The basis of any product is the customer’s pain point. Great products solve scalable problems in an efficient way. This is achieved when the customer needs and product requirements are addressed successfully. And both have to be given their own due respect while building products. The problem space and the solution space must be separated to clearly understand the customer needs and product requirements.
Problem space – the Why
Every individuals or group of individuals have a variety of problems. A market is a set of all the individuals or groups having the same problem. This can be further segmented into different groups on the basis of various parameters like industries, age, gender, etc. This is where the problem space is. Learning more about the users and their problems. According to the Lean Product Playbook, you cannot control the market. You cannot change the needs of the people. What you can control is the solutions that you want to provide for one or more problems. The problem space does not involve any designs or mocks or MVPs. A strong problem space is the base of a strong solution space.
Solution space – the How
Solution space is the actual implementation to solve a problem of any kind – an MVP, prototype, or wireframe. Unlike the problem space, this is a more controllable unit. For a given pain point, there can be a number of solutions that can be built. It depends upon factors such as cost, quality, time, and resources for which solution to be built.
Why focus on the problem space?
What is the significance of the product if it is not solving a crucial pain point? Building a solution is a costly affair. Though a skill of huge patience and takes a lot of time, identifying appropriate pain points and the users, to build a product is relatively less costly as it won’t directly involve material costs. Especially during the early phase of a product, more emphasis has to be given to the problem space.
Simply put – when you do not get the knowledge of the appropriate problem to solve, it will end up in a solution that no one might want.
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