How to reduce endless meetings about product decisions using unproven assumptions and guesswork? How to focus on product quality instead of code quality? How to improve your time to value and maximize learnings along the way?

1. Hypothesize
your way into better product development
Elias Nema
Haystack / MICES / Berlin Buzzwords
June 10, 2020

2. Usecase:Personalization&Recommendations@OLXGroup
Online Marketplace
25+ countries
350M+ MAU

3. Typicaldevelopmentflow
ImplementationIdea
• Bad for data products - where success doesn’t only depend on the code/system
quality and it’s hard to predict results from the initial project planning.
• Optimizes for the wrong things - often a customer is being ignored and the real
feedback is only being collected at the end when the implementation is done.

4. Wearenotalone!

5. Hypothesizeflow
ProductionizeExperimentPrototypeHypothesize

6. WhyHypothesis?
• Hypothesis - something that doesn’t have certainty, it can
be right, it can be wrong
• Idea - saying the idea is bad/good implies judgement and
might hurt openness
• User story - presumes we know our users
ProductionizeExperimentPrototypeHypothesize
✅
👩⚖
😂

7. Prototyping
• Design your prototype to verify the hypothesis as fast as possible.
• Only build something that is going to help you prove things you want to.
ProductionizeExperimentPrototypeHypothesize

8. Prototype
Source
Source
Source
Apple I
Google Glass
Yandex Navigator

9. Experiment
• Often we see code, systems, infrastructure as our medium. But it’s human
interaction with the real products in the real world. So the biggest mistake is to sit
in the ivory tower - go to the real world and collect real feedback!
• It’s not only about learnings, it’s about avoiding costly mistakes.
ProductionizeExperimentPrototypeHypothesize

10. MaximizeTtV(time-to-value)
ProductionizeExperimentPrototypeHypothesize
Adjust hypotheses to new learnings

11. MaximizeTtV(time-to-value)
ProductionizeExperimentPrototypeHypothesize
Time-to-Value Potential savings
Short-circuit

12. Productionize
• One important thing to consider after experiments and all the learnings: cost of
maintenance.
• Having the results from the experiment and all other information you can now
either go all-in on implementation or … go for another hypothesis!
ProductionizeExperimentPrototypeHypothesize

13. Hedgeyourrisks
ProductionizeExperimentPrototypeHypothesize
💰
💰 💰
💰 💰 💰

14. Hypothesize:conclusion
• This flow doesn’t tell you HOW to build your product.
• Instead, it guides you into WHAT is the most meaningful thing to work on at any
particular moment.
• This allows you to hedge product risks while maximizing learnings, build a common
dictionary within a team and optimize time to value.
Elias Nema
eliasnema
eliasnema.com