Welcome to our Lean Product Discovery Guide.
This resource is a collection of all the tools, ideas, and
exercises we use when running our Lean Product Discovery Workshop
at LaunchPad Lab.
We have tried a lot of different activities with our clients
over the years. Some have worked. Some haven't. This library is a
representation of all the active ideas and activities we use when
we running product discoveries.
Some things to keep in mind when browsing this library:
- We do not use all of these exercises on each Lean Product
Discovery. We mix and match based on client challenges and
constraints.
- This is a mixtape of some of the latest and greatest resources
out there. We by no means claim to have created these exercises and
frameworks. We have however tested and used each of these in real
client situations, so have an understanding of how these should be
applied in practice.
- Digital libraries should always be evolving. We will continue
to add to this, remove things, and update posts as we learn more
about each of these tools.
Who this guide is for
This resource was originally created as a training tool for new
product managers at LaunchPad Lab. The most common uses cases are
to be able to quickly create Lean Product Discovery Plans, to have
templates in one location, and to make sure the team has a shared
vocabulary.
But as the tool evolved internally, we wanted to open-source it
for the rest of the product management and startup community to
benefit from. We also want this to resource to evolve through
community contributions and ideas.
Sections of this Guide
In our experience, all Lean Product Discoveries go through 5
phases. We will use these phases as a way of organizing the tools
and exercises in this guide.
- Phase Zero - This represents all the pre-work
that happens before a Lean Product Discovery can begin. Scheduling
customer interviews, collecting competitive information, defining
the market, etc.
- Unpacking - This is an information download
from the business and an exploration into the minds of their
customers. We need to know everything the team knows. Or thinks
they know. And then understand their users' and customers' unmet
needs.
- Prioritizing - Not knowing when and why a team
should say "no" to a feature is one the most common reasons we see
projects fail. We leverage prioritization tools to help teams focus
on clear set of objectives and problems.
- Designing - An iterative, customer-focused
design process is the only way we've seen successful products get
built. With clearly defined problems from the previous stages, our
team is in a good position to build useful and usable
products.
- Planning - The reality of running a Lean
Product Discovery for a client is that the findings need to be
documented and delivered. Also, the potential paths ahead need to
be clearly defined and communicated. We use our Product Game Plan
document to communicate these.