In this article we explore how to sidestep the top six product discovery mistakes to be well on your way to building products that delight your users.
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Product discovery is a bit like walking a tightrope.
It’s a delicate balance of trying to understand and delight customers while also meeting business goals.
Even experienced product managers with the best intentions can make common mistakes while juggling all of these responsibilities. And these mistakes can lead to serious ramifications, like delays in product launches and customer dissatisfaction.
The good news is that all of these product management mistakes are avoidable. You simply need to understand how to best organize and plan your product discovery process—and have the right tools to carry it out.
Sidestep these six product discovery mistakes, and you’ll be well on your way to building products that delight your users.
It's common to want to limit product discovery input so you’re not overwhelming your team with too many opinions. But siloing the product discovery process only hinders your ability to make the best decisions for your organization. The trick is to find a way to include stakeholders across teams in a meaningful way.
Everyone has something to contribute to the product discovery process, but too many voices can lead to more of a cacophony than harmony. So it’s common to want to keep product discovery to a smaller group of people with clearly defined responsibilities.
But product discovery doesn’t work that way. Each employee has different experiences with the product, so all teams—especially the ones outside of product management—have valuable insights to offer.
Product managers will never understand industry trends like the sales team. And your team can't possibly be as tuned in to customers' pain points as the customer support team.
To build a better product, every department needs to have a voice in product discovery. Every unique perspective adds to your holistic view of the product, your development process, and your customers.
Instead of opening product discovery up to everyone in a chaotic way, clearly define roles with different levels of involvement.
A product management coach and consultant, Tim Herbig, recommends a case-by-case approach with three levels of involvement:
“Don’t get caught up in a rigid classification of who should participate in product discovery. Who should be permanently or temporarily involved should be based on the requirements and context of your challenge, instead of a one-size-fits-all definition. In my experience, it’s important to identify who will be permanently involved in the product discovery, who will contribute temporarily, and who are general supporters of the mission.”
That way, you have clarity and accountability without limiting product discovery to the product team.
Getting and keeping your team aligned is crucial. How well your team works together toward a common goal directly affects the discovery process—and the quality of your product. When a team isn't aligned, communication suffers. And that results in missed opportunities.
For instance, the customer support team might have feedback that could help you develop the next product, but that feedback might never make it to the development team because there isn’t an easy way for these teams to share challenges and ideas.
When you implement tactics for better team alignment, collaboration happens as part of the natural flow of work.
Everyone is busy and trying to get through the day. Without someone actively working to make sure teams get and stay aligned, people will naturally fall out of sync with each other and share less.
Alignment isn’t some mystical state of collective harmony; it’s the result of thoughtful processes and habits implemented to maintain an organized flow of ideas and collaboration. Alignment takes work, some dedicated time, and an understanding that team dynamics are an ongoing function of the process.
To increase team alignment, build transparency into the product discovery process so everyone can work toward the same goal. And be sure those goals align with the company vision. Product initiatives, too, should always ladder back up to the original vision.
Start by making time to regularly check in across teams and share updates. Things change fast, and if other roles don’t know what’s happening, they can’t support product discovery. Create a central repository for product feedback where everyone can see the data for themselves. That way, everyone can stay up-to-date with the latest insights. Continually review your alignment and tweak it to improve.
Try new ideas for alignment as they come up, stick with what works, and toss the rest back. Each team is unique, and what works for you won’t necessarily work for another product team. Over time, your organization will develop a unique set of best practices to foster and maintain alignment.
Confirmation bias is the universal human tendency to believe ideas that already fit within your views. It's sneaky. We often don’t realize that we're falling for confirmation bias to make decisions. And it can lead you down the wrong path. To prevent it, you can set some guardrails in place to keep your assumptions in check.
To put it simply, we humans tend to believe we’re right. When faced with something that contradicts what we already believe, we have a hard time accepting it. Our view of the world and everything in it is influenced by our unique lives: our past experiences and the knowledge we’ve gathered. And our beliefs were constructed over a long period of time through many experiences. It’s not easy to then just believe something that flies in the face of what we already “know.”
To prevent confirmation bias, double-check your bias at every stage of the product discovery and product development process. That’s especially true when you encounter some user research that flies in the face of what you already believe to be true. Stay curious for unexpected answers that contradict your beliefs. Seek out information that challenges your assumptions. Read articles and books from opposing viewpoints or seek out opinions from different perspectives.
When considering a decision or reviewing, include points and counterpoints in your decision-making process to ensure that you are considering more than one perspective. Seek out feedback from others to help you identify blind spots and challenge your assumptions. By being open-minded and willing to consider alternate viewpoints, you can make more informed product decisions and avoid letting confirmation bias run amok.
One of the most common mistakes in product discovery is leaving validation until the end. This approach treats validation as a mere stamp of approval rather than as a powerful tool for testing hypotheses. Instead, adopt an agile approach. To build the best new products possible, include validation early and often throughout the product discovery process.
Many product managers mistakenly believe that validation is a step that comes at the end of the process. They see validation as a way to confirm that they have built the right product rather than as a way to test their assumptions and hypotheses. This mindset can lead to wasted time and resources—not to mention a product that does not meet the needs of its users.
The solution to this problem is to include validation in every step of the product discovery process. Much like continuous discovery, continuous validation is the key to managing today’s product development. This means involving customers and users in validation as early as possible. By soliciting continuous feedback from users, you can increase user engagement and ensure that your product meets their needs.
Sharing your minimum viable product (MVP) as soon as possible is also crucial. By prototyping and getting an MVP out there, you can get valuable feedback and iterate quickly on the feasibility of the product. If you want to build a product that truly meets the needs of your users and stands out in a crowded marketplace, you’ll need to validate throughout the product discovery process.
Turn scattered user data into meaningful customer intelligence, guiding smarter decisions and creating a better product.
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