Adaptable Product Discovery

Adaptable Product Discovery is a well-documented framework developed and published by Tim Herbig. It provides even more guidance to the various phases of Product Discovery than the original Double Diamond model.

A Practical Guide for Agile Teams

This was the original title of the website and the original is constantly being updated.

In a nutshell, Tim breaks down the complete Product Discovery into 6 phases:

The Adaptable Product Discovery Approach
Tim Herbig’s illustration of Adaptable Product Discovery
Alignment

Create clarity, shared understanding, and commitment in the discovery team about the scope of the current discovery iteration, including the context, the business intent behind it, the team objective, and the boundaries.

Research

Achieve a deep understanding of the problems and pains of actual users, ideally firsthand directly by observing users during a job-to-be-done.

Ideation

Start thinking about potential solutions to the problem(s) identified; attempt to think big initially.

Creation

Create a prototype that can afterward be tested.

Note that while in most cases we think of a prototype as a kind of click dummy to show to users, a feasibility prototype can also be used to understand a new technology, test a new integration, validate an idea of a new technology architecture, etc.

Validation
Get a proof (or at least evidence) that a valuable problem was addressed with a usable solution. Depending on the objective of the current discovery iteration, validation may be qualitative or even quantitative, e.g. by measuring the metrics defined via Impact Mapping.
Refinement

Involve the learnings from testing and create a final, polished concept ready to be handed over to Product Delivery.

Just like the process that we explained in part 3 of this playbook, this framework also distinguishes between the problem space and solution space:

The Adaptable Product Discovery Approach
Tim Herbig on problem vs. solution space

Contrary to what the initial hexagon suggests, Product Discovery is rarely a linear process. Rather, sometimes it is ok to cut corners. In other situations, it may be required to take a step back and start fresh because the team might got stuck:

Iterations through Discovery
Tim Herbig on non-linear product discovery

Further Reading

Product Discovery

A Practical Guide for Product Teams.

Tim Herbig | Product Discovery