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Writer's pictureNabeel Ansar

The 4Ds of Product Management

Being a product manager, visualizing product development helped me highlight the emphasis we put on keeping things simple. It helped to demystify and push myself in product-related tasks and lead to continuous improvement.


One of the important concepts that I practice during my work as a product manager is Simplify and reinvent, this is something I can proudly say that I have learned during my stay at Educative (www.educative.io).

Simplifying is about skipping all the stuff that represents the real (charts, graphs, boxes, arrows, schematics, wireframes, etc.) and actually building the real thing.

Simplifying is less. Less mass, less software, fewer features, less paperwork, less of everything that’s not essential.

Simplifying and reinventing is staying small and being agile.


In my product management practices, I normally use 4Ds, Discover, Define, Design, and Deliver.


So to me, the 4D framework is a "lightweight framework to drive incremental, evolutionary, and revolutionary customer experience and, therefore, business growth."


Let's look into the 4Ds briefly and list some activities in every D.


Discover

This D is all about addressing what are the customer needs. The goal here should be to identify the opportunities.


Below is the list of some activities

  • Customer Discovery

  • User interviews

  • Data analysis

  • Market & competitor research

  • User research

  • Knowledge sharing

  • Business studies & cases

  • OST - Opportunity Solution Tree, read more about OST here


At the end of this D, I normally write a one-pager or PR/FAQs, to read about how to write a one-pager click here, and to read about PR/FAQs click here.


Define

This D is all about defining what customer needs are we solving. The goal here is to focus on customer problems and come up with a workable solution.


Below is the list of some activities

  • ScopingPrioritization

  • User Stories & Acceptance Criteria

  • MVP / MLP

  • Spec / Epic

At the end of this D, I normally have the first draft of 6 pagers, to read about how to write a product six pager click here.


Design

This D is about underrating which of the all possible solution is the right solution for the customers. The goal here is brainstorming and validating the solutions to address the customers problem.


Below is the list of some brainstorming activities,

  • Design kickoff

  • Frameworks

  • User tests


Below is the list of some validation activities,

  • Mockup

  • Prototyping

  • Landing page

  • Closed groups customer sessions

At the end of this D, I normally have validation and then I collaborate with another stakeholder (Design, development, etc) to add their part to the product 6 pagers.


Develop

This D addresses how we best build and launch the validated solution and measure its impact on the customers. The goal here is to scope, estimate, execute, measure and iterate, btw being a product manager this is one of the important D's that I look after.


Below is the list of some scope and estimate activities,

  • Backlog Grooming

  • Release ETA


Below is the list of some execution activities,

  • Backlog Refinement

  • Roadmap Refinement

  • Sprint Planning

  • Planning Poker

  • Burndown Charts


Below is the list of some measure and iterate activities,

  • A/B Testing

  • Data Analysis

  • Internal newsletter

  • Dashboards

  • Retro

  • Significance test

At the end of this D, we know what to reinvent.


That is it for this article. I hope you found this article useful, if you need any help please email me at info@nabeelansar.com


Let's connect on Twitter and LinkedIn.


👋 Thanks for reading, See you next time


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