Product Discovery Research Plan Template

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A template for summarizing and communicating the research plan for Product Discovery.

Product Discovery | Research Plan Template

This is a template for summarising and planning out my research activities in discovery 👉 🔗 Product Discovery Research Plan Template.

This template is completely free to use, copy it and adapt it to your needs.

It is the one that I developed whilst being a product manager and after using it as an example with many of my clients I decided to make it available to all 🙌

The template contains a few sections:

🔨Problem Statement

How Might We.....

💡Hypothesis

We believe that…….
For …….
Will ……

💻Background/Context

What is the background or context on the opportunity?

🎯Target Market Segment

e.g.
Geo location: APAC, Europe and North America
Org size: Scale Ups, SME and Larget Enterprises
Who: Product Leaders (Group PM → CPO)

📣Stakeholders

See Stakeholder Map Template.

🧪Assumptions to test

Assumption Status How we intend to test it Findings Notes
Assumption 1 Completed Customer interviews Invalid Customers do not experience this problem on a regular basis
Assumption 2 Todo Card Sorting






❌High Important/Unknown Assumptions not being tested

Assumption 1
Assumption 2
……

🎙 Interview Guide

Assumption  Interview Question Response







📝 Survey Guide

Assumption Survey Question Response




📱Prototype Guide

Assumption Test By (Prototype Feature)

 [How are you intending to test this assumption in the prototye?]

High level Scope

What will be in the prototype? What will NOT be in the prototype?

High Level Wireframes / Story Board

[insert any sketches or thoughts on what the prototype might look like. These might be wireframes or as a story board or any other format]

User Testing

[How do you intend to test the prototype? In this section you may also include logistics and/or a discussion guide for the user testing.]
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The sections, Interview Guide, Survey Guide and Prototype Guide, are optional based on your needs.

In other words, use them only when you are going to interview customers as part of your plan, or when you are going to build a prototype, etc.

Finally, this template is not a replacement for important steps within discovery, like framing your problem statement, defining your target market or assumptions mapping.

Rather, it’s designed to be a summary/brief on why, what and how you intend to carry out your discovery activities.

For me, this template sits after I’ve defined the problem/opportunity and once I’ve also prioritised my riskiest assumptions to test.

This then becomes my summary on what I intend to test and how I intend to test them. For more on the steps leading up to this, you can read about how I approach kicking of discovery here.

I hope you find this useful! 🙌
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