The business discipline covers all commercial aspects of a product. This includes the Viability lense, as well as responsibility for organisational processes and decisions. It also organises key decision-making processes, aligns resources required and sets up strategic criteria for decisions. The business discipline sets the direction of where we want to go and the criteria of what getting there must look like.
We need a clear direction and purpose to start the discovery phase. We will align expectations with the team and key stakeholders, frame the problem we aim to solve, and gain insights from the market & competitors, which are the foundation of the following research
To effectively conduct research, we will need to understand the problem and set up goals:
Visioning & Goal Setting: Aligning the business vision and setting up discovery goals
Team Set-up & Team Building: Getting to know each other and defining responsibilities
Kick-Off: Starting the project with clarity and bringing everyone on the same page
Search Area Definition: Identifying the critical topics to be included in the research
Knowledge Transfer & Data Room: Sharing and leveraging existing organisational information
Trend Analysis: Understanding impactful market trends and future influences
Competitor Research/Analysis: Learning early from what others are trying and doing
Expert Interview: Seeking insights and different perspectives on key areas
Ecosystem Map: Mapping connections and relationships between all players in one system
Search Area Refinement & Discovery Goal Statement: Finalising research topics and discovery goals
After we know our goals and business context, we need to identify our knowledge gaps on customers/users and set up a detailed research plan on how to close them.
To create a comprehensive research plan, we will set up the following:
Research Plan: Outlining all aspects involved in this research
Interview Guides: Scripting the interview process and guideline
Interviewee Recruitment: Finding the people to answer our questions
In this chapter, you truly get to know the customer through research and get a picture of the current state of their jobs-to-be-done, needs, and pain points. Instead of working from assumptions, you venture to understand the customer‘s experience, context, and constraints. This chapter introduces different tools to engage in customer research.
There are six most common and frequently applied qualitative research approaches:
Customer Interview: In-depth one-on-one interviews directly with target customers/users
Focus Group Discussion: Group conversations with multiple target audiences
Shadowing: Real-life observation of a research participant for a set period of time
Mystery Shopping: Going through the same experience as a typical customer
Service Immersion: Understanding the perspective of the service provider/staff
Diary Study: Capturing customers’ regular actions, as well as their feelings and observations
While qualitative research gains a deep understanding of the customer's thoughts, motivations, and context, quantitative research can help you gain insights into numeric variables (how many, how much, how often, and preferences/trends) on a much larger scale.
To collect quantitative data, we can look at the following:
Survey: Sending out a predetermined set of questions to research participants
Analytics: Looking at different data sources that give you information on the existing behaviour of customers across touchpoints
Studies & Statistics: Accessing and leveraging that existing quantitative data on specific markets and topics
Social Listening: Making use of information shared by customers online
After we have conducted customer research, we need to process and analyze the collected data. In this chapter, we will discuss the whole process of dealing with and synthesizing qualitative data.
To synthesise qualitative data, we will go through the following:
Data Transcription: Collecting qualitative data in real-time for further analysis
Interview Mining & Analysis: Clustering and summarising data in a structured manner
Customer Insights: Drawing insights that should be considered or incorporated into your solutions
Root Cause Analysis: Identifying underlying causes in your Insight Statements or pain points.
Jobs-To-Be-Done: Finding out what “jobs” people want to get done by using products/services
Personas: Capturing personality, behaviour, challenges, and needs of a specific customer group
Customer Journeys: Visualising a customer’s experience over time as they interact with the product and service
System Thinking/Iceberg Model: Making sense of the complexity by looking at things as wholes
Finally, we have gathered all important facts and insights, from which we develop opportunities and find ways to move forward.
To find the way moving forward, we will go through the following:
Opportunity Maps: Discovering new areas for a customer-centric product, service, business model development, etc.
Opportunity Prioritisation & Selection: Reviewing and selecting prioritized opportunities for the next steps (a foundation for conceptualization in the subsequent validation phase)
To start the Validation phase, we first need to come up with a strong Product / Service / Venture concept (or multiple), which we will validate in the market through experimentation. This is the Concepting phase, which is creative in nature.
Through different stages, we will create strong concepts:
Opportunity Unpacking: Aligning the Validation team on context and content
How Might We’s: Framing the boundaries of the Solution Space
Idea Generation: Coming up with solution ideas for the problems we framed
Idea Shortlisting: Narrowing down the field of ideas to a manageable level
Concept Cards: Creating comprehensive Product / Service / Venture concepts
Concept Improvement: Challenging and strengthening the concepts
Strategic Business Criteria: Agreeing on how we will make choices
Concept Selection: Choosing which concept(s) to move into Experimentation with
After we know which solution concept(s) we want to validate, we need to understand the key assumptions and risks within those, formulate precise experiments to tackle those and formulate an experimentation plan to guide the team.
To design and plan experiments, we will go through the following:
Concept Critique: Finding the hidden assumptions and risks in a concept.
Assumption Mapping: Evaluating, scoring, and mapping the assumptions.
Experiment Design & Selection: Finding ways to test hypotheses and deciding on experiments to run.
Interpretation Criteria: Setting how we will evaluate the experiment outcomes.
Experimentation Plan: Batching experiments into sprints to run agile experimentation.
Once we have designed the relevant market experiments that will help us create new knowledge around our assumptions and risks and have compiled a plan to execute them, it is time to create and run those experiments and gather the market data.
For the Experimentation phase, we will run the following:
Experiment Creation: Creating the necessary stimuli to run experiments.
Customer Testing: First-hand experimentation in qualitative customer situations.
Data Collection: Getting to relevant data and structures.
Experiment Refinement: Changing experiments when their design was flawed.
After we have run an experimentation sprint, we should evaluate the experiments and understand the impact of those on our concept validation progress and further experiments.
To evaluate the outcome of an Experimentation sprint, we will go through the following:
Data Review and Processing: Looking at experiment outcome data and turning it into information that can be used for evaluation.
Experiment Scoring: Judging whether experiments validated or invalidated our hypotheses based on interpretation criteria and data.
Concept Score Card: Updating the validation progress of the concept to orient ourselves on how far we already are.
Experimentation Plan Iteration: Updating the plan as we learn more.
Either at the end of our experimentation plan or once we have learned something that very much changes our view on reality and requires a comprehensive review of the concept, we will come to the Concept Review phase, where key decisions regarding the concept are made based on the gathered data.
During Concept Review, we look at the experiment outcomes and learnings and decide:
Iterate: Do we need to adjust the concept or aspects of the concept in tactical (operational/execution-focused) ways?
Pivot: Do we need to adjust the concept or aspects of the concept in strategic (planning/reasoning/vision-focused) ways?
Persevere: Shall we stay with our concept or aspects of our concept as it is / as they are?
Abandon: Do we need to completely abandon our concept?
Once we have wrapped up our Experimentation Sprints and have iterated/pivoted the concept into its final stage, we are ready to compile key business, product, and strategy artefacts, which will be vital for the Production of the concept.
To wrap up the Validation and compile all key outcomes, we will look at the following:
Product Vision: Defining the short-term and long-term vision for our offering
MVP Definition: Setting the first version we need to build to appeal to a first set of customers
Business Model Design: Deciding how we will generate revenue
Go-To-Market Strategy: Deciding how we will address and acquire customers
To-Be Customer Journey: Designing the experience of customers with us
Business Model Canvas: Making integrated strategic choices to set a coherent operation
Implementation Roadmap: Defining what will be done, how, in what order by whom
Business Case: Analysing the financial perspective on our concept over time
Pitch Deck: Creating a compelling narrative to explain the concept to stakeholders and investors
After running through the validation phase, it’s time to share the results with different teams across business, product, development, and operation. We unpack all analysis details to bring stakeholders to the same page, decide and align why & what to build, how we collaborate with limited resources, and get it done.
This is a critical preparation before starting the production:
Business Requirements Document: Demonstrating business case, business value, customer insights, product vision & purpose, and validation results
Alignment & Handover for Production: Bringing all teams (business, design, product, development) to the same page on business context and handover necessary knowledge about the product, customers, and other business rationals
Requirements analysis is the process of modelling the requirements and designs based on the business research findings, validating and verifying the models, identifying the solution options, and assessing the potential value each option could bring to the business.
By discussing the activities for business analysis, we will get to know the following:
Requirements Modelling: Abstract the core needs and create the model based on that
Requirement Verification: Ensure that the requirements and designs modelled are in enough detail and high quality to be used by the relevant stakeholders
Implementation Feasibility Assessment: Assess if the organisation owns the capabilities and capacity to complete the product or features as designed
When the requirements come into being through research and analysis, defining the product solution is the basis for implementing a feasible product that can meet the requirements.
To define the solution, you need to create the following first:
Solution Options Analysis: Define the most beneficial solutions, and assess the business value associated.
Product Roadmap: Help communicate with key stakeholders on high-level tasks and goals in a planned timeline manner
User Roles: Sort out all user roles of the system, making sure the system can close the logic loop and provide must-have services
Feature Tree: Map out the critical features for a thorough understanding of the system modules
Technical Architecture: Design the framework to implement the digital product
As agile methodologies are widely applied in digital projects, iterations are efficient ways to test and adapt quickly. It would be best if you were careful when defining the scope of each version and its iteration about the short and long-term goals.
Defining a version requires the following work to be done accordingly:
MVP Scope Definition: Minimal scope of features to go to the market and validate the ideas
User Stories: Depict the detailed requirements and acceptance criteria to fulfil the product vision
Sprint Breakdown: Planning process and a smaller unit of version definition, which finally forms a deliverable version
Timeline: Timelines work as the plan, the goal, and the reminder that a deliverable is associated with a specified timeframe
After product features are defined, the design team’s responsible for turning the abstract feature descriptions into tangible flows, charts, and user interfaces. Their focus will be usability, accessibility of the product, and conveying the right message for the brand.
The following items are the most frequently used tools of the design team during production:
Information Architecture: The practice of organising, structuring, and labelling content effectively that makes it easy to find and understand.
Art Direction: Using creative elements to evoke certain moods or feelings, which will be used as a guide for user interface design
User Flow: The sequence of steps and interactions that a user takes to complete a specific task or achieve a particular goal within a product, such as a website or an app
Wireframes: The creation of monochrome screen designs as the conceptual basis for the product design.
Usability Testing: Testing relevant interaction design artefacts with users to ensure they understand how to use the product.
Design Production: Designing the final visual screens that move into production.
Design System: A set of standardised guidelines, reusable components, and patterns used to design and develop digital products and user interfaces consistently.
Scrum is a topic that has been discussed previously in digital product development. It enables the project to quick turns when adjustments are needed.
Here we only discuss some key points that need to be emphasised:
Scrum Activities: Besides the most common five scrum activities, more activities are introduced in this section.
Design Review: Iterate designs as per the product requirements and technical feedback
Dependency Resolution: Summarise the dependencies identified and also follow up on the action items until the road blockers are removed from the timeline
Retrospectives: Remind the team not to wait for meetings to solve issues but initiate them as long as needed
As an overarching concept for the Support & Scale phase, the Product Lifecycle presents a great solution that helps us understand and manage the maturity of individual products and the product portfolio we oversee to optimise investments.
To understand the Product Lifecycle, we will discuss the following:
After the Production phase, with an MVP in hand, it is time to start going to market and acquiring users. Start small with a limited set of users first to get their feedback, iterate, and expand from there. Big bang launches can lead to widespread frustration if the product is partially on point.
In this chapter, we will cover the key concepts and activities for the early launch of a product:
Infrastructure Planning: Prepare the infrastructure for the right workload
User Acquisition: Get the first pilot customers onto the platform
Data Tracking: Capture the correct data to learn quickly and improve on the right aspects
With users on the product and data coming in, we need to ensure that we have the proper methods and rituals to look at that data in ways that helps us make good iteration decisions early on and move toward the coveted product-market fit. This is where we close the feedback loop and fully implement the lean build-measure-learn cycle.
The main activities that are needed to close the feedback loop correctly:
Data Performance Review: Review the data collected as per the predefined measurements and understand the areas that need to improve
Audience Analysis: Match the reality of actual users against the ideal world of personas and get a better understanding of the target audience
Product-Market Fit: Understand whether the product you have created is a strong fit for the JTBD you want to solve and the target audience using it
Once we have achieved a level of product-market fit, we can invest in growing the customer base as we are assured of a positive CAC / LTV ratio and have started to have a flywheel effect. There are different ways of increasing the customer base, which we will explore, and essential methods of managing the requirements that new impulses that come with that growth.
To drive growth and manage it, we will look at the following:
Product Growth Models: Growing the right way depending on product specifications
User Retention: Ensuring high user retention for growing customer value and LTV
Growth Loops: Building loops of growth and retention that accelerate progress
Requirement Management: Identifying the sources of requirements could help quickly locate and prioritize the most promising features.
Backlog Management: Managing the growing backlog effectively for maximum impact
A/B Testing: Testing different solution options only to implement the best
Communication Rituals: Keeping the information flowing within the company
Besides the operational growth of the product, we will also need to regularly evaluate the strategic progression of the whole system of business around it.
In this chapter, we explore key strategy and business concepts relevant to long-term success:
Business Goals: Constantly review the business objectives to confirm the product is on the right track and lead the way as complexity increases
Success Criteria Review: Reviewing key performance indicators in alignment with the overarching success criteria to ensure continued value creation
Product Scaling: Scaling the product proposition to new JTDBs and audiences
Business Model Evolution: Evolving the business model as the product grows and addresses larger audiences and more JTBDs
Lean Product Progress: Applying the lean model to the scale phase with the various options it offers
Product Strategy and Planning:Setting up product strategy and the short-/long-term product planning