Presentation from Melissa Klemke from her talk at Product Anonymous in April 2024

1. Bingo!
Now that’s how you win
the Product Discovery Game!

2. Hi I’m Melissa
but everyone (cool) calls me Liss
● PM of about 10 years (officially)
● Curious on a crazy scale
● Total Product Nerd, Lover of learning
● Currently obsessed with gifting (working at Prezzee)
● I’m a 2x Swiftie, NBA addict, Mum of 3 and have never had
a cup of coffee in my life
● Run a little side hustle ‘Pop Ear Candy’

3. WHAT is discovery? and WHY do we need it?
Reduce uncertainty and improve confidence
around a problem space, feature, solution, market
or customer
Solving the problem if something is
Valuable, Feasible, Usable and Viable

4. Tonight
We’re going to focus mainly on Value and Viability.
Market, user and qualitative insight gathering
Where to start
How to leverage tools and the skills around you
What I’ve learned through failure and success
X Performance Quantitative Metrics
X Building POCs or doing Technical discovery

5. Why am I so invested in discovery?
Hmm Perfect! WTAF?

6. ‘I don’t
know where
to start…..’

7. Discovery plans help you:
• Align and confirm the discovery objective
• List any assumptions or hypotheses you are trying to assess
• Work out what type/s of discovery you need
• Determine the tools that you’ll use to undertake discovery to increase confidence
The (discovery) plan stan
Objective: To comprehensively
understand attendee behaviour and
engagement during today's talk and
assess the likelihood of participants
trying a new discovery plan.

8. UX and website quality
• Session recordings
• Usability interviews
• Surveys
• User journey maps and
sentiment tracking
Market and competitor
understanding
• Google-fu-ing
• ICP workshops (sales analysis +
workshops + market research
• Competitor Teardowns
Product Market Fit, Positioning,
Feature value
• Interviews - Moderated or
Unmoderated
• A/B testing
• Legal and compliance reviews
Tools and approaches
usable, valuable viable, valuable
feasible, valuable

9. Interviewing,
Surveyingand Testing
Competitor insights
• Competitor websites (duh)+ sign up!
• YouTube Demos
• Follow competitors on LinkedIn (and their Sales People if they share alot)
• TedTalks given by influencers in the market
• Recordings Fireside chats given by Product/Marketing/CTOs of
competitors
• Annual Reports (for listed companies)

10. You are the LUCKIEST.
The top tips to work with researchers
• RESPECT
• Context, context, context
• Offer avenues of access
• Take an interest
• Be a student
Got a researcher?

11. ‘I don’t
know what
I’m doing’

12. UXers and PMs make great researchers, but it takes
diligence and practice to be great.
⚬ Start with a script - consistency is key
⚬ Ensure the script has structure
￭ Introduce yourself
￭ Thank them for agreeing to participate
￭ What you are trying to understand
￭ How long the interview will go for
￭ Introduce any others in the ‘room’.
￭ ASK PERMISSION TO RECORD
No researcher?

13. ⚬ Open questions - avoid confirmation bias
⚬ Aim that you are talking at least 20 x less than the
interviewee
⚬ Never commit to a feature or action at an interview
⚬ Reconfirm what the content will be used for (internal only)
⚬ Send survey afterwards to get feedback on your interview
￭ How engaging, Level of Relevancy
￭ Length, format and delivery
￭ Permission to follow up contact
No researcher?

14. - ‘We are investigating and idea of X and we’d love your
opinion and experience of…Y’
- If you had Y, what would it mean for the way you do X
- Would it save you money?
- Is there any legal or compliance concern with Y?
- What would you be comfortable in paying extra for Y
- Take me through your selection process of X
- Help us understand your process of Y
- When you look at this website/screen/product what do you
think you do with it?
- What does this message say to you?
- How would you explain the value of X to a friend or
colleague?
What kinds of things would I use interviews for if not for usability?

15. Books
Validation Practice Innovation Research
Problem
understanding
Some recommended reading

16. ‘how do I find
people to
interview?..’

17. • Call your pool a cool name (optional)
• Draft comms inviting customers to join the pool -
share what’s in it for them
• Collect data through a form/survey
• Work with your account managers, sales and
customer care teams to distribute these comms
• Legal Checks around collection, storage
• Incentivisation budget
Create a Research Pool?

18. Hot Tip !
• Easy to incentivise research participants with gift
cards
• Schedule or send instantly
• Start at $10! Average is around $50 but some pay
up to $250 and above for specialised research
candidates
• Customer can swap it for whatever they want
• Available in AU, NZ, UK and US ....
• Personalise with a thank you video, audio or range
of pre-designed cards
• Prezzee suggests your message if you get stuck!

19. ‘I’ve got a lot
of information
what now?’

20. • Set up your interviews and surveys in an easy way
to collate - excel or miro
• Look for themes
■ Tag items with themes - like phrases, words,
tone of response, body language
■ slice and dice those themes - are they from
the same types user, level of experience,
generation, technical aptitude
• Focus on strong opinions of participants
■ Why are they strong? What’s driving that ? Do
you need that to be further validated
• Again, remember confirmation bias
Collating data and forming insights

21. • Set up your interviews and surveys in an easy way
to collate - excel or miro
• Look for themes
■ Tag items with themes - like phrases, words,
tone of response, body language
■ slice and dice those themes - are they from
the same types user, level of experience,
generation, technical aptitude
• Focus on strong opinions of participants
■ Why are they strong? What’s driving that ? Do
you need that to be further validated
• Again, remember confirmation bias
Collating data and forming insights

22. ‘how do I get
buy in?..’

23. Some startling insights into research adoption and impact

24. It’s not a race Share the love
● Start slowly
● Try not to rely on one one stream of
validation or research
● Supplement as you go
● Experiment and evolve
● Learn from those in your network
● Get contractors in to share the load
● Involve squad members in
interviews
● Play recordings and insights at
your sprint reviews and
showcases
● Get in the habit of sharing
qualitative research WITH
quantitative
Be deliberate
● Include discovery in your
planning and as part of your
sprints
● Making it visible also creates
accountability
Finally…

25. Online resources
https://www.producttalk.org/blog/ https://www.romanpichler.com/podcast/produ
ct-strategy-and-product-discovery/
some helpful bits …
https://herbig.co/product-discovery/

26. Talks/Conference Presentations
Bec Lourey: Getting real with your
biases to build products people
actually want (start at 27:12)
some helpful bits …

27. User Research Kick off Canvas
Discovery Kick off Canvas
some helpful bits …

28. Example Discovery Plan
some helpful bits …

29. Thank you!
Here’s the slides!