| name | dec-discovery-validation |
| description | Product discovery and validation frameworks — Jobs To Be Done, Continuous Discovery / Opportunity Solution Tree, Lean UX / Build-Measure-Learn, Design Sprint, Working Backwards, Story Mapping, Crazy 8s. Use when scoping what to build, validating an idea before committing, structuring user research, or turning a fuzzy outcome into testable solutions. |
| tags | ["product","discovery","validation","jtbd","research","always-on"] |
Discovery & Validation Frameworks
Methods to figure out what to build and whether it's worth building before sinking engineering effort.
- Jobs To Be Done (JTBD): Users "hire" a product to make progress in a specific circumstance. Focus on the job, not the demographic. Template: "When ___, I want to ___, so I can ___."
- Continuous Discovery / Opportunity Solution Tree (Teresa Torres): Outcome → opportunities → solutions → experiments, mapped as a tree. Weekly customer contact, not quarterly research.
- Lean UX / Build-Measure-Learn: Hypothesis-driven design; ship the smallest testable thing, measure, iterate.
- Design Sprint (GV 5-day): Map → Sketch → Decide → Prototype → Test. Compress months of debate into a week with a validated prototype.
- Working Backwards (Amazon): Write the press release and FAQ before building. If you can't write a compelling PR, don't build it.
- Story Mapping: Arrange user activities horizontally (journey) and details vertically (priority) to slice releases.
- Crazy 8s: 8 sketches in 8 minutes — forces divergent ideation past the obvious first idea.
How to apply
- Frame the problem as a JTBD statement before designing a solution.
- Use the Opportunity Solution Tree to keep solutions tied to a measurable outcome, not feature requests.
- Working Backwards is the cheapest kill switch: no compelling press release → don't build.
- Story Mapping turns a backlog into a thin end-to-end first slice (pairs with ship-one-vertical-slice discipline).
