5 Product Discovery Secrets Every PM Should Know

Product Discovery Group © 2022 @sfjmorris @ProdMgmtToday
ProductDiscoveryGroup.com
The 5 Product
Discovery Secrets
Every PM Should
Know
June 2, 2022 at 11:00 am PST,
2:00 pm EST, 7:00 pm BST
Jim Morris
Transformation Coach
Rayvonne Carter
Webinar Coordinator,
Product Management Today
With
The Path to Product-Led Growth Series

Pendo is on a mission to elevate the world’s experiences with software.
From Fortune 500 enterprises to B2B tech startups to educational
institutions and healthcare systems, organizations around the world
use Pendo to achieve a common goal– to accelerate and deepen
software product adoption.
Today’s consumers expect software to be as easy to use as the apps on
their phone. Pendo helps companies meet these rising user expectations.
As the only platform to combine in-app messaging with robust product
analytics and user feedback, Pendo ensures people adopt software
quickly and successfully. Using Pendo, product teams can combine
qualitative and quantitative insights to make more informed decisions
on how to support customers throughout their journey. IT and HR
teams can onboard, train, and support employees inside the tools they
use at work, helping to improve employee proﬁciency and accelerate
ROI on software investments.

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The Path to Product-Led
Growth Series

Product Discovery:
The 5 Product Discovery Secrets Every PM Should Know
Jim Morris
Product Discovery Group
@sfjmorris

Product Discovery Group © 2022 @sfjmorris
$450 million IPO
$168 million sale

Product Discovery Group © 2022 @sfjmorris
Tech, Finance, Energy
Coaching Product Organizations Across Industries
Consumer Digital Health

Tell us what role you’re in
(enter a response in chat)

What is your industry?

Reduce Risk
Collaborate Upfront
Know Your Data
Talk to Customers
Create Experiments
The 5 Product Discovery
Secrets Every PM Should Know

Reduce Risk

Case Study - Pivoting Your Strategy
Before - Roadmap of products and features After - Total focus on mobile compatibility

Case Study - Spend to Learn Before Spending to Build
Before - High expense. Low learning. Zero traffic. After - Low expense. High learning. Ongoing traffic.

Product Discovery is a lightweight, measurable process to quickly
validate important risks before building a product
Customer
Value
Risk
Technical
Feasibility
Risk
Usability
Risk
Business
Viability
Risk
The Four Risks of Product Discovery

What are blockers to Product Discovery

Collaborate Upfront

Know Your Data

You work at Lyft.
Your team has been given this directive:
Create a push message to tell
the Passenger that the Driver
has arrived

Make a user story:
As a user, I’d like to get a
push message from Lyft in order
to know when my driver has
arrived.
Ask an engineer for an estimate:
20 days
Set the priority and delivery date:
Deadline: March 7th, 2022

Instead, let’s take a Product Discovery approach.

In the chat…
Please use a one sentence “I” statement to:
Write 1 problem statement
that caused the creation of the directive:
Create a push message to tell the
Passenger that the Driver has
arrived

● I can’t identify which car is my Uber
● I am waiting too long for the passenger
● I don’t want to waste time
● I want to get the driver moving again
to finish with this client

Let’s pick a problem (and a customer):
(Driver) I am waiting too long
for the Passenger
Now that we’ve explored some possible problems and
picked a target customer, let’s think of
multiple solutions that will solve this problem.

In the chat…
Write 1 possible solution
to this problem:
(Driver) I am waiting too long for
the Passenger

● Send text msg to Passenger that Driver has arrived
● Show Driver ETA in Passenger’s app
● HONK HORN
● Display glowing Uber sign with color
● Fine the Passenger (“late fee”)

● Send text msg to Passenger that Driver has arrived
● Show Driver ETA in Passenger’s app
● HONK HORN
● Display glowing Uber sign with color
● Fine the Passenger (“late fee”)
Non-technology
solutions

Should be an outcome. Not an output…what’s the difference?
Before we pick a solution…
… pick a success metric to guide our decision making.
→ An outcome is something we DON’T control

In the chat...
Write 1 metric outcome (must
include a #)
that will help us understand if we’ve solved this problem:
(Driver) I am waiting too long for
the Passenger

● Reduce complaints from Drivers from X to Y
● 15% increase in Driver satisfaction qtr over qtr
● 50% reduction in wait time from arrival to departure
week over week
● 10% more rides this quarter
● 5% increase in company revenue

When we pick a success metric, it gives the team and their
stakeholders a common goal:
50% reduction in wait time from
arrival to departure week over week
Iterating towards a success metric (instead of a speciﬁc
deliverable) keeps us open-minded to multiple solutions.

Multiple Solutions
● Push message
● Text message
● Map with live Driver location
● Driver ETA
● Glowing sign
● “Arrived” message
● Driver calls Passenger
● Set a time limit. Countdown.
● Phone vibration
● $5 cancellation fine
● and more…

So What Happened Here…We Worked Backwards
Solution
Problems
User
Multiple
Solutions
Metrics
Objective

How We Prefer To Work
Solution
Problem
Multiple
Solutions
User
Metrics
Objective

How We Prefer To Work
Solution
Problem
Multiple
Solutions
User
Metrics
Objective
Product Discovery creates the
evidence that helps us iterate more
efficiently through possible solutions
to achieve our numeric goals

This concept based on Marty Cagan’s book Inspired
Opportunity Assessment:
- Business Objective
- Key Result (metric)
- Target Customer
- Customer Problem

More information on OKRs can be found here:
Felipe Castro Christina Wodtke

Talk to Customers

So how do you
Talk to Customers

Create Experiments

Components of a
Product Discovery Experiment

Actual or
Representative
User

Right
Mindset

Best
Effort
Content

High
Fidelity
Prototype

Best Practices for
Designing Experiments

Think
Big
Start
Small

Simplify — One Hypothesis At A Time

Make It Obvious — Helps You Talk Less

Expand Into
Multiple Solutions

Don’t Settle for Blah Feedback

Be a Marketer. Find the user’s
starting point.
You need to experiment
where, when and how
you will become part of the user’s day

Be a Marketer.
Find the user’s
starting point.
Text Msg / Push Notif.
Also
● Google Homepage
● Google Results Page
● Facebook News Feed

Add
“Choose Your Own Adventure”
Options

“Choose
Your Own
Adventure”

Build only what
you need

Leave Something Vague

December
2020
January
2021
Revenue
in $
Leave
Something
Vague
Average
Revenue

Don’t Be Pixel Perfect

Start with a Null Hypothesis

Cats have no
preference for
shapes in food

Cats want ﬁsh
shaped food

Velocity Over Clarity

Recap — Create Experiments
1. Think big. Start small.
2. Simplify: One hypothesis at a time
3. Make it obvious
4. Expand into multiple solutions
5. Don’t settle for blah feedback
6. Be a Marketer. Find the user’s starting point.
7. Add “Choose your own adventure” options
8. Build only what you need
9. Leave something vague
10. Don’t be pixel perfect
11. Start with a Null Hypothesis
12. Velocity over clarity

you do less work
learn more
in a faster time frame
With Product Discovery Experiments…

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Stay in Touch

Jim Morris
Founder, Product Discovery Group
Rayvonne Carter
Webinar Coordinator,
To view more from the Empowering You to Empower Them Series visit
https://www.productmanagementtoday.com/webinar-series/12203/empowering-you-to-empower-them
/in/jimmorrisstanford/
/in/rayvonnecarter/
@ProdMgmtToday
productmanagementtoday.com
Q&A
productdiscoverygroup.com

5 Product Discovery Secrets Every PM Should Know

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