Sean Horgan

Product & Design

Product & Design

Distilled from Product & Design Fundamentals

When to use

Activate when working on product discovery, design reviews, prioritization, roadmap planning, or evaluating product-market fit.

Rubric — five product capabilities

1. Keeper of the vision

Articulate why the product needs to exist. Use this vision template:

  • For (target customer) who (statement of need/opportunity)
  • The (product name) is a (product category)
  • That (key benefit, compelling reason to buy)
  • Unlike (primary competitive alternative)
  • Our product (statement of primary differentiation)

2. Strong product intuition

Intuition is compressed experience (Thomas Davenport). It adds value to user research and design — it doesn’t replace them. Build intuition through direct exposure to users, competitive products, and adjacent markets.

3. User-centered design

Understand user pain points, prototype solutions, validate assumptions. Use the Double Diamond (diverge → converge → diverge → converge). Consider Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics.

4. Instrument and iterate

Measure success through both quantitative and qualitative signals. Test product-market fit rigorously (Superhuman’s PMF framework). Don’t ship and forget.

5. Outcomes over outputs

Prioritize what the product achieves, not what it ships. Use OKRs, Working Backwards (Amazon PR/FAQ), or GIST framework. Avoid MoSCoW unless the org requires it.

Key frameworks for prioritization

  • RICE — Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort
  • Kano model — Must-be, One-dimensional, Attractive, Indifferent, Reverse
  • BLAC — Blatant, Latent, Aspirational, Critical (Skok’s value proposition)
  • Mission command — set clear intent, let teams decide how to execute

Four big risks (Marty Cagan / SVPG)

  1. Value risk — will customers buy it or choose to use it?
  2. Usability risk — can users figure out how to use it?
  3. Feasibility risk — can engineering build it with available time, skills, technology?
  4. Business viability risk — does it work for the business?

Actions

  • When reviewing a product proposal, check that all four risks are addressed.
  • When prioritizing, require the PM to state which framework they’re using and why.
  • Always ask: are we optimizing for outcomes or outputs?

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