The double diamond framework. If you ship product, chances are this model is ingrained in your mind.

First, you find the right problem. Then, you solve the problem right. That’s all well and good — if you have the time to go through it all.

We’ve been experimenting with an approach that allows us to define a validated product with deep strategy and high-impact moments in as little as five weeks.

That’s significantly less time from start to MVP definition than would be possible with a double diamond design approach.

As Head of End to End Product Design and Product Director, here at MetaLab, we've been collaborating to refine this process for our teams.

Here are our learnings so far.

Breaking down double diamond design

When teams start new projects, they typically look for good frameworks to help guide them. For years, the double diamond process has felt like a natural jumping-off point.

Typically, the double diamond design process looks something like this:

1. Discover: the research and product management teams lead the product discovery phase, going deep to understand the user needs and business opportunities.
2. Define: then, they move into product definition — asking out of all these things — what are the true problems we need to solve.
3. Inflection: Once the problem space is defined and the vision and strategy are set, they define briefs to onboard designers.
4. Develop: Designers absorb the brief to get into the headspace of the problem, and focus on exploring solutions.
5. Deliver: The full team then hones in on the MVP and ships it.

In the “truest” model, research and product own the first diamond, while UX design and engineering wait until the strategy is set to jump in.

While people have been using this framework for years, we know that something happens when you wait to start solutioning so late in the game — you lose the potential for the magic.

We’re excited to be sharing an approach that we’ve been experimenting with that leaves room for magic, while still shipping a product efficiently and effectively.

What’s wrong with the double diamond process?

At face value: nothing.

The double diamond design process is a light risk approach that leads to useful and successful products.

Each team plays to its strengths and no time is wasted outside their discipline.

The core belief is that solutioners (eg: designers and engineers) must have a core list of problems to solve to make the most use of their time. These series of handoffs create a waterfall effect that is intended to mitigate risk and increase certainty.

The result: the product machine — product development that creates solutions.

It’s a process that works for many but falls short in three scenarios.

1. If you’re looking for a competitive edge
2. If you want to get to market quickly
3. If your team works best with tight collaboration and minimal silos

So we’ve broken the double diamond design process, and we think that’s a good thing.

Tinkering with the double diamond process

To understand why we started doing this, we have to look back in MetaLab history.

In the beginning, we were a small scrappy team trying things to see what would stick.

Designers weren’t waiting until the Discover phase of the diamond was complete, they were running the whole diamond.

Some would tell you this was a bad strategy but we struck gold — more than once. And each time we tried to add layers of creative process, and department isolation, we found we lost a bit of that.

What we discovered is that there’s real value in having designers involved from day 1 to capture those first bursts of creativity — unbiased, unconstrained.

When the problem isn’t fully defined yet, exploration naturally becomes extremely blue sky and sometimes super out there.

It’s what’s led to some of our most impactful work.

Our experimental approach

So our goal was to find a balance between creativity that comes from the truest of blue-sky thinking, while also delivering an impactful product with a solid strategy in an efficient and rapid manner.

Here’s what we’ve been experimenting with on select projects:

#1 Kickoff

To ensure we start on the same footing, we show up as a core cross-discipline team to client kickoff sessions, then regroup post-kickoff to define our ridiculously early hypotheses based on our collective learnings.

Why do we think we are here? Where do we think we should go?

We have some hunches, but everything is far from certain.

#2 Teams split up into focus areas

We recognize that we can unlock the true superpowers of our team by letting them go deep into what they are great at.

Our research and product team teams use the hypotheses to begin user research activities* to understand what should the product be based on user needs, business drivers, and the macro-landscape. They start defining a vision and strategy by identifying the true areas of opportunities and problems we must solve and possible solutions.

Note: it’s not a clean separation as we like our design teams to be present for live research sessions to grow empathy for the user.

At the same time, our design* team goes heads down into a broad concepting exercise known as Tarantinos. They immerse themselves in what they’ve learned and design an end-end product experience of what they think the product could be.

Note: when possible, our engineers love to get into this as well — creating proof of concepts and being part of the “art of the possible” conversations.

As the weeks progress, each team’s lips are sealed except for a few core individuals who are across the work. We do this to ensure the integrity of the thinking isn’t broken.

You might wonder — isn’t all the time apart potential waste? And yes, there is some waste but the way we think of it 90% is pure untapped opportunity. Consider the other 10% as an investment in creativity.

#3 Meet in the middle

After some time apart, our teams converge and present to each other. Our product managers and researchers show our initial product strategy and product objectives, and our designers present a product experience based on their understanding from kickoff.

This is where the magic happens.

Product managers can look at fully unconstrained design thinking and identify potential features and capabilities for the product that ladder up to each objective.

Designers can look at the strategy and have “ah-ha moments” on additional areas to explore or refine.

Through this approach, we’ve been able to come up with ideas for the product that we may never have if we started concepting with defined constraints and problem spaces. Features that we may never have deemed as aligning to the product suddenly were able to fit nicely into an objective and have a significant measurable impact on the product.

Those moments that come from the blue-sky thinking often can become differentiators for the product.

On the strategy side, the product vision or objectives may be refined and crystallized because of the way a designer interpreted the problem space.

#4 Shared definition of the foundational product

Then, our teams spend time together fleshing out a few details of the foundational product experience. This ensures that we have full alignment with our team and client on what the product might be. From there, we can rapidly pivot into identifying our MVP and delivering on it.

Compared to a traditional double-diamond framework, getting to this point after kickoff to the foundational product experience and MVP is extremely rapid. In one of our projects, we’ve been able to do this as quickly as 3 weeks.

The reason is that we aren’t spending time first getting alignment on the strategy, then briefing the team, then reviewing concepts, then defining the core product experience. We stack activities in a way that unlocks creativity and realization of what the product is.

With our strategy and potential solutions developed simultaneously, we’re able to rapidly prioritize an MVP with true differentiation and opportunity for our client.

Results that Matter

So far, our clients love this take on the double diamond approach. They get to see results and differentiated ideas quickly.

As nice as a strategy presentation might be, there’s power in combining words with compelling design. It allows clients to visually see what they’re agreeing to when asked to make decisions about their strategy.

They’re able to get a sense of the end-end product experience that could come from the intersection of strategy and concepting work so far. This makes them more confident in what they are agreeing to when prioritizing an MVP

It motivates our teams as well.

Our designers feel like they are truly part of the “shaping and definition” process.

Researchers, engineers, and product managers can rapidly ground their work and realize the innovation of our design team.

It’s a win-win on all fronts.

Where we’ll continue to explore

Like any good cross-discipline product team, we’re always learning and never done. As this model is still a work in progress, you’ll need to consider the following as you put it into practice:

Experiment to find the right balance of technical exploration versus technical build in the process

Typically, technical discovery would be concurrent to the activities above, but some engineering teams (like ours) might like to be part of the unconstrained explorations on what the product could be. Building the product and getting to market is critical. Experiment to find the best time for engineers to get involved in both areas.

Work to remove bias from ridiculously early hypotheses

While ridiculously early hypotheses are intended to be initial stakes in the ground that should be challenged and tested, it’s important to recognize they might unintentionally introduce bias in research synthesis and product discovery.

To mitigate this, you’ll need to actively train your team members on how to keep using the hypotheses as foundational inspiration, but to also continue to challenge and evolve them along the way.

Hedge against the tantalizing nature of Tarantinos

There is a danger to Tarantino work as clients can become enamored by this work. We’ve had some reference early design ideation further into our design sprints. For this reason, try to be super intentional with how you communicate and share this work.

Know the model may shift when the project warrants more certainty vs. more blue-sky thinking

There may be situations where you put more weight on strategy-oriented activities vs. generative thinking depending on you initial hypotheses or where your teams think you should focus. Use this model as a guide but know it can flex and shift based on the needs of your product.

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Now that you have a strategy and your differentiators in place, it’s time to draft the entire product experience into a single document. This is a key step in the product lifecycle called product definition. 

One of the key deliverables that comes out of the product definition is the product blueprint. Your product blueprint allows you to visualize the entire product service on one page. This helps manage its complexity, including the actions and touchpoints of all the actors, key features, technical dependencies, and operational requirements.

Behind the scenes, there are several key assets that power this product blueprint: 

This view helps to ensure your team is aligned on the critical pieces of success.

That being said, it’s easy to go overboard with product blueprints, so don’t boil the ocean! Focus on the few critical features and components that will make a big impact for your customers.

Remember to trust in yourself and the research that has been done. Your customers don't always know what the right solution is for their wants and needs. That's why it's your job to consider their needs in the context of your product's potential and develop an appropriate blueprint that can scale in the future.

We saw earlier that you’re going to be spending the majority of your time in the product definition/design, testing, and build phases, which means you need a talented team of skilled makers. 

This may seem obvious, but when building the right team with the right chemistry within your budget, there are a lot of factors to consider. How long will it take for the team to gel? Do you stick with who you have? When should you contract vs. hire?

Too often, we see companies spend big budgets hiring a ton of great developers and designers. They throw them onto a project expecting the product will be delivered fast only to find the team isn’t hitting their milestones. Why? 

Teams typically struggle to get going immediately because of differing working styles, personalities, mindsets, and honestly… sometimes ego. That’s why you shouldn’t focus on individual hires but on the team as a whole.

If you have time, budget, and desire to invest in the future culture of your company, you have to invest time to build the team dynamics. We find that it typically takes 4-5 sprints for a team to find its groove — approximately four months, or more.

If you are an early stage startup, and don’t have a lot of time (six months or less), but still want to get a product out there quickly, we recommend hiring a pre-built team of skilled makers who have launched several products together. 

The key takeaway is to not waste all of your time and money hiring. Building a successful team takes time and cycles of members working together to hit their stride. When necessary, augment with experts to help your team grow, add a skill, or just simply to outsource a function. It ultimately comes down to how you want to allocate your resources.

Don’t reinvent the wheel… and don’t build everything from scratch! Accelerators are existing tools and technologies you can leverage or integrate into your product.

Some of the tools that we use to help accelerate the design process to create and test out designs, concepts, and prototypes with users include Figma, Framer.io, and even Typeform.

For development, we use many different tools and platforms on our projects to help accelerate the product development lifecycle and build products that can scale to meet customer demand.  Several of the most popular and impactful integrations and platforms used by our teams include:

AI is everywhere these days for a reason. It’s powering brand new ways to get work done and being incorporated into almost every tool we already use to make workflows easier. From content creation to scheduling, we are seeing tools popping up for everything. Here are a few that can help accelerate product development:

There are important considerations to keep in mind when using any AI tool in a responsible way. Sensitivity of data uploaded into any of these systems and the originality of the content is a big one.

Policies and regulation with AI are still being figured out, so it’s wise to exercise caution when setting guidelines for your product teams. Leverage these tools as inspiration or starting points for copy, as pieces of a larger composite for images, or to get as specific as possible with prompts in order to generate something unique.

Product development succeeds when teams develop a culture of continuous learning. This is fueled by rigorous testing, analytics, and strategic iteration during key phases of the product lifecycle.

In the discovery phase, we immerse ourselves in understanding our potential early adopters' needs and motivations (see #validators). Alongside this, we work with clients to think through solid analytics strategies. This step instills a data-centric culture from the start, setting the stage for ongoing learning and adaptation. 

By aligning qualitative user insights with a framework for quantitative data capture, we ensure the product strategy we craft will continually evolve to meet user needs.

As we pivot to the alpha and beta stages, the emphasis turns to iterative improvement. We engage early adopters in testing programs. Their first-hand experiences provides invaluable feedback to detect bugs and potential enhancements. 

This feedback, bolstered by real-time analytics data, drives our evidence-based refinement process, prepping the product to be market-fit.

By investing in this cycle of continuous learning — persistent testing, data-informed analytics, and strategic iteration — we embrace a user-centric ethos in product development. This equips our clients to not just navigate, but also thrive.

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When Ravi Mehta (former CPO at Tinder/Product Director at Facebook) was working on the first iteration of his personalized coaching product, he validated it quickly with a paid offering he pieced together with a number of low-code tools.

Leveraging learnings from a community of early adopters, he partnered with MetaLab to help enhance, refine, and evolve the product into the Outpace app.

Outpace launched earlier this year. It provides guided programs for personalized career development designed to level up with the support of a one-on-one AI coach.

We are in a post-WeWork/Theranos era of founders promising growth without showing any profit. You need to ask yourself "What do we need to show investors?" Users are great, but how is this actually going to make money?

You have to show real numbers and an actionable monetization strategy. This means outlining your marketing and growth strategies — and the mechanisms that will bring in not only revenue but profit.

Revenue strategies can vary greatly, but the following are a few of the most common buckets of digital product monetization mechanisms:

There are many ways to monetize a product, and this is by no means an exhaustive list. The right way is the one that will resonate with your audience, so feel free to experiment and be flexible when choosing a strategy.

We’ve been supporting Modular with the release of their new AI platform and product offerings. Early in our engagement, they asked us to design a marketing site to help them grow and segment their sales pipeline. This allowed them better understand, and target, existing and potential users. We took those early learnings to ensure the product landed with their audience and supported their revenue targets.

The product lifecycle doesn’t end with a launch, it goes far beyond. Once you begin to get a better understanding of your customers and their purchase behaviours, it’s vital to adapt, being flexible with pricing, monetization strategies, and identifying unexpected revenue drivers. 

For example, you may see that your primary offering for your SaaS tool is slowly gaining traction, but over and over customers are requesting access to an API for a specific data flow. You may be sitting on a large additional untapped revenue stream and there could be more. Meet your customers where they are!

It helps to consult the people who’ve been there before. There are a million people on LinkedIn who are trying to sell you a service or product that you may not need. There are critical steps that could cost you if you miss them. There are shortcuts you may not even know exist. Trusted advisors can help you navigate this and more. There is just no substitute for experience.

Find seasoned product leaders, designers, or engineers who have launched products in the past and will be familiar with the nitty-gritty details. They will have the perspective to help you find the forest through the trees. You want people on your side who can make sure you are spending your time, efforts, and money on the right things.

These are the Product Survival Kit items that we recommend to anyone who is creating and launching a product in today's climate. It's a mix of techniques, processes, people, actions and tools that we've seen provide success to many of our clients, colleagues and partners out there. But remember — each product is different, so find the mix that worst best for you. 

It may seem daunting but it is possible to successfully bring your idea or product concept to life today.  This may even be the right moment to go after it. Companies who launch useful and impactful products during economic downturns have a history of surviving and thriving. The next one could be you.