Specworks

Notes on product work, from discovery to delivery

How teams decide what is worth building, and how they build it without losing the reason they started. Short, practical notes that follow the product cycle step by step.

Discovery

Deciding what is worth building

  1. Product discovery, end to end

    What discovery is for, the stages it usually goes through, and how to tell when it is done.

  2. Outcomes, not features

    Framing discovery around a measurable change in behaviour rather than a list of features.

  3. Customer interviews that teach you something

    Recruiting the right people, asking about past behaviour rather than opinions, and making the results usable.

  4. Mapping opportunities

    Turning research into a structured map of needs and pain points, and choosing which one to work on.

  5. Testing assumptions before you build

    Listing what has to be true for an idea to work, and testing the riskiest parts cheaply.

Delivery

Building it, shipping it, finding out if it worked

  1. Product delivery, end to end

    The stages between a validated idea and something people use, and where they usually go wrong.

  2. Writing the spec

    Goal, scope, requirements and acceptance criteria: turning a discovery decision into buildable work.

  3. Slicing the work

    Cutting a feature into thin, releasable pieces, with story mapping as a starting point.

  4. Releasing and measuring

    Feature flags, staged rollouts, deciding what success looks like in advance, and closing the loop.

… and then back to discovery with what you learned. New here? Start with Product discovery, end to end.