The Discovery Discipline method, with its F.O.C.U.S.E.D framework, has established itself as a benchmark in the world of Product Discovery. Proven at PayPal and implemented at BlaBlaCar by Tristan Charvillat and Rémi Guyot, here you will discover the essential foundations of this method.
I - What is Discovery Discipline?
II - The authors of the Discovery Discipline book
III - The 7 steps of the Discovery Discipline method with the F.O.C.U.S.E.D framework
IV - Our example of applying the Discovery Discipline method
VI - The Discovery Discipline training
Have you ever imagined having a magic wand to quickly generate ideas, develop a solid, feasible answer that will have real impact on your users and your business?
This is the challenge that Tristan Charvillat and Rémi Guyot took on with the Discovery Discipline method, a method resulting from 15 years of experience in Product and Design at PayPal and then BlaBlaCar.
Of course, there’s no wand or magic in the Product world. It’s with the right tools along a disciplined culture of exploration and decision-making that you will naturally bring out original and realistic solutions within your teams. Let’s explore this method with a condensed summary of the book Discovery Discipline, the radical method to excel in Product Discovery and its application in iconic companies such as LeBonCoin.
What is Discovery Discipline?
What is the origin of Discovery Discipline?
The Discovery Discipline method originated from a key observation: in a constantly changing world, innovation is essential to remain competitive. However, successfully achieving innovation efficiently can be a complex challenge.
Traditional discovery methods, such as the "Double Diamond," lack structure and remain difficult for Product teams to implement. As a result, teams tend to:
- Limit the time spent on discovery and follow the directives of their hierarchy.
- Waste time in exploration phases without effectively solving user problems.
These observations led Tristan Charvillat and Rémi Guyot to create and apply the Discovery Discipline framework: F.O.C.U.S.E.D.
What is the objective of this framework?
The F.O.C.U.S.E.D. framework offers a structured method to explore problems, test solutions, and choose the best options for the business. It helps operational teams by guiding them through the discovery phase, allowing them to make choices that lead to concrete solutions.
The framework allows them to implement incremental innovation in their daily work, without slowing down their ability to deliver.
Who is this method for?
Discovery Discipline is an actionable method intended for freelancers, startups, and large groups that want to gain speed, quality, and confidence in their innovation processes.
The authors of the "Discovery Discipline" book
Rémi Guyot, co-author of the Discovery Discipline method
As a communications leader in various institutions, Rémi Guyot joined PayPal in 2009 as Head of User Experience for the EMEA region. In 2015, he became Chief Product Officer at BlaBlaCar, overseeing all teams involved in product development and marketing.
In 2022, Rémi joined Thiga before embarking on an entrepreneurial journey to help companies implement the Discovery Discipline method within their Product teams.
Tristan Charvillat, co-creator of the Discovery Discipline method and VP Design at Malt
As Head of PayPal’s Design Studio in Paris and London, Tristan joined BlaBlaCar in 2016 to design and launch BlaBlaCar Daily, the commuter carpooling app. Later, he led teams in Product Design, Product Marketing, and BlaBlaCar’s Creative Studio.
In 2022, Tristan joined Malt as VP Design. Malt is a platform connecting 300,000 freelancers.
The 7 steps of the Discovery Discipline method, with the F.O.C.U.S.E.D. framework
Discovery Discipline is described as a 7-step framework that divides the discovery process into seven distinct phases, each with clear goals, activities, and deliverables:
- Goals: Each step has a specific goal to achieve.
- Activities: A set of activities is provided to encourage divergence and energize exploration.ù$
- Deliverables: Each step concludes with a concise deliverable, facilitating convergence while creating a bridge to the next step.
Let's explore the 7 steps of the Discovery Discipline method in detail.
Step 1: Frame 🛰
"Visualize the end to better plan the path." - Tristan Charvillat and Rémi Guyot
The first step is about asking questions and aligning stakeholders. To innovate effectively, it’s essential to precisely understand your goals, customer needs, market trends, and constraints. Ask questions to clarify the project's goal, and identify problems or opportunities that could benefit from innovation.
- 🎪 Activities
To achieve this, several activities are proposed, such as vision-project alignment, reverse brainstorming, long-term metric observation, and historical analysis. These activities are not mandatory but can assist in the exploration and divergence phase. In contrast, the deliverables are essential for finding a point of convergence.
- 🧪 Deliverable: Project Ambition
The deliverable of the "Frame" step is the Project Ambition, which aims to balance impact, risks, and efforts related to a product. In summary, this first step must define the objectives, boundaries, and expected outcomes.
Step 2: Observe 🔬
"Observation is the first step towards discovery" - Aristotle
The second step involves exploring possibilities. Once objectives have been identified, teams review all possible options.
- 🎪 Activities
A variety of activities are suggested to uncover as many opportunities as possible. These include situational exercises, phone interviews, online surveys, home visits, and behavioral data analysis. These activities help build a comprehensive list of potential use cases.
- 🧪 Deliverable: First Use Case
The deliverable of this step is the First Use Case. The goal is to define the primary use case to explore further. This deliverable helps assess the feasibility and utility of the idea, and whether it is worth investing more time and resources. It can also serve as a starting point for exploring other ideas or refining the initial concept.
Step 3: Claim 🎣
"Keeping it simple is complicated, keeping it short takes time" - Frédéric Mazzella
The third step focuses on clarifying the promise your team will make to early adopters.
- 🎪 Activities
Select the most promising ideas and test hypotheses to determine their viability. This can involve using prototypes or quick experiments to gather feedback from customers or stakeholders. It is important not to invest too much time or money in ideas that may not work. Suggested activities include internal/external benchmarking, brainstorming, crafting press releases, and focus groups.
- 🧪 Deliverable: Launch Tweet
The deliverable for this step is the Launch Tweet, a fictional 250-character tweet that could be posted to announce your innovative idea or solution. It should be short, concise and compelling, while reflecting the key benefits and features of your idea.
The goal of this deliverable is to synthesize the idea or solution into a concise, engaging narrative that communicates the key benefits and features. By doing so, teams clarify their messaging and focus on the most important aspects of their idea.
Step 4: Unfold 🥁
"Take place in time, speaking of a continuous sequence of events and thoughts" - Tristan Charvillat and Rémi Guyot
The fourth step is about identifying key moments in the user experience journey. These touchpoints help you understand how your solution interacts with the various actors involved in its use and deployment.
- 🎪 Activities
To identify touchpoints, several methods can be used: stakeholder interviews, customer surveys, field observations, multichannel mapping, or journey lines. These methods provide valuable insights into how users interact with the product or service, helping teams refine and improve the overall experience.
- 🧪 Deliverable: 5 Touchpoints
The deliverable of this step is the 5 Touchpoints. From all the interactions identified, select five key moments that will guide the user experience and interactions.
Step 5: Steal 💎
"Nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything transforms" - Antoine Lavoisier
The fifth step involves looking at solutions that already exist and borrowing elements that work. This step focuses on drawing inspiration from successful ideas and practices in other industries, which can lead to creative breakthroughs and innovative solutions.The fundamental idea behind this is that the problems we face often have similarities with those solved in other contexts.
- 🎪 Activities
Recommended activities include problem decomposition, identifying "usual suspects," conducting comprehensive reviews, or building a library of relevant design elements and screens.
- 🧪 Deliverable: Gold Nuggets
The deliverable for this step is the Gold Nuggets. This involves selecting existing solutions that closely meet the identified needs and can be reused or adapted.
Step 6: Execute 🏗️
"Design and build are inseparable." - Jony Ive
The sixth step involves creating a functional version of the feature, often represented visually.
- 🎪 Activities
A variety of activities are suggested, including Design jams, Step-and-stretch exercises, guerrilla interviews, simplification reviews, remote feedback sessions, prototyping, and leveraging a Design System.
- 🧪 Deliverable: Happy Path
The Happy Path deliverable visually represents the ideal flow of user interaction with the product or feature. This can take the form of a map, illustration, or storyboard that describes a seamless user journey without any interruptions or issues.
This representation helps the team focus on key elements of the user experience and guides efforts to address potential problems or obstacles.
Step 7: Decide 🧘🏾♀️
"There's always a choice to be made. You can't choose not to choose. So choose." - Neil Gaiman
The seventh and final step is the decision point. This is where the team determines whether the research has been conclusive and whether the idea is ready to move into delivery.
- 🎪 Activities
Activities to support decision-making include usability testing, RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation), automation and outsourcing of tests, and live user testing.
- 🧪 Deliverable: Go/ No Go
The deliverable for this step is the Go/No Go decision. After completing the previous six steps, teams review the outcomes to determine whether the ideas generated are viable and worth pursuing. This includes evaluating the commercial potential, technical feasibility, and alignment with business objectives.
The Go/NoGo deliverable is therefore an essential tool for making informed decisions and guiding the company in the right direction to achieve its innovation objectives.
Our example of implementing the Discovery Discipline method
Applying the Discovery Discipline method: an example at leboncoin
Discovery Discipline in application by Thibault Béral, Product Designer at leboncoin.
According to Thibault, applying the Discovery Discipline method at Leboncoin has led to the resolution of various problems such as:
- Strengthening the credibility of Designers and Product Owners in decision-making processes.
- Improving the quality of deliverables.
- Ensuring the effective execution of Product Discovery phases.
The F.O.C.U.S.E.D framework also promoted transparency, information sharing, and the upskilling of all teams in discovery methodologies.
Thibault emphasized the importance of being proactive and flexible when applying the framework. While some steps may require more time, others can be completed quickly.
Thibault recommends being proactive throughout the stages, and not being too rigid in applying the framework.
3 questions to Rémi Guyot
Is the Discovery Discipline method for everyone?
This method is now being implemented in organizations of all sizes: from the solo entrepreneur to the multinational, via the rising scale or the transforming SME. Hundreds of companies have chosen to conduct their discovery phases using this approach. It works in all these contexts, because the method is above all based on pragmatism and flexibility. Instead of defining discovery as a series of activities (conducting customer interviews, exploring concepts, etc.), the method relies instead on deliverables that help teams realize whether or not they need to carry out more activities. The only organizations that don't benefit from it are those seeking disruptive innovation at any price.
Who should be responsible for its implementation and play a leading role in its application?
This varies from company to company. It can be the Product Manager/Owner, the designer, the agile coach, the digital project manager, the business expert, and so on. In reality, what's important is that every initiative passes through the same filters, so that the quality of discovery work doesn't depend on the individual. This is rarely the case when a single person takes the initiative without consulting the other experts. The advantage of having a clear method, broken down into precise stages, systematically applied to all projects, is that we can discuss the roles and responsibilities of each individual.
What are your main recommendations for correctly applying the method?
The first tip is to start with a pilot project. Choose a small team, train them in the method, let them implement the mechanics on a real project, then learn from them. Who should play what role? At what stage? What tools should be used to document deliverables? The lessons learned from this pilot project will enable faster, more effective deployment of the method later.
The second tip is to apply the method to the letter, right from the start. It's tempting to want to adapt it to your context, but this adaptation is more relevant later, when you've already discovered and observed the method's power.
The third tip is to be patient with yourself. The method seems simple, but it quickly exposes a team's weaknesses on one of the dimensions of discovery. It's normal to stumble on a particular deliverable at first. The important thing is to persist, precisely to improve on that deliverable, which will become easier to complete over time.
The Discovery Discipline training
Whether you're a Product Manager, Product Designer or Product Marketer, Thiga offers 100% hands-on Discovery Discipline training to teach you how to master the steps involved in identifying high-impact solutions.
F.O.C.U.S.E.D: a rapidly actionable method
This training course will give you all the tools you need to derisks your production costs. You'll identify the right problem and the right users more quickly, before launching the design of a product that delivers maximum value to your customers and in which you'll have full confidence.
A practice-oriented Discovery Discipline training
Here, practice is king! So yes, you'll be perfecting as many facets of Discovery as possible, but you'll also be able to benefit from our trainers' feedback on the method's implementation. We're convinced that this format and these shared experiences will have more impact in making the method easy for you to appropriate.
In short, Discovery Discipline's F.O.C.U.S.E.D method is:
- A succession of 7 steps, each of which offers a complementary look at the project.
- Activities designed to nurture divergence and energize exploitation.
- Deliverables to guide the convergence effort and pave the way for subsequent stages.
The 7 steps of the F.O.C.U.S.E.D method help us avoid falling into the trap of paralyzing analysis by making clear, rapid choices. They help us to focus on the most promising ideas, and not waste time on ideas that don't work. The method is designed to help you in your day-to-day work, not to give you strict instructions to follow. Feel free to adapt it to your context!
To go further: download our free book on Product organizations
