The Problem with 0-1 Metrics​Dear Reader,​ ​Scaling Product Discovery requires more than just having teams talk to more users. In fact, just having teams interview more users without structure and some baseline education might do more harm than good. Here’s what I took away from training over 30 product trios at The StepStone Group: #1 Educate Cross-functional, wherever possibleIt doesn’t make sense to expect Discovery collaboration between Product, UX, and Engineering but only train Product Managers. You want to avoid having the PMs be proxies for the skills you want the entire team to adopt. Having all three core competencies in the training meant that they could understand and challenge each other much better. ​ #2 Balance Adapting High-level Guidance with Tailored Practical Applications​Sarah Reeves and the Product Ops team experimented with many ways to get people the information they needed. First, they tried a high-level Mural to illustrate potential processes, which felt too theoretical and left people wanting more details. This led to a more in-depth playbook, which covered much ground but was too detailed. So, the team returned to more high-level guidance in the form of the original Mural and a lighter version of the playbook. They incorporated feedback from each approach to strike the right balance between the vision, high-level reasoning, and practical knowledge that people need to incorporate learnings into their daily lives. Their prior experience balancing guidance with practical application led us to agree to complement the training with a series of coaching sessions for those teams. In these sessions, I helped the product trios apply the appropriate discovery techniques to their context. #3 Treat the Adoption of Product Discovery like a ProductMost product teams apply the principles of starting small, measuring progress and iterating accordingly to shipping solutions. One of Sarah’s biggest takeaways was to extend these principles beyond the product and use them to shape the way teams work. “Do an MVP for certain areas to find and prove value quickly,” she recommends. That will give you “evidence to show the benefit of working this way.” In practice, that means Defining a clear MVP for how you want to change things, testing it with a small group of the organization, and measuring progress to prove the value of your initiative. This will make it easier to scale upskilling efforts that have worked. ​
​ 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 (ask around). If this newsletter isn't for you anymore, you can unsubscribe here. Thank you for Practicing Product, ​Tim​ Join my In-Person Workshops in BerlinI'm excited to bring my beloved in-person workshops back to Berlin in January 2025. You can choose between 1-day workshops on Product Strategy, Product OKRs, or Product Discovery OR get the full 3-day experience for you or your team.
(early bird pricing is available until Sep 21) What did you think of this week's newsletter? As a Product Management Coach, I guide Product Teams to measure the real progress of their evidence-informed decisions. I focus on better practices to connect the dots of Product Strategy, Product OKRs, and Product Discovery. |
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Product Practice #376 Why did I write aBook on Real Progress? READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Sep 18, 2025 READING TIME 4 min & 55 sec Dear Reader, I decided to send this newsletter one day earlier than usual this week because of current events. You guessed right: After more than two years of work, I'm proud and excited to share with you that the paperback version of my book, Real Progress: How to Connect the Dots of Product Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery, is now live on Amazon. You can find all...
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