#20 Product Managers' contributions to discovery
Who does what? Who "owns" what?
Product Managers don't "own" Product Discovery. Nor Product Designers…
We need to stop these non-sense ownership boundaries between disciplines.
But we also need to go beyond the "We just need to collaborate!" simplistic view.
There's too much confusion around Design vs. Product Management in Discovery.
Product is a trendy, high-value, hard, and fairly new discipline.
So it wants to "establish" itself.
But many orgs have gotten it wrong by having Product claim full “ownership” over Discovery.
And taking over primary decision-making on everything related to it
Even doing actual design work…
… which is what Designers do, and have done for decades
It’s easy to forget that some of the discovery techniques that Product often wants to bring to the table are well-established in Design.
A PM recently asked me at a conference:
❔"What framework and tools should I use to map out my service blueprint and design new value propositions?"
🤔 My answer: "A good designer to work with you..."
Here's what we need to understand:
Product Discovery is the whole team's responsibility.
Not the PM alone. Nor the Designer.
Everyone contributes with their area of expertise and skillset.
While the whole team is responsible for discovering and de-risking a solution - some members are specifically accountable for ensuring it is:
Usable and Desirable -> Designer
Viable and Desirable -> Product Manager
Feasible -> Tech Lead
So, what’s the main PM contribution to Product Discovery:
✅ Continuously bring context to the team:
What's the problem we're trying to solve? Why is it important for our business? Is it aligned with our company goals? Product Strategy?
✅ Help de-risk desirability, with Design side by side.
✅ De-risk viability:
Should we build this?
Is there a big enough Total Addressable Market? What are the different contexts these customers are in? Which contexts (e.g. markets) should we prioritize? Why? Any business constraints? Is it compliant w/ regulations?
Are customers willing to pay for this? How would they prefer to pay? How does it affect how we sell? Would Marketing be able to market it?
Do we have the right customer relationships? How costly would they be? Do we have the right channels to deliver this value prop? How could this impact customer service?
What are the most important costs inherent here? Etc.
✅ Facilitate progress:
Great teams manage themselves. There are no "Mini CEOs"...
A strong PM isn't "managing" anyone... she's ensuring the team is truly collaborating and always moving forward together.
Which is why great PMs are great leaders.
✅ Communicate and manage stakeholders:
It's crucial to share the progress of what we're learning, the hypothesis we're testing, the experiments we're running, the decisions we're making, etc.
Strong PMs are great communicators. And because of it, they may also take the lead here - on behalf of the team.
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Hey there 👋 I’m Afonso, Founder & Partner at Scandinavian Product Group. Thanks for reading!