2.5: Understand Modern Product Practices - Video Tutorials & Practice Problems

<v ->Modern product design is not purely functional.</v> Competition is high. And so are customer expectations. Nowadays product practices include aesthetics, environment, ergonomics, reliability, quality, security, and many other parameters, besides traditional functionality and cost. The answer to the question of what product to build that will delight the customers is not trivial. There are multiple modern product frameworks and methods that allow experimenting with products and getting answers before actually investing time and effort and building those. Google Ventures created an methodology of design sprints that combines design thinking with lean startup practices. Five days of intense user research built on the five phases of design thinking. This methodology is described by Jack Knapp and others in the book: "Sprint, How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days." Design sprints at Google Ventures are unique five days processes for answering crucial questions through prototyping and testing ideas with customers. Doesn't it remind you of lean startup? It's a combination of business strategy, innovation, behavioral science, and design all packaged in a step-by-step process that anyone can use. Design sprints implement the lean startup build-measure-learn feedback loop in a very unique way. Day by day of the week. On Monday, participants map out the problem and pick an important place to focus. On Tuesday, they sketch competing solutions on paper. On Wednesday, they make decisions and turn the ideas into hypothesis. On Thursday, they create a realistic prototype based on this hypothesis. And on Friday, of course, they conduct user research and test this prototype with potential customers. This method enables a thorough and structured way of conducting user research. Once the research is completed, the time comes to define the minimum viable product or MVP. MVP is an iterative low-risk way of building a minimal, valuable, valuable deliverable for the customer and releasing it to the customer. It's a concept that stresses the impact of learning in product development. It represents a early version of a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers and provide feedback for future product development. MVP is a great concept. It minimizes risk, because it helps test assumptions about whether the product meets customer needs. And by doing this, MVP minimizes waste.