7 Product Discovery Frameworks Every Product Manager Should Know

Li Xia
Last Updated:
November 19, 2024

What is Product Discovery?

Product discovery is figuring out what problems your customers have and how you can solve them with the right product. Before you start building anything, you need to make sure you understand what your customers really need. This helps you avoid making features that people want or use. The goal is to learn as much as possible about your customers and test ideas to make sure you're building something worthwhile.

The 3 Phases of Product Discovery

Most frameworks follow this pattern...

  1. Learn about your customers and the problems they face.
  2. Generate and prioritize ideas to solve these problems.
  3. Create experiments or prototypes to test your ideas best with customers.

Product Frameworks

Product discovery frameworks provide a roadmap, ensuring teams follow a consistent approach when exploring new product ideas. By using a framework, teams can reduce uncertainty, stay focused on real user problems, and make well-informed decisions.

Why adopt a Product Discovery Framework?

  • Brings clarity and structure to the discovery process.
  • Keeps the team aligned on solving valuable user problems.
  • Encourages collaboration and shared understanding.
  • Minimizes the risk of building unnecessary features.
  • Speeds up decision making and helps prioritize the best solutions.

1. Design Thinking

What is Design Thinking? — updated 2024 | IxDF

Design Thinking is a popular product discovery framework focused on understanding users and solving their problems in a human-centered way. It emphasizes empathy, creativity, and iterative testing to develop innovative solutions that truly meet customer needs. The process is flexible and encourages teams to approach problems from the user's perspective, creating valuable and desirable solutions.

Best For: Innovative problem solving when user experience is a priority.

Popularized By: IDEO and Stanford's d.school.

The Design Thinking Process:

  1. Empathize: Understand your users by researching their needs, challenges, and pain points.
  2. Define: Clearly articulate the problem you're trying to solve based on what you've learned from users.
  3. Ideate: Brainstorm and generate a variety of potential solutions.
  4. Prototype: Create simple, low-cost models or prototypes of your top ideas.
  5. Test: Gather user feedback by testing your prototypes and refining the solution based on what you learn.

Benefits of Design Thinking:

  • Puts the user at the center of the process, ensuring solutions address real problems.
  • Encourages creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.
  • Promotes quick iteration through prototyping and testing, reducing the risk of failed products.
  • Fosters collaboration across teams with different expertise.

2. Lean Startup

What is Lean Startup? Why is it important? - Netmind Best Practice

The Lean Startup framework is a product discovery approach focusing on rapid experimentation, validated learning, and iterative product development. Its core philosophy is to build products quickly, test them with real users, and learn from the results to avoid wasting time and resources. Instead of lengthy planning phases, Lean Startup encourages launching a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to gather early feedback and make data-driven decisions about the next steps. The goal is to reduce uncertainty and achieve a successful product-market fit as efficiently as possible.

Best for: Early-stage startups or new product features where high uncertainty exists.

Popularized by: Eric Ries' The Lean Startup.

The Lean Startup Process

  1. Build: Develop a basic version of your product (MVP) with just enough features to test your main assumptions.
  2. Measure: Test the MVP with real users, gather feedback, and track key metrics.
  3. Learn: Analyze the feedback and data to decide whether to pivot (change direction) or persevere (continue refining the product).

Benefits of Lean Startup

  • Reduces the cost of failure by testing early and often with real users.
  • Helps teams stay agile and responsive to customer needs.
  • Reduces wasted resources by focusing only on what's necessary at each stage.
  • Encourages data-driven decision-making to determine the next steps.
  • Promotes a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

3. Double Diamond

What is the Double Diamond Design Process?

The Double Diamond framework is a product discovery process developed by the UK Design Council. It divides the discovery and design process into two main phases: problem space and solution space, represented visually by two diamonds. The idea is to explore widely, then narrow down to define the problem and repeat this process to explore potential solutions before focusing on the best one. The Double Diamond framework balances divergent thinking (exploring many possibilities) and convergent thinking (focusing on the right solution).

Best For: Organizations tackling complex design or product challenges and looking for a structured, iterative process to understand customer needs and develop solutions.

Popularized by: The British Design Council

The Double Diamond Process

  1. Discover (divergent): Explore the problem space by gathering insights about users and their needs through research and observation.
  2. Define (convergent): Narrow your findings to clearly define the core problem or opportunity you'll focus on.
  3. Develop (divergent): Explore a wide range of potential solutions by brainstorming, prototyping, and testing.
  4. Deliver (convergent): Narrow down to the most promising solution, refine it, and launch it.

Benefits of Double Diamond

  • Provides a structured yet flexible approach to product discovery.
  • Encourages both exploration and focus, ensuring you fully understand the problem before jumping to solutions.
  • Helps teams uncover deeper insights and more creative solutions through divergent thinking.
  • Ensures solutions are well-tested and refined before going to market.
  • Promotes collaboration and iteration throughout both the discovery and delivery phases.

4. Design Sprints

Design Sprint Guide

The Design Sprint is a rapid product discovery framework developed by Google Ventures to help teams tackle significant challenges and test new ideas in just five days. It condenses the product discovery and design process into a focused, time-boxed week, moving quickly from idea to tested prototype. The Design Sprint is ideal for rapidly validating ideas, solving specific problems, and progressing quickly on new products or features without committing extensive resources.

Best for: Teams that need to quickly validate new ideas or test solutions before committing to a full development process.

Popularized By: Google Ventures

The Design Sprint Process

  1. Understand: Align the team with the challenge, goals, and user needs by reviewing existing knowledge, setting objectives, and defining the problem.
  2. Sketch: Brainstorm and sketch out individual ideas for potential solutions.
  3. Decide: As a team, review all ideas and select the most promising one to prototype and test.
  4. Prototype: Build a realistic prototype of the chosen solution, focusing on speed and functionality rather than perfection.
  5. Test: Conduct user testing to gather feedback on the prototype, helping the team understand what works and what doesn't.

Benefits of Design Sprints

  • Provides a fast, structured way to validate ideas and solve problems in just one week.
  • Encourages team alignment and collaboration by involving everyone in the process.
  • Minimizes the risk of spending time and resources on untested ideas.
  • Enables rapid iteration and immediate user feedback.
  • Allows teams to experiment with new ideas and pivot quickly if needed.

5. Jobs to Be Done (JTBD)

What is the Jobs to be Done framework?

The Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework is a product discovery approach that focuses on understanding what "job" a customer is trying to accomplish with a product or service. Instead of analyzing demographics or traditional user personas, JTBD looks at the underlying motivations and goals driving customer behavior. The core idea is that people "hire" products to get specific jobs done, and by understanding these jobs, teams can design solutions that better meet real customer needs.

Best For: Aligning product development with deep customer motivations and outcomes.

Popularized By: Clayton Christensen

The Jobs to Be Done Process

  1. Identify the Job: Understand the customer's task or goal and why they need help achieving it.
  2. Research Motivations: Uncover the triggers or circumstances that lead a customer to seek a solution, often through interviews and surveys.
  3. Map the Job Steps: Break down the customer's process or journey in completing the job to identify pain points and opportunities.
  4. Design Solutions: Create solutions tailored to help customers complete the job more effectively or efficiently, keeping the job's core needs in mind.

Benefits of Jobs to Be Done

  • Provides a deeper understanding of customer motivations beyond demographics and traditional personas.
  • Helps teams focus on designing features that directly address specific customer needs.
  • Uncovers opportunities for innovation by looking at the job rather than the product.
  • Encourages cross-functional insights by focusing on the customer's desired outcome.
  • Reduces the risk of feature bloat by ensuring each feature has a clear purpose tied to the job.

6. Dual-Track Agile

Level Up with Dual Track Agile — Hard Yards

Dual-Track Agile is a product discovery and delivery framework that allows teams to work on product discovery and product development in parallel. In this approach, there are two "racks" running simultaneously: the Discovery Track (focused on exploring ideas, gathering insights, and testing solutions) and the Delivery Track (focused on building and shipping validated features). Dual-Track Agile enables continuous learning and ensures that only validated ideas make it to the development stage, minimizing the risk of building features that don't add value.

Popularized By: Marty Cagan, Inspired.

Best For: Agile teams looking to integrate discovery into their product development process.

The Dual-Track Agile Process

  1. Discovery Track: Focus on user research, idea generation, prototyping, and testing to validate potential solutions. The goal is to learn as much as possible about user needs and find the best solutions before development.
  2. Delivery Track: Develop and ship features validated in the Discovery Track, ensuring they meet the identified needs. This track follows Agile practices like sprints, continuous integration, and iterative releases.

Benefits of Dual-Track Agile

  • Allows continuous discovery alongside development, so teams stay connected to user needs.
  • Reduces the risk of building features that haven't been validated or may not add value.
  • Increases efficiency by ensuring only validated ideas are developed.
  • Supports a faster feedback loop, allowing teams to quickly pivot or refine based on real user insights.
  • Promotes collaboration between product managers, designers, and developers throughout the process.

7. Opportunity Solution Tree

Why This Opportunity Solution Tree is Changing the Way Product Teams Work -  Product Talk

Last but not least, the Opportunity Solution Tree is a visual framework developed by Teresa Torres to help teams map out and prioritize the best path to achieving their product goals. This framework encourages teams to break down their goals into specific opportunities or user needs and then explore multiple potential solutions for each opportunity. By visualizing goals, opportunities, and solutions in a tree structure, teams can stay focused on solving the right problems and making data-driven decisions aligning with their objectives.

Best For: Product teams looking to prioritize and test multiple solutions systematically.

Popularized By: Teresa Torres

The Opportunity Solution Tree Process

  1. Define the Goal: Start with a clear objective or outcome you want to achieve, such as increasing user engagement or improving customer satisfaction.
  2. Identify Opportunities: Break down the goal into specific opportunities, or unmet user needs, that align with the objective. This step involves user research to understand pain points and areas for improvement.
  3. Generate Solutions: Brainstorm and map out various potential solutions for each identified opportunity, ensuring there is a range of ideas to explore.
  4. Experiment and Test: Prioritize and test the most promising solutions to gather feedback and learn which ones best address the opportunities. Then, iterate based on the findings to refine your approach.

Benefits of Opportunity Solution Tree

  • Provides a clear, visual map of goals, opportunities, and solutions, helping teams see the bigger picture.
  • Ensures alignment between team efforts and the product's overarching goals.
  • Encourages a structured brainstorming approach, making evaluating and prioritizing ideas easier.
  • Reduces the risk of pursuing solutions that don't directly contribute to user needs or goals.
  • Supports continuous learning by testing and iterating on solutions based on actual user feedback.

Best Practices for Implementing Product Discovery Frameworks

Implementing a product discovery framework can transform how a team approaches problem-solving, customer needs, and innovation. Once you decide on the framework to adopt, here are some best practices to ensure you get the most out of your chosen framework.

1. Define Clear Objectives and Success Metrics

Start with a clear understanding of what you hope to achieve. Whether reducing customer churn, improving feature adoption, or validating a new concept, defining your goals helps keep the team aligned and focused.

Establish success metrics for each phase of the discovery process, such as customer satisfaction (for insights) or test results (for prototypes). Success criteria can guide decision-making and measure progress.

2. Focus on Real User Problems

Product discovery is only valuable if it addresses real customer needs. Building solutions for hypothetical or unverified problems can save resources and lead to higher adoption.

Use research methods like interviews, surveys, and data analysis to gather insights on actual user pain points. Frameworks like Jobs to Be Done or Design Thinking are particularly effective for centering around real customer needs.

3. Create a Cross-Functional Team

Product discovery thrives on diverse perspectives, bringing unique insights from different parts of the organization.

Involve team members from product, design, engineering, marketing, and customer support. This cross-functional collaboration fosters a holistic view of the problem and potential solutions.

4. Adopt a Test-and-Learn Mindset

Discovery is an iterative process in which assumptions are continuously tested. A mindset of experimentation reduces the risk of committing to solutions that don't solve the problem.

Incorporate frameworks emphasizing rapid testing, like Lean Startup or Design Sprints, to make hypothesis validation an ongoing activity. Treat failures as learning opportunities to pivot or refine ideas.

5. Embrace Divergent and Convergent Thinking

Effective discovery balances exploring multiple ideas (divergent thinking) and then narrowing them down to the most viable solutions (convergent thinking).

Use frameworks that support this balance, such as the Double Diamond, to encourage a structured flow from idea generation to decision-making. This ensures that ideas are well-vetted before being committed to development.

6. Prioritize Rapid Prototyping and Early Testing

The faster you can present ideas to users, the sooner you can get feedback and reduce the risk of building unwanted features.

Use Design Sprints or rapid prototyping tools to test core concepts early. Focus on building prototypes that highlight the key value without requiring fully developed features to gauge customer reactions quickly.

7. Document Insights and Learnings

Clear documentation ensures that valuable learnings are accessible to the entire team and can be referenced in future discovery cycles.

Record key insights, test results, and user feedback. Tools like Notion, Confluence, or Miro can centralize this information, allowing your team to revisit past discoveries and avoid redundant research.

8. Continuously Refine and Iterate

Discovery is an ongoing process. Customer needs and market dynamics evolve, so discovery should be a continuous loop, not a one-off activity.

Implement a dual-track approach where discovery and delivery run in parallel. This way, your team constantly identifies and validates new ideas while executing on validated ones.

9. Involve Stakeholders Early

Early alignment with stakeholders helps ensure that discovery efforts are backed up and that the resulting insights can be implemented smoothly.

Communicate progress and findings regularly with stakeholders through presentations, demos, or feedback sessions. Engaging them early fosters buy-in and eases the transition from discovery to development.

10. Celebrate and Share Wins

Discovery can often be an invisible part of the process. Celebrating successful insights or impactful changes based on discovery work helps build momentum and underscores its value to the team and stakeholders.

Share successes, big or small, with the broader organization to reinforce a discovery mindset and encourage ongoing support for the process.

By following these best practices, your team can optimize their product discovery efforts, continuously build user-centered solutions, and adapt to changes in customer needs or market conditions.