Introduction

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:

  1. We do not use all of these exercises on each Lean Product Discovery. We mix and match based on client challenges and constraints.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.