Work Backward

Many product teams aren’t allowed to do discovery. They still work in a feature-team or delivery-team model, where business stakeholders tell them what to build. If this is you, don’t worry—there is hope. Remember, I worked this way for years. You can still work on developing continuous discovery habits yourself.

When you are asked to deliver a specific solution, work backward. Take the time to consider, “If our customers had this solution, what would it do for them?” If you are talking to customers regularly, ask them. Try to uncover the implied opportunity. Even if it’s a wild guess, starting to consider customer needs, pain points, and desires will help you deliver a better solution.

You can apply the same question to your business to uncover the implied outcome, “If we shipped this feature, what value would it create for our business?” Refine your answer until you get to a clear metric—that’s your outcome. By the way, by asking those two questions, you’ve also built your first opportunity solution tree.

As you work on requirements for the solutions you were asked to build, remember to story map your ideas. Use your story maps to identify hidden assumptions. Even if you don’t have the infrastructure to quickly prototype or test your assumptions, being aware of your assumptions will help you notice the evidence around you that either supports or refutes them. When you uncover a faulty assumption, work with your stakeholders to evolve the idea. Better yet, when a stakeholder brings a solution to you, story map and identify assumptions with them. The idea will improve right then and there.

Work with your stakeholders to identify the impact they expect a given feature to have. Document that conversation. As you implement the feature, be sure to instrument what you need to measure against the expected impact. Start doing post-release impact reviews with your stakeholders. Remind them what impact they expected a feature to have. Share with them the impact the feature actually had. If it falls short, as it inevitably will, share the implied opportunity you uncovered by asking, “Are we trying to solve this customer problem with this feature?” If your stakeholder agrees, ask if you can consider alternative solutions to that same customer need. Or better yet, ideate with your stakeholders. Congratulations! You just built out the first mini-branch of your opportunity solution tree.

The best time to advocate for discovery is when a feature falls short of expectations. You can gently suggest ways that you could have discovered the gap earlier in the process. This is a great time to share what you are learning in your interviews. But be careful. You don’t want to come across as a know-it-all or have an “I told you so” attitude. Instead, approach the situation as a collaborative problem solver. Work with your stakeholders to evolve your processes. If they push back, let up. Remember, you don’t have to worry about how other people work. You can make great strides yourself, focusing on how you work. But you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how receptive folks are to small changes when things don’t go as expected. Read the room, and adjust your suggestions accordingly.