The Lean Product Playbook (by Dan Olsen) — Bullet Summary

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Note: This bullet-point summary is part of a startup & product book series, take a look at the full list here.

• Most products fail due to poor product-market fit. It is only achieved when a product meets user needs in better ways than any alternative, and as a result creates customer value.

• Dan Olsen proposes a “Lean Product Process” framework to achieve product-market fit.

• The author recommends to keep the problem space separate from the solution space. The problem space identifies key user needs, while the solution space’s priority is product design.

• The framework’s first step is to identify the customer segment. The target customer is defined with specific attributes (i.e. needs, demographics, behaviors, etc…). Product teams make decisions with the Customer Persona in mind. Add a photo and a quote that conveys what they care about most makes the team empathize with the target customer.

• User stories are used to document user needs. A user story generally follows this structure: “As a [customer type], I want to [desired action] so that I can [expected benefit].” These stories can / should be validated / improved through user research.
• Prioritization: The Importance Satisfaction Framework helps identify underserved customer wants. Importance denotes how valuable a need is, while satisfaction measures user satisfaction vis-a-vis existing solutions. You want to aim up and to the left.

• The author also spends some time discussing the Kano Model:

• To create a Product Value Proposition, the needs selected must be focused on delivering product differentiation.

• Minimum Viable Product (MVP): the team then selects the minimum functionality needed to validate the initial design hypothesis.

• Learnings: you can test your MVPs with direct customer interaction (qualitatively), or by aggregating results at scale (quantitatively).
• The Hypothesis-Design-Test-Learn loop: going through this framework should enable teams to rapidly iterative product development (taking a page out of the Lean Startup)

• Rinse-and-repeat (or pivot): If product-market fit is not achieved after a number of cycles, teams must step back and re-assess the core issue.

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