Angus Ewing

Be careful. Most "products" are, in fact, projects. 9 red flags (and how it should work): 1. Large PRD: You start an initiative by documenting everything. 2. Feature factory: You implement the requirements. "Why" is irrelevant. 3. Waterfall: All the requirements are collected in the "initial phase." 4. Gantt roadmap: A time-based, feature-based roadmap. 5. No discovery: No need to validate ideas before implementing them. 6. No designer: There is no Product Designer on the team. 7. No analytics: You have no idea how people use your product. 8. Customer in charge: Powerful customer(s) make all the decisions. 9. No strategy: You try to maximize sales by satisfying all customers and grasping every opportunity. - Here is a better way: 1. Your cross-functional team is empowered to solve the problems. 2. PM, Product Designer, and Lead Engineer perform Product Discovery together. Continuously. 3. You have an outcome-based roadmap. Preferably Now-Next-Later. 4. If you commit to a date, you do it rarely and only after the discovery. Never commit too early. 5. Manage the value, usability, feasibility, and viability risks by experimenting. 6. Test the riskiest assumptions before the implementation. 7. Choosing, instrumenting, and tracking the right metrics is key. 8. Ship incrementally, measure the outcomes, and learn from it. 9. Tradeoffs are essential. What you do, but also what you don't. Respect your market and the unique value proposition. - And if your product hasn't been launched yet: 1. Discover the market and define a unique value proposition, business model, initial vision, and strategy. 2. Test your idea with minimal effort. Before the implementation. 3. Define the go-to-market strategy and validate key assumptions. 4. You can't rely on product analytics. Talk to the customers and collect data from experiments. 5. The Product Trio performs the Initial Product Discovery, just like in Continuous Product Discovery. You need a Product Designer and Lead Engineer. 6. Once you ship, leverage product analytics and apply Continuous Product Discovery. - Hope that helps. What are your thoughts?