The Scientific Method of Product Development

Every great idea and every product innovation starts with a hypothesis. Every time you stumble upon a new idea you’d like to get started on, you have the opportunity, and perhaps even the responsibility to start vetting the hypothesis and considering ways to apply the scientific method and get testing.

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Every time you share videos to Facebook, message someone on Slack, or scroll though BuzzFeed, Reddit, Netflix, or even Medium, you are not alone. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Yes, you may be in your home by yourself accessing a friend’s timeline, recent news stories, or seeking the next-best show to get started on, however, you are actually engaging in a digital conversation with teams at Slack or Netflix. 🤝 You are collaborating with the technology you use, every single time you use it. These teams are watching User behavior, innovating ways to make their products simpler and better by listening and collaborating with Users.

Digital creative teams are constantly seeking ways to improving their products, right? They all have ideas, concepts, a roadmap to achieve their strategic vision, cultivate customer delight, and increase revenues for doing so. Those ideas an roadmaps are simply an organizations hypotheses, and the way by which they will be brought to life is through employing the Scientific Method. Does this sound over simplified? How can high school chemistry be a source of truth for engineers, designers and product managers? Let’s take a look.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

The Scientific Method

1. Develop General Theories
2. Make Observations
3. Think of Interesting Questions
4. Formulate a Hypothesis
5. Develop Testable Predictions
6. Gather Data to Test Predictions
7. Refine, Alter, Expand or Reject Hypothesis

Importantly, the process is intended to be ongoing. Keep asking questions and building and testing hypotheses.

Do This Now:

Identify what kinds of hypotheses you have for the product you develop, apply the scientific method, and start having conversations with your Users — just as you yourself have many ongoing conversations with products like Netflix, Facebook, and Reddit. You spend your time collaborating with these products, take the opportunity to collaborate with your own customers, too.

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