How ProdPad Fits With Product Discovery

What is product discovery?

Product discovery is a process used by many product teams, which allows them to understand and validate their ideas. It takes a step back from the delivery process and helps answer the question “what problem are we trying to solve?” by involving customers in the validation process. 

Why is product discovery important?

It’s important for your team to add space and time for a solid discovery process to avoid risking business failure and to reduce the likelihood of tech debt. That is, without really finding out market demands, you risk building things nobody wants, needs or buys.

By aligning the product discovery process to your product strategy, you then have the ability to build features that solve real-world problems.

How does the product discovery process work?

Product discovery is one step that fits in a larger product process. Regardless of the methodology or framework your team might be using, generally the product discovery process fits in what’s called a double diamond discovery process. 

This double diamond discovery consists of two diamonds divided into four distinct phases: Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver.

How ProdPad Fits

ProdPad was designed with discovery in mind. It gives teams a dedicated space to understand what they’re working on and why – and above all, help answer what problems they’re trying to solve.

Discover

ProdPad works on the concept of ideas. Ideas may be experiments or opportunities your team has to solve a real-world problem.

By asking “what problem are you trying to solve” on all new ideas added, you give your team the ability to focus on the problem space rather than the solution space. 

Linking those ideas to feedback collected from your customers and team gives you the necessary insights to validate those problems, ensuring you’re focusing and prioritizing items accordingly.

One popular approach to that running discovery might be using Teresa Torres’ Opportunity Solution Tree (we’ve blogged about using it with ProdPad here).

Define

Once you start with a solution idea, you will run the necessary validation and user testing on it and begin to iterate, validating as you go, to determine what the final solution might look like. 

ProdPad supports you by allowing you to add prototypes from your design team, alongside functional specs and user stories that will help you define that potential solution. If you’re using Jobs to be Done, this is an excellent opportunity to define those outcomes!

Develop

When your ideas are spec’d and you’re ready for the implementation phase, ProdPad allows you to send those specs over to your development team with a click of a button. Our integrations and API give you a connection into your execution tool of choice, giving your dev team all the information they need to hit the ground running.

Deliver

As items move through the execution pipeline and are delivered, ProdPad will receive the sync back from the integration and keep your team up to date. Most importantly, you have the ability to also keep your customers up to date by closing the feedback loop.