1 tip & 3 resources per week to improve your Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery practices in less than 5 minutes.
Why Your 'Correct' Discovery Method Might Be Wrong
Why Your 'Correct' Discovery Method Might Be WrongDear Reader, "Which experiment should we run next?" This question comes up in almost every Discovery coaching session I facilitate. Teams often focus on finding the methodologically perfect way to test their assumptions. But here's the thing: the most technically correct experiment isn't always the right one to run. When choosing methods for Product Discovery, we often focus on what fits our research question or assumption best. Say you want to understand how users perceive features in your product. A diary study might be the perfect method—capturing real usage patterns over time. But what if it takes three months to get reliable insights? A series of well-structured interviews or shadowing sessions might get you 80% of the way there in just two weeks. Several factors determine your lead time to insight:
Here's another way to think about it: An A/B test might seem quick to start—taking just hours or days to implement. But depending on your traffic and conversion rates, it could take weeks or months to reach statistical significance. In contrast, while recruiting participants for qualitative interviews might take two weeks, you could have reliable insights within days of completing them. Neither method is inherently better. What matters is the total time to reliable insight, not just how quickly you can get started. So, when picking your next Discovery priority, ask yourself:
Here's a practical tip: When evaluating lead time, avoid abstract scoring systems. Instead, estimate the actual duration by adding:
This concrete timeline helps you make practical trade-offs between methods. Remember: The goal isn't to achieve perfect certainty. It's to reduce uncertainty enough to make confident decisions about what to build next. Did you enjoy the newsletter? Please forward it. It only takes two clicks. Creating this one took two hours. Thank you for Practicing Product, Tim Good News!Some last tickets are available for my in-person Product Discovery workshop on March 10 in London (as part of Mind the Product conference).
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. |
Product Practice Newsletter
1 tip & 3 resources per week to improve your Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery practices in less than 5 minutes.
Product Practice #360 Why your Product DiscoveryFeels too Theoretical READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Apr 25, 2025 READING TIME 4 min & 17 sec Dear Reader, Over the past two weeks, I've explored treating Product Strategy and OKRs like products to avoid Alibi Progress. Today, let's tackle the practice that often gets dismissed as "good in theory, impossible in practice" — Product Discovery. When teams tell me "we don't have time for proper Discovery," they're usually stuck in Alibi Progress —...
Product Practice #359 Make OKRs Drive Decisions,not Spreadsheets READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Apr 18, 2025 READING TIME 5 min & 32 sec Dear Reader, Last week, we explored how treating Product Strategy like a product helps you avoid "Alibi Progress" — prioritizing correctness over value. Today, let's apply this same thinking to OKRs. If you've ever found yourself more relieved that the quarterly OKR-setting theater is over than excited about the OKRs themselves, you've experienced the symptoms...
Product Practice #358 Why your Users don't careabout your Product Strategy READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Apr 11, 2025 READING TIME 3 min & 24 sec Dear Reader, One of the most powerful ways to spot and stop Alibi Progress is to start treating our practices like products. This means clearly defining three elements: Audience: For whom is this practice meant? Problem: What core problem does this practice aim to solve? Success: How would we know this practice has delivered value? The question then...