Don't turn Continuous Discovery into Dogmatic DiscoveryDear Reader, When I recently talked to Vivek Kumar for my work-in-progress book, this insight stood out: "The biggest moat you can always have is how fast you can learn." And a recurring theme in a recent Product Discovery workshop was to hold every decision in Product Discovery against "whether it helps reduce lead-time to actionable insights (aka lead-time until we reduce uncertainty). One of the main reasons I see product teams neglect the importance of that lead time is that they stick to a rigid order of activities at all costs. They get stuck in dogmatic Product Discovery. As your teams become more comfortable with deliberate Product Discovery and learn better practices, they may adopt a rigid, Dogmatic adherence to different “rules” of discovery. This represents a significant step forward from Alibi Discovery because it means teams are actively thinking about and incorporating systematized Product Discovery, but it comes with downsides. Characteristics of this state:
Clear signs you have to move on: Teams feel that the discovery process and act get in their way of creating value. Completing a Discovery task gets more priority than the quality of insights generated and decisions made, and the seemingly irrational volume of work raises questions. Did you enjoy this one or have feedback? Do reply. It's motivating. I'm not a robot; I read and respond to every subscriber email I get (just ask around). If this newsletter isn't for you anymore, you can unsubscribe here. Thank you for Practicing Product, Tim How to Dive Deeper into Product DiscoveryLearn how I helped companies like Deutsche Telekom and Forto hone their Product Discovery practices. I closely work with product organizations through workshops and coaching to introduce and adapt Product Discovery.
What did you think of this week's newsletter? As a Product Management Coach, I guide Product Teams to measure the progress of their evidence-informed decisions. I identify and share the patterns among better practices to connect the dots of Product Strategy, Product OKRs, and Product Discovery. |
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Product Practice #328 My 2024 Mid-Year Review READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Jun 28, 2024 READING TIME 5 min & 20 sec This is the last newsletter before my annual summer writing break. I will return on August 16th after next week's issue. In the meantime, follow me on LinkedIn for more hands-on content. ☀️ Dear Reader, I first encountered the concept of a mid-year review via Tiago Forte a few years back. After I published 7 Things I Learned from Writing a Weekly Product Management Newsletter for...
Product Practice #327 How Product Leaders CanGuide Their Team's OKRs READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Jun 21, 2024 READING TIME 3 min & 51 sec This is the second-to-last newsletter before my annual summer writing break. I will return on August 16th after next week's issue. ☀️ For the scope of this essay, I will define Product Leaders as members of a Product Management function with people management responsibilities (e.g., Director of Product, Head of Product, VP of Product, etc.). Product leaders...
Product Practice #326 4 Learnings fromWorking on 40 NSMs READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Jun 14, 2024 READING TIME 5 min & 0 sec Dear Reader, During an ongoing long-term Discovery and Metrics Coaching engagement, I had the opportunity to meet many different external and internal-facing teams. One of this company’s focus points is the establishment of more metrics-informed decision-making, and they landed on North Star Metrics (NSMs) as a critical vehicle for that. Here are my four key takeaways...