
So long as the product team responsible for making the high-integrity commitments is first allowed to do sufficient product discovery, such that they can reasonably address the product risks, then they can safely and responsibly commit to a deliverable on a date.
Marty Cagan, Transformed, page 108.
Note some key words here: product risks, safely and responsibly. Why are these important? A team can never operate in a high-value and innovative way without knowing how to identify and manage risks. Likewise, who wouldn’t want to be seeing teams operating safely and responsibly. It is irresponsible teams who commit to a plan without sober reflection and research…
It’s also reasonable that should a team be making high-integrity commitments, there should be the opportunity to create a prototype to aid their research. How many of us as engineering leads have been put on the spot to come up with an estimate? How can we be expected to respond other than what I do, which is, “I’ll need to look into that and get back to you in a day or two,” or, “It wouldn’t be responsible of me to pluck something out of the air without consulting the product team: they may come up with things none of us has thought of.” These are judicious ways of handling situations where you may find that once you give even a range, that becomes stuck in peoples’ minds.
So the key here is to have a team of leaders in a product team who own the risks so they are empowered with research to know how to solve a problem and be able to give stakeholders responsible and time-bound commitments so customers will be delighted and your business improved. Product discovery is thus one of the key concepts of a successful outcome, and a vital pillar in the product operating model; a set of principles that will shape how technology is delivered in the coming years.
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