01 Discover
Product Planning & Positioning
Deciding what to build first, who it is for, and what it will say about you.
The business problem
There is a long feature list and no agreed order. Every stakeholder has a different first release in mind, and the positioning changes depending on which slide you are looking at.
Most stalled products are not short of ideas. They are short of an agreed order, and an agreed sentence about who this is for.
The GDS approach
Understand the problem before drawing the solution.
We define the product in terms of the job it does for a specific customer, cut the first release down to what proves that job is being done, and write the positioning that everything else — brand, interface, marketing copy — has to be consistent with.
Capabilities
What this covers
- Customer and job-to-be-done definition
- Value proposition and positioning
- Feature prioritisation and release planning
- MVP scoping
- Pricing and packaging input
- Success metrics and instrumentation plan
Typical deliverables
What you end up holding
- Positioning statement and audience definition
- Prioritised feature set by release
- Scope for a first release that can be tested
- Success measures and how they will be tracked
- Open decisions with a recommendation for each
Process
How the work runs
- Define Customer, job and value
- Prioritise What proves it, what can wait
- Plan Releases, measures and dependencies
- Align A version everyone can repeat back
— Related work
— Next action
Need product planning & positioning?
Tell us what is happening now and what you need to be true in six months. We will come back with a route, a rough shape and an honest view of the cost.
- Based in
- Minnesota, USA
- Typical reply
- Within one business day