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Product Discovery for Existing Products

When you work on an existing product, you more than likely understand the key problem you’re trying to help your customers solve. That doesn’t mean you’re done with discovery. Instead, you need to focus on ways to solve that problem better, or find other problems that your product can help customers solve. To do that effectively, you need to practice continuous discovery.

5 Core ideas of adaptable product discovery. The complexity of Product Discovery can feel overwhelming, but trying to overcome it with blueprints developed by other companies is rarely a viable solution. It’s way more important to develop your own approach. That's why Tim Herbig breaks down the different key phases of Product Discovery as a range of options Product Teams can choose from in this video and article.
(via @herbigt)

There’s no single right way to do product discovery. Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion sat down to discuss why there’s no single right way to do discovery. They recorded their conversation in three separate parts. In the first part, they discussed building a collaborative decision-making model with the product trio, externalizing your thinking, and focusing on outcomes. During the second part, they discussed encouraging teams to discover opportunities through continuous touch points and prioritizing in the opportunity space rather than in the solution space. In the third part, they discussed why it’s essential to set up compare and contrast decisions and surface and test assumptions.
(via @ttorres)

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Time to Recharge

Usually, you’ll find me here writing about some sort of recent tech news – like Elon Musk looking more and more like he’s trying to back out of his bid for Twitter – or maybe some musings about the newsletter’s topic of the week. But not this week. Instead, I’m going to implore you to do something that sometimes is hard for product people to do. 

Rest up, and recharge. 

It’s summertime, and perhaps it’s the bounty of sunny days we’ve had so far this summer in Cleveland, Ohio – but I think this is the perfect time for anybody to reset themselves and get back to work with an eagerness to do even bigger things. 

Sometimes, this is really hard to do. Because there’s always work to be done. For us at Product Collective, our flagship conference, INDUSTRY, is right around the corner… taking place this Fall. There are lots of things to do to get ready for it. So it would be easy to pour ourselves into the preparation and skip over summer completely. But the reality is that we’ve been putting in the hard work all year round. We have to rest and recharge at least a bit – otherwise, we’ll simply get burnt out. 

So for this summer, resting and recharging means a few things…

• It means going on a weekend staycation with some of my best friends for a weekend of boating and sun. 


• It means taking my kids on a roadtrip to Wisconsin so my son can finally watch his favorite soccer team live for the first time ever (Go City!)


• It means taking my family on a weeklong vacation to Lake Placid to reconnect with nature. 

The work will always be there – and you will get to it all. You didn’t get into product management without a penchant for hard work. But don’t let summer go by without enjoying it. You’ll regret that.

INDUSTRY: The Product Conference is back with a bang! The in-person edition returns on September 19-21 in Cleveland, Ohio, reviving the top independent product conference anywhere. Join these forward-looking product companies for 3 days of inspiration and lifetime connections.

8 Things you didn’t know about the product discovery process. When executed well, the product discovery process guides product development teams to find the right problems to solve for their customers. It also ensures that teams avoid wasting time and company resources in attempting to serve the wrong customers, solve the wrong issues, or build the wrong solutions. But what is it that makes a product discovery process a success? Eyal Katz found eight tips that may surprise you.
(via @CreateWithCraft)

Redesigning product 'discovery' for the next billion — Part 1. When New York’s Grand Central Terminal opened in 1913, it was just a train station. Today, it has surpassed that: it’s now an art gallery, a museum, a bazaar, and above all — a landmark. Over the years, multiple renovations subtracted and added spaces as the number of visitors grew. Today, it’s as iconic as they come, embedded into cultural diktat. The Meesho app mirrors the Grand Central Terminal story. Meesho's D2C business grew 1,600x YoY. Ashmita Bhattacharyya explains how they redesigned their product pages to cater to our new customers.
(via @meeshotech)

How to scale your product through continuous discovery. The process of product discovery covers everything from product research to execution. You can use it whether you’re planning a new product, improving the existing functionality and value of a product, or testing the proposition of a scaling product. By following a product discovery process, teams are better able to validate current assumptions and learn more about what their customers need. It can ensure that your teams aren’t just building a product right but are instead building the right product.There is a range of product discovery processes to use. For those scaling a product, Gavin Rae describes the steps that are quite critical to get right.
(via @product_rocket)

The 5 Truths of Great Product Managers

In her upcoming book, JJ Rorie reveals five vital skills that are vital to navigate the exciting and dynamic field of product management: Customer intelligence, relationship-building, effective communication, good judgment, and prioritization. In this discussion, we will scratch the surface of what she shares in her book — and discuss why these skills, specifically, are so crucial for product managers… as well as what we can do to continue to build these skills. You'll also have a chance to ask questions of your own!

1. A newsletter each and every Friday centered around an important product topic, like roadmapping, strategy, and analytics.
2. Access to a thriving Slack group with thousands of others to share advice, tips and get feedback on your work.
3. Plus, invitations to exclusive video chats, special member privileges at the conferences we hold in the United States and Europe, and more!