Implementing Product Discovery might be challenging depending on your type of product and the customer base. In the following, we describe how we succeeded in a B2B domain with non-tech-savvy users.

Setting the Scene

Before discussing our way to implement continues discovery, let’s have a look at our specific environment because the way of running product management in general, and discovery in particular, highly depends on the market, the type of product etc.

We are in B2B serving midsize and enterprise companies

• Firstly, that implies that buyers are typically not users. Even worse, many different stakeholders might be involved in decision making who later on never actually ever touch the product. A typical example is the worker’s council acting as a gate keeper for all new tools and processes.
• Secondly, corporate processes, such as budget planning, have to be considered. If there is no planned budget or procurement disagrees to terms and conditions, then the product will most likely not be implemented.

As a consequence, pure play product-led growth hardly works.

We don’t operate primary business processes

• In most companies, compliance and safety are important but not a primary business process in the sense of directly generating revenues or profits. Hence, it’s difficult to calculate any immediate ROI.
• Also, while some companies consider these aspects as competitive advantages, many others still see it as a necessary evil: Something that has to be done to appease the authorities. In a certain sense, it’s like going to a dentist: we all know it’s good for us but we probably don’t like it.

It’s hard to get hold of real users

In our domain, real users typically are not digital natives. They are people with busy hands, the workforce acting on the factory floor, working in harsh environments, operating heavy machines, handling hazardous materials. If we are glad, we can interview their supervisors and managers but typically not the workers themselves.

The picture on the right actually says it all. While it specifically refers to working in an home office, one can easily imagine that the workers operating this waste truck will be hard to recruit for UX testing of an IT system.

“Home office doesn’t work for me” - a photo of Berlin’s municipal waste management company.

It’s hard to rely on data

As a consequence of the above, a purely data-driven approach to discovery isn’t promising. There are too few (digital) touch points resulting in long turnaround cycles and slow responses. Also, different customers in different Industries and regions will use the product differently resulting in a high number of variations.

How we implemented continuous discovery in four steps

When I joined Quentic as CPO, Product Management didn’t exist as a function. So, I started from scratch and here is what we did.

1. Bring UX into PM

I am deeply convinced that in order to own the product experience you also need to own the user experience. This implies that the UX team is part of the product organization.