Software development projects face two main problems: delays in delivery dates and exceeding the planned budget. This results in the need to estimate the necessary resources accurately after conducting a process called product discovery.
This not only leads to commercial failure but also to a decrease in company satisfaction ratings.
Therefore, companies need to know how to conduct product discovery effectively before establishing the foundations of a project.
To achieve this, it is essential to have software product discovery services that meet expectations. This process is crucial to minimize risks and improve the quality of the project and the expected final result.
Product Discovery is the process of discovering a product, meaning all the activities we undertake to determine which product we should create.
This way, we can understand if what we have in mind is viable, as we will consider factors such as time, cost, human resources, and everything necessary for its creation.
Additionally, it defines a set time to gather all these elements, allowing all development team members (from the manager to the software developer) to meet and create a shared vision of the project objectives.
Therefore, to know if the product to be created is viable, you must consider the following points:
All these tasks will be carried out by a group specialized in discovery activities and development teams who understand the customer’s vision and the company’s resources to carry out this product. But who are these people?
The idea is to involve as many team members as possible, from programmers and testers to functional analysts.
Often, these personnel are unavailable within the organization, so it is necessary to seek them externally. Hiring remote developers through specialized companies solves the problem quickly and effectively and helps reduce costs.
Avalith is a company specializing in software services that can advise you on finding specific professional profiles that fit your company’s objectives.
Additionally, customer experience should be considered in this phase of the product discovery process, as they have more excellent industry knowledge and know what they want and believe is missing in the market, providing valuable information that can increase user satisfaction ratings.
Thus, the profiles involved in Product Discovery should include:
If we want to ensure that the product is viable, it is essential to follow these principles:
It is important to remember that the customer is not responsible for creating the product. The company must consider the customer’s opinion but should present a prototype that they will use to meet the user’s needs.
The customer will always choose the product with a strong value proposition. Often, usability and other attributes or qualities are disregarded for that differential value. This leads to the conclusion that the back-end is not strictly decisive for the user but rather a good user experience.
Product Discovery is carried out in the early stages of the product value flow through specific product discovery tools.
These activities and techniques allow us to determine if the product fits the company and if the necessary resources are available, discarding ideas that could be more viable.
Developers are critical to this phase, as they are the ones who will ensure that the product value flow goes in the right direction, making production effective. Therefore, having a dedicated team of developers is fundamental.
To successfully conduct product discovery for your business, you must do so in a specific order.
Therefore, follow these steps before you enter the product development phase:
The first step in the product development process is to create your customer profile or persona. This profile must detail all information about your target customer, like their needs and preferences.
Therefore, you must create a profile by placing yourself in their shoes. Doing so will help you think like a customer, allowing you to identify and understand their problems.
After you create a customer profile, the next step is to analyze their feedback on all your previous products.
Doing so is important since such feedback will always reveal their desires and the problems they are facing. Moreover, apart from discovering new product ideas, you might get ideas to improve older ones!
The most important stage of product discovery is to come up with a solution for your customer’s problems.
This is necessary since people are more likelier to like and buy a product if the item solves their problems. Therefore, you must come up with product concepts that are solutions to problems that consumers face.
After the conceptualization of product discovery, you must get the concept approved by the development team. They will decide whether this new product is realistically developable or not.
If they disapprove, you must go back to the previous step and come upo with a new product concept. However, if the developers approve, then product discovery is complete, and the product development phase starts!
Conducting continuous product discovery after proper planning and execution is vital for all companies. Therefore, product managers are responsible for carrying out the product discovery process for consumers.
Therefore, is hiring a dedicated development team essential to execute it correctly? It absolutely is. Moreover, remember that the process starts with software development, which can carry out all these tasks.
There is no way to guarantee 100% that your product will be successful, but there is a way to get close enough, and that is through product discovery!
Thanks for reading this post! If you have any queries regarding product development, please comment below!
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A self-proclaimed Swiftian, Instagram-holic, and blogger, Subhasree eats, breathes, and sleeps pop culture. When she is not imagining dates with Iron Man on Stark Tower (yes, she has the biggest crush on RDJ, which she won’t admit), she can be seen tweeting about the latest trends. Always the first one to break viral news, Subhasree is addicted to social media, and leaves out no opportunity of blogging about the same. She is our go-to source for the latest algorithm updates and our resident editor.
