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Ed Biden @edbiden.bsky.social · 10d

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#product #productmanagement

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Ed Biden @edbiden.bsky.social · 11d

#product #productmanagement

Full article, including template and worked examples here:
www.hustlebadger.com/what-do-prod...

How much discovery is enough? - Hustle Badger

What do Product Managers do?

www.hustlebadger.com

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Ed Biden @edbiden.bsky.social · 11d

You need to balance theory with pragmatism.

Talk about risk.
• What are you all comfortable with?
• How can you reduce it as fast as possible?
• What are the alternatives?

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Ed Biden @edbiden.bsky.social · 11d

And life gets in the way:
• Hitting short term metrics.
• Down-time of engineering.
• Showing you’re delivering at all.

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Ed Biden @edbiden.bsky.social · 11d

BUT That's all theory.
In reality, discovery is politics.
You need enough evidence to have buy-in.

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Ed Biden @edbiden.bsky.social · 11d

𝗛𝗜𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗥𝗖𝗛𝗬 𝗢𝗙 𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗙𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘:
• Intuition. i.e. you thinking on your own
• Planning. i.e. you thinking with your team
• Research. i.e. lots of customer interviews, surveys, references
• Data. i.e. AB testing, closed betas, fake door tests

More risk = higher up the hierarchy of confidence.

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Ed Biden @edbiden.bsky.social · 11d

𝗗𝗥𝗜𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗞:
• Effort to build. i.e. engineering cost
• Downside scenario. i.e. what happens if we're wrong
• Company maturity. i.e. revenue at risk
• Opportunity cost. i.e. what else we could build

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Ed Biden @edbiden.bsky.social · 11d

𝗕𝗔𝗦𝗜𝗖 𝗘𝗤𝗨𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗧𝗢 𝗦𝗢𝗟𝗩𝗘:
Confidence > Risk

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Ed Biden @edbiden.bsky.social · 11d

𝗗𝗜𝗦𝗖𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗬 𝗔𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗔𝗖𝗧 𝗢𝗙 𝗥𝗘𝗗𝗨𝗖𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗞
• Discovery reduces the risk of not making a return
• There are four main risks (value, usability, tech, business)
• Discovery is expensive, so you only do as much as necessary. Faster is better

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Ed Biden @edbiden.bsky.social · 11d

𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗗𝗨𝗖𝗧 𝗜𝗦 𝗔𝗡 𝗜𝗡𝗩𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗜𝗡 𝗧𝗘𝗖𝗛
• Product teams are expensive (~£1m a year)
• That's an investment in technology from the CEO
• She wants a return on that investment
• PMs are primarily responsible for making sure the CEO gets that return

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Ed Biden @edbiden.bsky.social · 11d

How much discovery is enough?

That's a tricky question to answer, because as always "it depends"...

Let's start at the beginning.