Hi folks! Building platform (IDP) as a product is a new challenge for me. I'm working on a roadmap and release planning of our IDP and it's being a bit hard for me to validate "the right problems". Someone are using discovery methodologies (like lean inception) for help in definition of TVP, roadmap and next releases?

IMO, First step would be to identify your users. There may be multiple - application developers, platform engineers, SRE. Interview them, find pain points, then write out use cases for them all. then prioritize.

It's tough. I'm not sure how we can help because there is probably some strategic information that help you build. A Wardley map or a mind map/conception map can explain what you're trying to do.

I'm working as a member of platform team. We have an idea of what we need to do, but this idea was not validated with the users (developers and SRE). I'd like to invite users to collaborate and collect their ideas to validate if we are going to the right direction.

Makes sense. Feedback I've received is that your executives/VPs might have different needs than the usual engineers and that might be difficult or maybe its for you 😉

I’d also throw the “jobs to be done” model into the ring, especially for needs that are highly situational (e.g. during a production incident) - GitLab has a guide that includes at least one concrete exercise. I’ve found that internal customers are especially prone to jump to solutions when describing their problem, JTBD can help untangle the mess.

Inspired by https://martinfowler.com/articles/building-infrastructure-platform.html , we also chose developer team interviews for the start. We sketched out classic development steps in a Miro board and collected current pain points & wishes for a future platform. With this and some given strategic goals we developed an MVP-Scope that we again challenged and alligned with those teams.

1. Find out who you are building for (what personas are being served and what value are they looking for (eg. Dev wants to deploy fast, Compliance officer want certain things to be logged, Management wants to see what is running etc. etc.)). 2. Once you have an idea of your personas, you can create a Value Proposition Canvas to have a structured way of noting pains, gains and jobs-to-be-done of your users, and a way to map how your product will address your users’ needs. 3. Validate the Value Proposition Canvas with your users so that they can say whether the value proposition actually adds value for them. 4. Keep re-evaluating the Canvas as your product and/or users (needs) evolve. https://www.strategyzer.com/canvas/value-proposition-canvas

Thanks, everyone! I'll check all the content shared here.

Very valuable thread here. For many of us working in technology and product management, it is important to have strong grounds into research and data driven development. I find interesting to learn how Product Managers initiate the collection of interviews to even discover that they needed an IDP. Defining the problem is crucial when such investment is required from enterprises.