Any company that works with innovation knows the importance of IT outsourcing to achieve a good technological development. Aligning production with process automation is mandatory.
With product discovery, technology may also help in earlier stages, at product brainstorm. After all, a product’s success depends on usability as much as utility of what is offered. And product discovery ensures these two areas are always covered.
If you ever wondered what the importance of product discovery is when building new products, we have elected the most important information to apply this methodology on your next creation.
What is product discovery?
This is the methodology that will discover how much the market needs the brainstormed product. The intention is that the product is as necessary as it is useful. And product discovery is the first step on a long cycle of development research.
It might sound like a basic step, but product discovery is not always applied for product creation. As a result, the market is full of products with the same utility, even if the usability differs. This research helps maintaining an innovative heated market.
In summary, product discovery is an in-depth study of how a certain product will be accepted, in the utility point of view. This analysis will comprehend both consumer behaviour and benchmarking.
How to do a Product Discovery?
There are 5 well-defined steps to create a product that offers simple utility and is also essential for target consumers. From simple day-to-day objects to the most technological innovations, everything produced considering market competitivity will require a study of this kind.
Below are 5 crucial stages for product development, considering both usability and utility.
Alignment
This is the stage where the organization understands what opportunities are available and align their offer to what the market expects and the team available to develop it.
Opportunities are developed through existing problems. Some important questions are: what problems can our product solve? Are they recurring? Is it possible to use other means to solve it, without a product?
Understanding what can be done from market opportunities and available resources already determines a good part of the process and points to a path of possible success.
Research
The first steps of product discovery will finetune the process, leaving it less complex and more objective. After alignment, comes the time of market research.
Here the important questions are: are there solutions to the problems we have discovered? How many brands have though what we are thinking? How long did similar products stay on the market? Does the audience understand the utility of this product?
In this research stage, data must be gathered and analysed to understand the utility that such product might have for the market.
Ideation
As the name suggests, ideation is a method that binds idea with action. In other words, ideas that can quickly be put into action.
For every product development, the ideation moment is crucial. And on product discovery it will happen after alignment and research have already taken place.
As soon as it is understood market’s thoughts on the kind of product to be developed, comes the time to think how it should look like. A Sprint with your team or with outsourced specialized teams is the best way to do it. Gather ideas from different areas to think outside the box.
Prototyping
After the sprint, you have well-defined proposals to start prototyping your product. The first units must be created and experimented using quantitative and qualitative data.
Refining
Prototypes and only that, prototypes. They should not and will not be the final version of your product. With data gathered from experimentation, mistakes and necessary improvements will be more evident.
In this stage of product discovery, refinement must be aligned with the first stages of utility research. The development team must always keep this research in mind when changing or improving the prototypes.
To offer constant technological innovation to the market, having the right partner by your side is crucial. Contact our consultants to see how we can build your next digital product together!