Business Case Studies & Business Publications

Digital Product Management with Hypothes...

Cowan, Alex

Technical Note

Digital Product Management with Hypothesis-Driven Development

Cowan, Alex

OM-1740 | Published April 13, 2023 | 23 pages Technical Note

Collection: Darden School of Business

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This technical note introduces readers to hypothesis-driven design (HDD) in digital product management. HDD operates from the foundation that ideas should be testable and teams should work to minimize waste through small batch sizes and relevant evidence. HDD can help teams design better by helping them find the right problem and the right solution through two hypotheses: the persona hypothesis and the jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) hypothesis. Using these, teams ask, "Who is this for and what existing job (or problem, habit, or desire) does it deliver on?" Touching on Lean Startup, agile, and other influential bodies of work, this note walks readers through asking the right questions; designing experiments to test persona, demand, JTBD, and usability hypotheses; and creating user-focused stories. It is a helpful tool for any team that's innovating and wants to make astute decisions about where and how to invest its time and energy. It's also very useful for anyone interested in digital product management because it touches on facilitating alignment with the overall business, creating and scaling product-market fit, and aligning the work of an interdisciplinary product team toward better product-market fit