(2018-05-31) Cagan Skateboards Vs Cars Revisited

Martin Cagan: Skateboards vs. Cars Revisited | Silicon Valley Product Group

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a product team is comprised of a true product manager, a skilled product designer, and some number of engineers

The first principle is about tackling the risks up front

Rather than the relatively simplistic notion of a skateboard/earliest testable iteration

Then, based on the areas we consider at risk, we pick the right tool or technique for the job

The product manager and product designer drive most of this product discovery activity, and the designer creates most of the prototypes we’ll need to tackle these risks. And the engineers are included at every step of discovery, both to weigh in on feasibility of the proposed solution, but also and most importantly, to help improve the solution itself.

A medium to large sized piece of work in product might need on the order of 5-15 iterations before it is working as well as it needs to (sometimes referred to as “time to money”).

if we can do those same 10-15 iterations in a week of discovery

When the engineers are able to play with a prototype created in discovery and ask questions and identify missing use cases, then if and when we decide to actually build a robust implementation of this solution, that delivery work can proceed much faster, and without all the expensive and time-consuming delays and detours.