Let’s say you’re hosting a dinner party. You've got a few sous chefs in the kitchen helping you prepare the meal. They're chopping vegetables, measuring ingredients, and doing their part to make the meal a success. But what if your chefs talked to your guests before the party to find out what they liked and wanted to eat? Equipped with these insights, your team could make more-informed culinary decisions, leading to an even more incredible guest experience. Similarly, engineers can benefit from engaging directly with customers during the discovery process. But how do you get to a state where your engineers are completely bought in and where your product and engineering teams are working collaboratively to create value from the discovery process?

1. Tim Simms
Director of Engineering, FullStory
More Cooks in the Kitchen
Getting Engineering Involved in Discovery

3. 3

4. “How can I get engineers to
move faster and ship features
more quickly?”

5. Can We Cook Faster?
5
Phase 1
Requirements
Phase 5
Deploy
Phase 2
Design
Phase 4
Test
Phase 3
Develop
Software
Development

6. 6
Can We Cook Faster?

7. 7
Discovery
Delivery
Let’s build
and ship the
product.
How might
we solve
these
problems?
What
problems do
customers
have?
Which
problems
are worth
solving?
Discovery & Delivery Ownership
= Product Managers & Product Designers
= Engineers

11. 11
Pairing Discovery & Delivery

12. Lucy Huang
Product Manager
12
Meet the Cooks
“I like the triad partnership between
engineering, design, and product
rather than the typical model of
product+design funneling feedback
towards engineering.
Instead of a waterfall model, we’re
able to be true product partners and
spend less time on communicating
and context-sharing.”

13. 13
Discovery Defined
“At its core, Product Discovery is the evidence-informed process
of reducing uncertainty as you find problems worth solving
and solutions worth building. It emerges through a series of
nonlinear activities, conducted as a cross-functional team.”
— Tim Herbig
Product Management Coach & Consultant

14. 14
Discovery Defined
“At its core, Product Discovery is the evidence-informed process
of reducing uncertainty as you find problems worth solving
and solutions worth building. It emerges through a series of
nonlinear activities, conducted as a cross-functional team.”
— Tim Herbig
Product Management Coach & Consultant

15. Discovery Defined
Understand the problem space, validating that each existing
or future problem is worth solving, by answering:
Problem Discovery
Of the potential solutions, choose the best option, while
validating each to properly de-risk along the dimensions of
feasibility, usability, and viability, by answering:
Solution Discovery
✓ What’s the impact of the problem?
✓ How is the problem manifested?
✓ How widespread is the problem?
✓ How motivated are customers to solve it?
✓ How does this problem affect our business?
✓ Can we build it?
✓ Can customers use it?
✓ Can the business support it?
AND
15

16. Prashanth Sadasivan
Engineering Manager
16
Meet the Cooks
“Our team is happy to gather
customer feedback to consider what
we can do to make an impact next
quarter, as opposed to waiting for
someone to tell us what we should
focus on.”

17. Ralf Popescu
Software Engineer
17
Meet the Cooks
“I really enjoy the creative problem
solving of Discovery. This is when
you're creative neurons are really
firing and you're exploring the
cross section between customers,
their challenges, and what's
possible.
It’s that intersection of things that’s
really interesting and fulfilling.”

18. Why should we
get engineers
more involved
in Discovery?

19. Increased Customer Empathy

20. Clint Ayres
Engineering Tech Lead
20
Meet the Cooks
“Directly hearing from the customer
allows for a shared language, making
the issues they are facing
understandable.
Understanding that perspective and
how problems impact them
specifically changes how you think
about the size, scope, and priority of
possible solutions.”

21. Jordan Hurt
Engineering Tech Lead
21
Meet the Cooks
“Customer interviews provide useful
insight into the specific problems we
help customers solve, but even more
importantly, into how customers feel
about using our software.
I learned something unique about
each customer’s experience, within
moments of talking to them, a difficult
feat without interviews.”

22. Self-Discovered Context

23. Evan Michner
Head of Product Management
23
Meet the Cooks
“I love to see teams dripping with
context, so everyone is equipped
to make informed decisions.
The PM should go on vacation and
the team should generally be able
to make the right decisions for the
customer.”

24. Share the Load

25. Nev R. Saed
Product Manager
25
Meet the Cooks
“I’ve got more than enough time to
do everything I need to do, including
all the vetting and validation work on
feature requests coming in from all
our product’s stakeholders.”

26. “I think about this Steve Jobs quote a
lot, ‘Design isn’t just the look and feel;
design is also how something works.’
This is especially true in product
design.
For that reason, it’s crucial to have
input from an engineer who has a
deep understanding of the inner
workings of a feature.”
Ivan Nájera
Senior Product Designer
26
Meet the Cooks

27. How might we
get engineers
more involved
in Discovery?

28. HMW get engineers more involved?
Invite
Share the value of having
engineers involved and
encourage their
participation.
Equip
Demystify Discovery tasks with
common language and
approachable process.
Activate
Execute Problem Discovery
and Solution Discovery within
your product team.
Celebrate
Create culture of active
discovery by celebrating the
completed tasks having
engineers involved.
28

29. 29
Invite

30. 30
Invite
01 Share the impact of not having engineers involved in holistic
Discovery.
02 Build trust by sharing the access to informational context
about customers, business, market, and customer behavior.
03 Promote collaboration, eliminate intra-team silos, and paint
a picture of what team can accomplish when more united in
simultaneous Discovery and Delivery.
04 Work with those who are interested, form a Discovery team
around a particular problem you are looking to solve within
your product. Others will likely follow.
State the problem
Provide access to information
Cast the vision of “one team”
Ask for optional participation

31. 31
Equip

32. 32
Equip
01 Explain what Discovery is and is not, allay fears, share your
Discovery playbook, tie the tasks to individuals’ strengths.
02 Synchronized reading to foster discussion and shared
understanding of Discovery. Some examples include Inspire
or Empowered by Marty Cagen.
03 How much time can you offer engineers to dig into Problem
Discovery and Solution Discovery? HMW timebox Discovery
activities like prototyping and experimentation?
04 Map out the steps of your Discovery process that
systematically get you from “what problems might we
solve?” to a validated feature that you release and measure.
Lead a Discovery workshop
Host a book club
Create space for Discovery work
Share exemplars of successful Discovery

33. 33
Activate

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Activate
01 In your standing meetings, share inputs to and findings from
Discovery activity.
02 Enumerate and provide access to customer interviews,
customer behavior data, and other data sources either
real-time or using tools.
03 Find simple tools and frameworks that can be used to share
learnings from customers, like the Customer Interview
Pyramid Principle, Game film watch parties.
04 Interview customers, run surveys, collaboratively review
problems, build prototypes, experiment with ideas, de-risk
solutions.
Carve out time from weekly team meetings
Empowering with data access
Conduct regular Discovery activity
Adopt processes that focus on customer insight

35. 35
Celebrate

36. 36
Celebrate
01 Show the connection between Problem Discovery and
Solution Discovery and how that ties into Delivery tracks,
using tools like Opportunity Solution Tree (Theresa Torres)
02 Maybe it was hopping on a customer interview, a deep-dive
into customer problem, a fruitful ideation session,
successful experiment, or working prototype, celebrate!
03 As you continue building culture, provide success stories to
encourage other engineers to participate in Discovery
Connect the dots
Recognize when engineers create wins
Share the wins with others in the company

37. Thank you!
Questions?
(Then let’s get lunch!)

38. 38
Stay in touch!
https://linkedin.com/in/timjimsimms
timsimms@fullstory.com
@timjimsimms