 Hi everyone, welcome to product discovery. I know you're all very busy. So I'm really really grateful that you're here today Thank you so much for being here Then we start by introducing myself. My name is Nurhan and I'm a product manager at Udacity I don't really think of myself as a typical product manager, meaning that I I grew up in Egypt. I was always someone who loved academics I'm not studying, I'm not building things But I didn't necessarily know that there was a thing called product management And I'm glad that I learned about it. I learned about it when I was in college From different people. So if you're in the audience and you don't know what product management is You're curious to learn more about it if you're not from a technical background, which I'm not I hope that you can At least know that I don't have technical background and that I didn't really know what this is a couple years back But here I am and I know there are so many other people out there with different backgrounds And I think what makes product management very interesting is that product managers can come from so many different backgrounds And in fact, I think there's an opportunity to be more to bring in more of a different mindset If you're coming to it from a non-traditional background I studied the experimental psychology of Harvard So I I think of myself as someone who's very research driven and slightly a bit of a nerd I love I love experiments. I thought statistics in grad school and I really love experimentation I started my career at Google in operations Before I again learned what product management is and that part of what I was doing was actually already product management and then I went on to To grad school and after that I worked as a product manager at delivery associates and I founded my own product consulting company Called cost impacts and through cost viable the chance and the privilege really to work with different organizations Including fintech startups and healthcare startups But also organizations that you don't typically think of when you think of product management such as Non-profits or even I think government sometimes these days are thinking about how to introduce technology and how to innovate Actually, there are a lot of innovations in the government space Related to how we can build better technologies and introduce a product mindset in different contexts I love writing. I love food. I love travel So yeah, feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about my career path or my hobbies in terms of our agenda for today, I want to start by Talking about what is product discovery and why is it why does it matter? And then some of the problems I'm seeing throughout my career as they relate to product discovery And then some of it is and solutions to address these problems So I actually before jumping into definitions. I love a little bit in the agenda I want to start with a story that I've learned about three years ago and that deeply resonated with me And it's a story of this guy named Jerry Sternen who was sent by Save the Children to Vietnam And he was sent with one objective which is to reduce severe man nutrition in six months. So that was his objective And he was I think the approach he took was really interesting Which is he spoke to the experts and the experts in this case were not academics Although that could have been helpful. Um, they were not, you know, people who weren't authority figures, etc He spoke to village mothers and he specifically found that there are two groups of mothers There are mothers who were the mothers of the healthiest children and mothers whose children was slightly on the man nutrition I guess spectrum and what he discovered is that mothers of the healthiest children were doing something that was very different than than others What namely they were feeding their children shrimp from the ice paddies And that was really interesting because at the time this was considered a bull was considered low-class foods And the outcome of this really interesting discovery is that 65 percent of the children in the villages Where Sternen was were better nourished by this by the end of the six month And uh, to me that was really interesting because one He was able to figure out this very quickly, you know, six month is not that long of a time for something That's as difficult as man nutrition as a problem to solve I when I first heard about it, I think it struck me as Something a problem that he approached with humility and with curiosity and fundamentally He was very people driven. He did discovery in its purest sense He actually went and talked to those people and learned from them about one the problem and two even opportunities on how they're trying to address these issues And I think this mindset the mindset of curiosity of humility of learning from users and co-creating with users Is one that I think a lot of us can benefit from in product management So back to product management worlds and in really defining what is product discovery So when I think about what I do every day and what other product managers that I know do We do obviously a ton of different things, but ultimately we're trying to deliver value For the business for our users and for our customers And we do this doing through different activities But I think if I were to bucket them part of what we do is around discovery thinking about what actually matters What problem is worth solving? What should I build like so it's really all the research and all the thinking and all the prioritization that we do And then delivery. Okay. Once we know what we're building. How do we deliver it? And my first thought doubt as an early clear p.m. I felt like there was so much that was being written on product delivery So for example, there's so much that's being written about how to template for your roadmap how to organize your gear up Peel how to write your prd etc And much less is being written and discussed around product discovery really thinking about what matters and why How can we be more human centered in our approach to to product building? But I think product discovery is really important And I think we need to spend time thinking about it and doing it It's really important for different reasons one. It helps you understand your users problems It helps you prioritize problems that matter That helps you make sure that you're really building the right thing And that as you're building if you're building it in the right way because you could have the right idea But you're actually not building it in the right way and you're getting a lot of feedback I also think and that's something that I discovered in my career is that the more Data driven the more you do product discovery the more the easier it is for you to articulate a strong case about What's your building and the more you're able to test your own assumptions and therefore improve alignments in your organization So I think yeah product discovery is absolutely critical for the success of your product And I I was digging deeper into some data and found this really interesting study By cb insights where they looked at more than 100 startups and look tried to look at the reasons and for the common reasons that these startups cite As the reason for the failure and of course it's much more complicated than this a startup doesn't just fail for one reason It's probably plenty of different reasons, but I was it was interesting what was interesting for me is that no market need was cited um around 35 by 35 percent of the startups in their sample And that to me is interesting and if you're a startup founder it should make you pause or a builder for a second to really think about Is what you're building Does what you're building is there any for what you're building or are you building it because it's interesting because someone told you that it's useful Have you validated that there is market needs and how do you how have you validated it? So what are some of the common problems that i've seen around product discovery? I think if I were to think about them and break them down These four things would come to me as the most important problems that i've seen And problem number one is around no product discovery. So companies governments as well Specifically in governments that are trying to build products that citizens can use The vision the strategy the roadmap is driven by a few high-level leaders There are a few people thinking they know the answer And it's very set in stone and it's very clear and it looks very structured on paper But when you actually examine what you're building or the solutions you have or even the problems you've defined in the first place You really quickly realize that it's not driven by actual user problems. And therefore it might not actually be that it bring value Problem number two is around product discovery being very limited to the start And so the team cares about product discovery. They're doing a bunch of interviews maybe in the beginning But then they get these insights and they work for a very long time in silos And that's a common problem that i've seen in different organizations. I've worked at and advised through cost Problem number three is a very very biased product discovery process And so the team is doing product discovery They think they have all these like we did this study and we looked at this data, etc But when you take a deeper look at maybe the interview questions, they're asking You quickly can realize how biased they are that they're not looking for The truth or looking for data as it is, but they're looking for validation to confirm their hypothesis And this is actually a very common bias. It's called the confirmation bias in which and it's been studied by a lot of researchers in social psychology fields And it's the tendency to look for evidence that confirms our existing beliefs and hypotheses about the world And I think yeah think about this for a second is You know to what extent is confirmation bias kicking in In in what you're doing today and in your organization And then problem number four is around unwillingness to listen to a discovered So maybe you're doing product discovery. Maybe you're doing it all the time. Maybe the research itself is well defined and But then you see the data and you just what you see is this hesitation to actually listen to the data And so there are a lot of biases that can also kick in in you know for this One of them is called effort justification, which is when people are really attached to the And ideas and effort More so than they are to what they actually learn So let's dig deeper into each one of those problems and maybe Explore how you might be able to diagnose the problem And then some ideas that you if you're an ic product manager or even if you're a product leader Can start implementing to address these and so problem number one, which is no product discovery I think some some questions for you to ask and consider is do you start with users in mind? Do you get insights from your user? Is your product vision and strategy driven even partially by user research? Are you prototyping? Are you getting quick feedback on your prototypes? Are you being very explicit about your assumptions and potential biases? And if you've answered You know, no, you're not starting with users of mind. There is really no user research I think it would be very very easy for you to tell And I think one way some ways for you some ideas for you to potentially address This is one if you don't know about the different user research methods start learning There are so many methods out there user interviews usability testing a b testing and they're very well documented And so I think I would start by if you're unfamiliar with those educating yourself Talk to your manager if something you're observing you can talk to your manager and say hey I know this we're not really doing user discovery Um, is there, you know, I have these ideas of things that we could implement What do you think and really get their feedback on what their thoughts are and collaborate with them Educate your co-workers and learn from their experience. Maybe they work somewhere before where there was a lot of product discovery And maybe there's something that they can teach you Maybe they don't know and maybe you are the one who can teach them about the importance of product discovery And really bringing a user voice to the table And so as you talk to your team as you learn about product User research start finding ways to introduce user research and build it into your process Even in very small ways in the beginning Problem number two is around product discovery being limited to the start And I think some questions for you to ask is is user research limited to the start of everything you do So you do a bunch of user interviews and then you work in silos for a very long time And then you do something and then you work in extensively in silos for very extended periods of time Um, and if that's the case, I would encourage you to think about how you can implement product discovery That's more continuous And so maybe you got some insights from these interviews and some user data that you've collected and you started building something How can you get feedback quickly and continuously on what you're building all the time? Trying to think about how you can get backing from your team, whether it's your manager or teammates Maybe discuss it and say hey, I noticed we're getting user research feedback on this part But we're actually completely not talking to our users in these parts of Of our product roadmap. For example journey prototype more than one solution I think if you're prototyping more than one solution and trying to get feedback on more than one solution It really helps you stay in this continuously that cycle and continue to share about how your product benefits So share the the advantages of continuous product discovery with your team say things like hey, we thought this was Well, this is our assumption But when we tested it here's what we found and I think having that language around Our assumption versus what we found We'll just embed in your team's minds the value of product discovery and continuous iteration And there are so many user research methods out there. Whether you're trying to learn about What you what people do what do your users do their behavior? Whether you're trying to learn about what they're saying their attitudes Whether you want to understand data on the qualitative side Like the user interviews focus groups field research to really understand the why Or you're trying to understand quantitatively what they're doing, right? So maybe surveyed can be or more on the quantitative side Or click stream analysis and again, I'm not trying to educate you on each what each one of those is I'm just saying my point is there there's so much out there That I think is really valuable for product managers who learn about these and they can be different tools Right, like if you're if you're on a hike you can just the way I imagine it is You have this pack of different tools and you can put any tool whatever you need And each one of them has its pros and cons, but it's really important that you learn what they are You learn that they exist and that you use them when appropriate And then problem number three, okay, so you say now you're doing discovery and you're doing it continuously problem number three is really problematic because Uh, it's like a hidden problem. It's and problem number three is around highly biased product discovery And so there are so many common biases that we all humans fall into And we really need to be mindful of and one of some of those include confirmation bias, which is the tendency to look for evidence that confirms our existing beliefs Effort justification bias, which is attributing more value to what we spent effort on rather than actually focusing on what we're finding Framing effect, which is how do we frame our inquiry? Like the question you ask bias is the response you get So are we aware of this framing effect? Are we asking the right questions in the first place? And then finally, even though obviously not finding there are so many biases that you can and should learn about But the fourth one that I want to cover is the social desirability bias And this one is around how humans and including your customers and users want to look good They want to look smart. And so how do you minimize the social desirability bias in your research? How can you ask better questions and design better research? Better research in general so that you can minimize the social desirability bias And so I found this really interesting. I found it on google Which is you can go and ask people what problem do you have? It's very broad. It's very open. You're curious Or you can say option a is uses entirely recycled material. It's very environmentally friendly. Would you be interested? I think you know, I I'm not I'm actually not very interested But I might be like, yeah, I am because I want to look smart I want to look like the kind of person who cares about the environment who uses recycled material and so it's a It's a leading question And the problem number four is around unwillingness to listen to what you discover So maybe some I you know some Tools that questions that you can ask to figure out what this is happening is Is there over excitement and attachment to ideas that have it yet been tested? So someone thinks their idea is just amazing and it's right and you're so attached to it Are you or your team consistently discarding evidence that challenges are a urinal assumption And really quick to celebrate evidence that confirms your preconceived views, right? So rather than looking at evidence for what it is, which is a data point Really bias it, you know, celebrating when you find something that confirms what you're saying And being very skeptical and challenging Any evidence that goes against what you're saying And I think some ideas to address this would include one learning about common biases There's so much out there in the social psychology literature about common human biases And I think learning about them and recognizing them and being aware is is the first step This constant having a discussion with your team around research bias and around bias in general is really important Thinking about the questions you're asking and asking a better question And really intentionally and I found that some of my favorite people do this intentionally arguing against yourself And your idea and looking for evidence that sometimes may be inconsistent with your hypothesis be very intentional about Okay, what evidence supports what I'm saying But what evidence goes against what I'm saying so that you're trying really hard to listen to what the data's telling So my proposal is that continuous product discovery Is is is what I'm advocating for and what this means is one product discovery throughout the product cycle So find ways to learn about your customers and users throughout whether it's you're trying to identify big opportunities Or make a small change in your maybe user flows Try to minimize bias spend time learning about different tools whether it's user interviews usability testing ab testing And learn about the pros and cons of each one and when it should be used Also, there's no correct way to do discovery. You should leverage the tool that's suitable for your goal And then try to intentionally build a data driven culture where you can experiment where you can do discovery when you can celebrate data-driven system making and where humility and low ego is embraced and is sorry is is not encouraged and instead you're relying on on product discovery and data So when some of the common pushbacks that I get when I add when I share what I've just shared is But shouldn't product people rely on their product intuition? Like shouldn't we just have this intuition that tells us what to do and I think yes Great and good product leaders should have a strong intuition But how do you build your intuition? How do you improve this intuition? Also, how do you know if your intuition is wrong? I think this is important You know, if you think about intuition, what is intuition in the first place? I do think that the more you do product discovery the more you improve your intuition And the more you're able to figure out earlier if your intuition is actually wrong So I think yes, you should have product intuition, but I don't think it's good It's an either or I think you should do product discovery And also you should test your intuition test your hypothesis be very explicit about them So that you can test them and get data quicker The other thing that I hear is I don't think I'm biased. You know, I really don't think I'm biased And I am often surprised by this one because I think if you're human we have biases and biases historically Our biases could be a good thing, right? Maybe we Our brain can't think about all the information for every decision we're trying to make But I think biases also have limitations, right? And I think the question is how do we build awareness Around what our biases are and why they're there in the first place And then how can we minimize bias when they're not biases when they're not serving us? And I think a great book that I've been reading lately is called Blindspot. It's by Mazami Banaji And Greenwald and it's an amazing book if you want to start learning more about human biases And the third pushback that I get is this is all amazing I just don't have time And I I think my answer to this is really brainstorm ways to make product discovery more sustainable for your context I think long term. Sure. You might feel like it's more efficient to just you know Say here's the answer rather than actually taking the time to discover and validate and prototype But I I believe that if you're thinking long term not even not that long of a term If you're just thinking about sustainability If you're thinking about the success of your business and adding value You really want to invest in product discovery and I I believe that the reward is much higher than the cost So if there are three things that I hope you can get away from This you know time your time with me today. It's that product discovery matters product discovery should be continuous It shouldn't just be in the beginning And that we want to create cultures where product discovery is valued I also want to recommend this amazing book called continuous product discovery by Teresa Torres who I've learned so much from her talks and I'm now midway through her book. I would strongly encourage every product leader out there to read This book and also to follow Teresa Torres questions in public Yeah, thank you for for being here and feel free to reach out on LinkedIn if you have any questions or If there's anything that I can support with