HOW TO PUT THIS THEORY INTO PRACTICE

• Have people answer the questions of the Impact Mapping layers without doing a formal framework introduction (nobody needs more frameworks).
• Connect the dots through the map to uncover inconsistencies.​
• Prioritize your Discovery actions based on these inconsistencies and gaps to avoid following dogmatic defaults.

How Asking Works: A Crash Course in Customer Discovery Questions

Asking the wrong types of customer discovery questions can unintentionally influence the answers. Humans are psychologically geared to please others in a conversation, particularly when it is with someone we don’t know (making a good first impression and all that). A single, forced-choice question followed by a series of yes/no questions that confirm our preconceived biases can derail the entire interview, and worse, lead to false conclusions about our customer that takes our discovery in the wrong direction.

When NOT to run an experiment

This bucket almost goes without saying, but to run an experiment you need a control to compare your change against. If you’re launching a brand new independent product, or pivoting the product, you likely have nothing to compare this new product against (other than it not existing). In this case, you’re better off just setting independent success criteria (e.g. a specific retention rate, or a new user signup threshold), vs. coming up with an awkward experiment. This is especially true if going back to the previous product is out of the question and your own path forward is through.

How Twitch Learned to Make Better Predictions About Everything

Over multiple rounds of questions, individual confidence intervals adjust to match their personal level of uncertainty. Risk management expert Douglas Hubbard — a pioneer in decision science — has shown that it takes seventy questions to calibrate probability assessment such that estimates participants believe are 90% likely to occur actually occur 90% of the time. As we ask employees to make these assessments, we immediately provide the correct answers, so the Immediate feedback can help employees calibrate their assessments. Our staff quickly learns if their estimates are either over- or under-confident.

Here are a few ways we can work together:

Learn through my free, in-depth Product Strategy, Product OKRs, or Product Discovery content libraries.

​Hire me to work with you or your team(s) 1:1 in workshops or coaching.