Understanding risks in Product Discovery: Unveiling the role of Product Management, Design, and Engineering

Important note: Design referenced throughout the following article encompasses both user experience design and software/ architecture design.

During product discovery, it is essential to consider four key risks: value, usability, feasibility, and viability. To address all these risks, a product team should possess three critical competencies, namely product management, product design, and engineering.

The four overarching categories of risk within Product Management are:

• Value Risk: Whether the customers will purchase or use the product/ service
• Usability Risk: Whether users can understand how to use the product/ service
• Feasibility Risk: Whether our engineers can develop the required solution with the available time, skills, and technology
• Business Viability Risk: Whether the proposed solution aligns with various aspects of our business

The Product Manager bears responsibility for the value and viability risks, and is ultimately accountable for the product's outcomes.

The Product Designer takes ownership of the usability risk and is accountable for the product's experience, including every interaction that users and customers have with the product.

The Product Lead Engineer shoulders responsibility for the feasibility risk and is accountable for the product's delivery.

However, in a feature team, the responsibility for value and viability falls on the stakeholder. As a result, the product manager in a feature team plays more of a project manager role. It is important to note that this is a secondary point.

In a feature team, stakeholders rely on the team to address the risks associated with usability and feasibility. Hence, the presence of product designers and engineers is still essential.

It can be argued that some level of discovery is still relevant to feature teams. Moreover, building skills in a feature team can benefit individuals in the future when they transition to an empowered product team.

However, it is crucial to note that designing a usable experience (for designers) and a feasible architecture (for engineers) for a particular feature requires a certain level of skill. On the other hand, discovering an effective solution to a problem requires a whole other level of skill, followed by the design of the solution.

Moreover, in an empowered product team, we (Product Managers) are accountable for the outcome of our solution. This accountability to results can be challenging.

Discovery involves testing various approaches to a problem to find an effective solution. In a feature team, the approach is already determined, and the team's focus is on enhancing it to the best of their abilities.

However, the more a Product Manager in a feature team can demonstrate an understanding of the different dimensions of the business, especially regarding value for actual customers and viability, the more likely the leaders will be to assign challenging problems to the feature team and allow them to showcase their capabilities. Ultimately, the success or failure of a solution in a feature team falls on the stakeholder, while in an empowered product team, it falls on the team itself.

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