Marcus Castenfors

It was tense. A long list had been shared. Big features to build, new markets to launch. You could feel the built-up tension in the room. In the past, there had been a lot of friction. Voices were raised. Names were called. The situation was at a standstill. They needed someone, an outsider, to appease

When helping teams and companies shift towards the product model, one of the key concepts introduced is practicing product discovery. Prior to this shift, a typical scenario starts with a stakeholder—someone up top—sharing detailed requirements on what to build. This approach leaves the so-called “feature team” with very limited opportunity to influence the solution. Now,

Where are we heading? What’s the future going to look like for our product? Let’s pause here. There is a sad truth. Most companies don’t answer these questions in a meaningful way. Being fortunate to meet many diverse companies in the world, the top struggle is direction. Commonly, talking to individual contributors, managers, and senior

The following is an excerpt from the recently released book by Martin Christensen and me titled Holistic Product Discovery. It’s been a 3-year journey that started with a 20-page draft. Numerous iterations later, here we are. Thank you to the fantastic community of readers for your invaluable feedback. Let’s begin. A story about a product

This week I presented the Holistic Product Discovery framework at an Airtime webinar hosted by its CEO Akos Kiss-Dozsai. Here are some concepts that I went through: Some uncomfortable statistics relating to product development Principles that could help you in Product Discovery The Holistic Product Discovery framework A risk mapping technique to kick off Product

“Where do we start?” is a recurring question that Martin Christensen and I receive when we run Product Discovery training.  A fundamental challenge with Product Discovery is that there is no right way, no silver bullet, and no perfect process, which means that teams need to pick the right tool for the right situation. But

This week Crisp hosted its first Product Discovery meetup. We had the privilege to listen to lightning talks by notable experts from the Stockholm Product community: Martin Christensen shared his holistic Product Discovery framework. Johanna Olander presented SVT Play’s outcome based roadmap. Viktor Cessan shared his thoughts on how Product Discovery can happen naturally if

Last Wednesday, we had the pleasure to host a webinar with Gibson Biddle, former VP Product at Netflix, titled “Hacking Your Product Leader Career”. During the talk Gibson shared stories from his career and tips on how to have a scientific approach to your career progression. Some key take-aways: Keep it simple. Understand your strengths

The room was packed. Erin, the Product Manager, had called for an emergency meeting. The product they had just launched wasn’t meeting expectations. Erin stated with a determined voice: “We need to do more Discovery”. The room went quiet.

With confused looks, the team glanced at each other: “What does she really mean?”. “What does she mean by ‘Discovery?’”.

Perhaps this scenario resonates with you. A situation where the term “Discovery” is used, but it’s difficult to discern what it actually entails.

To be fair, the term Product Discovery is ambiguous.

My intention with this article is to try to demystify what Product Discovery is and to give you two Playbooks you can use.