How to find the problem that you're solving
for times when your boss just wants you to build the product or feature.
As much as I advocate for starting with the problem, product ideas are simply that— ideas for a product (or a feature).
Whenever we think of products, we think of solutions. What its features would be, how it would look, and so on. This is being solution-driven. Though it risks building something that nobody wants, that’s just how people work.
There will be times when your boss just wants you to build the feature and not ask too many questions. Other times, it’s you, you just came up with something great to build.
Even if we know that we need to put time into understanding the problem, we can still suddenly find ourselves deep within the solution space.
How then can we work our way back to understand the problem that we’re solving?
Extracting the problem from a product idea
For those moments, I use this simple framework:
It works for features too.
This simple set of questions helps me dig deep into why we’re working on building the product idea.
The 1st question is the product or feature idea. You simply write what you’re looking to build.
The 2nd question is focused on the benefit. Pretty easy to answer, but this where most people stop. When you ask why you’re building something, they tell you the outcome that they want for the users.
The 3rd question is where you find the problem. When people give you an answer for question 2, you simply ask another why—”Why do they need this benefit?” or “Why do they need that?”
The power in this is actually gets you to the core of the product idea. It helps you see the main problem that the author is trying to address.
Hey, sometimes people won’t have an answer for it. They just have a hunch.At that point, you can find the data that proves that it’s a real problem.
If that data doesn’t prove it, then you get to work on something else instead.
Cheers,
Abel
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