EMPOWERED

CHAPTER 73Shared Insights and Learning

In empowered product teams working on solving hard problems, the discovery techniques that we use generate insights very frequently.

We are meeting with users and customers, normally weekly, and testing our product ideas. We're digging deeper into their context and their needs.

We are analyzing the data from our product's usage, and from the live‐data testing of our ideas.

We are constantly investigating new enabling technologies to see if any can help us solve the problems we are facing in new and better ways.

We are tracking industry data and learnings to see if there are relevant trends.

We are also constantly seeking these insights from others across the company—product marketing, sales, finance, customer success.

As we learn important or potentially relevant insights, we want to share these learnings with our colleagues from across the business. There are several reasons for this:

First, the insight may help them as well.

Second, they may have additional insights while viewing the data through their lens.

Third, they may be able to help us explain the dynamics in order to better leverage the insights.

Fourth, it is important that the company learn the difference between a prototype getting a bad response during discovery, and a product failing in the market.

“Failing” in discovery is not really failing—it is very fast and inexpensive learning. “Failing” in the market truly is failing, as these mistakes are typically very slow and ...