Intro to Product Thinking: Building Human-Centric Tools • Flavia Naezer & Julian Wood • GOTO 2024

Product thinking requires understanding who you’re serving, what value you bring, and having a customer obsession - even for internal developer platforms

The double diamond framework helps guide product development:

• Discovery phase (divergent thinking)
• Design phase before coding
• Validate hypotheses with users
• Converge on solutions

Engineering is inherently creative - it’s about solving problems in novel ways, not just writing code. Having designers and engineers work together boosts creativity

For internal platforms:

• Treat them as actual products, not just technical services
• Understand the jobs to be done for your users
• Don’t force adoption - understand why people work around your platform
• Build specific experiences for specific needs while keeping the platform flexible

Key team elements for success:

• Include dedicated designers
• Have people comfortable with uncertainty
• Enable teams to make their own solutions
• Foster diverse skillsets and perspectives
• Maintain constant user feedback loops

User research is crucial:

• Talk to actual users before building
• Understand their current solutions and workarounds
• Define clear jobs to be done
• Create artifacts to communicate findings
• Don’t rush to coding solutions

For large organizations:

• Multiple targeted platforms may work better than one platform to rule them all
• Balance standardization with flexibility
• Keep solutions modular and composable
• Focus on specific customer segments rather than trying to serve everyone

Combine agile practices with product thinking:

• Use exploration/discovery sprints
• Create rapid prototypes
• Validate with users frequently
• Build incrementally toward vision