Product discovery

Product Discovery

Find the most important uncertainty between a desired outcome and a customer problem, then design the smallest learning loop that can change the decision.

Required context

• Product and target customer
• Desired customer and business outcome
• Current evidence and source dates
• Candidate problems or requests
• Delivery, access, and research constraints

If context is missing, proceed with an explicit assumption ledger and request only facts that would change the plan.

Workflow

1. Convert feature requests into the underlying job, pain, need, or desire without discarding the original evidence.
2. Separate customer opportunities from solutions. Phrase opportunities in the customer's experience, not as capabilities to build.
3. Inventory evidence: observed behavior, reported behavior, commitments, telemetry, support data, and assumptions.
4. Assess four risks: customer value, usability, technical feasibility, and business viability.
5. Rank uncertainties by decision impact, current evidence weakness, and cost of being wrong.
6. Choose the smallest research activity or prototype that can reduce the top uncertainty.
7. Define the decision rule before gathering new evidence.
8. Schedule the next customer touchpoint and evidence review.

Output contract

Return:

• Desired outcome
• Target customer and situation
• Opportunity statements
• Evidence table with source and confidence
• Four-risk assessment
• Largest unresolved assumption
• Learning activity, participants or data, and decision rule
• Decision owner and review date

Quality gate

• At least one opportunity is grounded in observed or reported customer evidence.
• Solutions are not disguised as problems.
• The outcome is measurable and not a vague engagement aspiration.
• The learning action is cheaper and faster than building the full solution.
• Contradictory evidence is retained.

Avoid

• Treating stakeholder urgency as customer evidence
• Asking customers to design the solution
• Declaring validation from enthusiasm alone
• Running research without a decision it can change
• Treating a polished prototype as proof of demand

Source grounding

Operational synthesis informed by Cagan's discovery and four-risk model in Inspired, Torres's continuous discovery practices in Continuous Discovery Habits, Perri's outcome orientation in Escaping the Build Trap, and Fitzpatrick's evidence discipline in The Mom Test.