Over the years, we encountered product teams making decisions in the absence of enough information. For example, the team may have a good understanding of the customer and the competition but relatively little understanding of the technology. Alternatively, they might see a potential use for an existing technology but not know much about the market. Whenever there is a lot of uncertainty with a project, there’s the risk of making errors that are costly—not just in money or time, but in lost opportunities.
We found that even though uncertainty is at the core of product development failure, we found that most companies’ product development processes do a poor job of identifying and managing it. That is why we developed ExploratoryPD (ExPD).
When developing ExPD, a tremendous amount of research went into understanding existing practices and processes companies use to develop products. We studied many different communities; including the Design Thinking, Flexible/Agile Product Development, Lean LaunchPad, Lean Startup, and Lean Product Development. When researching these communities, we didn’t find an end-to-end adaptable process for mid-to-large-cap companies to follow.
ExPD is an end-to-end adaptable process that focuses on the reduction of product uncertainty and risk that responds quickly to internal and external factors.
Out of this process was the development of the Product Risk Framework business intelligence software tool. The Product Risk Framework works by enabling product teams to identify, evaluate and prioritize the most impactful sources of uncertainty and risk associated with a product idea. It employs a variety of behavioral economics approaches to root out uncertainties and risks, including a risk framework, reference class forecasting, and nudges. Also, the Product Risk Framework monitors the reduction of product uncertainty and risk, from idea through launch. Risk profile ‘snapshots’ communicate progress in reducing a product’s risk and allow risk evaluation of the entire product portfolio.
This unique 2-day seminar will take you and your team through an overview on how to identify, evaluate and prioritize your most impactful product uncertainties. The instructors will then coach you on how to use the Product Risk Framework business intelligence software tool so your team can resolve and track the reduction of your most impactful uncertainties.
The Product Risk Framework is a recipient of an NSF STEM I-Corp grant, and it enabled an expanded reach into the product development community to study product-market fit. Through interviews with more than 100 product development professionals, the grant-funded research facilitated the identification of existing product development solutions and minimum viable product (MVP) input that was instrumental in informing the design and development of the Product Risk Framework. We recently sold an enterprise-wide license to a Fortune 100 company.