Products and services only extend or adapt existing behaviors. They don't grow from a blank slate; they gain traction with critical activities that users already perform. The question of product strategy isn’t "what do we build?" Rather, given your intent, it's "how do we shift these key behaviors from there to here?"
Awareness of users’ context and the critical factors that drive their behavior will remain durable for years of hypothesis-driven product delivery. Each subsequent delivery offers a chance to learn and course-correct. I work with teams who value the clarity and focus that this kind of contextual awareness offers. I prioritize visual expressions of situational awareness that can be debated, challenged, and updated along with our learning and delivery.
Primary ways to work together
- Product Consulting: We shape the best approach to a time-sensitive product challenge. I am an investigator and advisor, modeling out internal and external streams of activity. You gain direction, viable pathways, and critical sequences for action.
- Player-Coach Embed: We help a team engage the gameplay-strategy engine, learning to play one good move at a time and respond to the outcome. I am an embedded researcher, product coach, and prototyper or design advisor. You gain situational awareness, iterative delivery, and traction.
My context
I've been working inside product organizations since 2010, building research programs and product strategy into forward looking teams. I began consulting in 2020 to work on a larger, strategic scope of product delivery problems. I work with a handful of clients each year, and write about what I'm learning in the newsletter on this site. (See more about me, if you like.)
Explore your options
Email dave@davesresearch.com and tell me what you're seeing — I can tell you what I see, too. If you want help, and I can, I'll describe how that would work.
If I'm not the right person, I'll point you toward someone in my network who may be.
