Implement Hypothesis-Driven Development to Optimise Your Business’ ROI

You might be wondering what exactly is Hypothesis-driven development and how it can help you optimise your business’ ROI. But believe me,  it’s a method that can amend the way your team looks, develops, tests, and rebuild software for your end-users. 

What is Hypothesis-Driven Development?

A software product development cycle is quite simple and straightforward, or so as we think. However, developing products as per the amending demands of the customers is not a walk in the park.

The team mostly doesn’t have a clear understanding of the customer’s experience, so they start experimenting on new product attributes blindfolded.

In the initial stage, the planning and software product development team might not have a valid and assured idea pertaining to consumer requirements. Historical data, numbers and consumer behaviour might be affected by the audience, time and other related factors.

Hypothesis-Driven development for products helps to eliminate these uncertainties as and when the project progresses. Hypothesis-Driven Development demands developers to continuously evolve and rapidly change their plans as per the changing times and needs of the end-users.

This is where the Hypothesis-Driven Development process comes into the picture.

HDD or Hypothesis-Driven Development is a widely used methodology that focuses on the software product development process. It primarily aims to develop, test and rebuild software with hard facts and research.

It’s a process that conveniently eliminates gut feeling and promotes a data-driven hypothesis that is validated for the end-users.

Hypothesis Statement

Once you correctly understand a hypothesis statement, you’ll be able to recognise where your team is going wrong in setting a hypothesis for product development.

A hypothesis statement consists of three parts:-

• Function
• Outcome
• Measurable condition

An example for the same can be:-

Inserting a free trial option inside the application will result in increased subscriptions, which can be measured by the number of clicks for the free trial option.

In this statement,

• The free trial option is the function that is required to be added to the application.
• Increased subscriptions are the outcome of adding the requirement.
• The number of clicks is the measurable condition that will inform whether the function worked well for the end-users.

A hypothesis always contains a measurable metric that ensures we know whether we are on the right path or we are off track.

Hypothesis Vs Requirements

Software product development services providers are now learning to use Hypothesis instead of requirements to develop products. But the question is what is the difference between Hypothesis and Requirement? How is it changing the landscape of businesses?

While requirements mostly are a specification of a product that needs to be built, developed and delivered to the end-users, Hypothesis are conjecturing that need to be proven through several hit and trial methods. As a hypothesis fail or go in the opposite direction, developers pivot and change their course of action to achieve the hypothesis or eliminate the hypothesis completely.

Requirements, at a point in time, slow down the growth of the developers. But Hypothesis ensures steady growth and development of the developers.

In short, for your team of developers to deliver software products at the speed of the customer demand, they need to hypothesise and make data-driven decisions.

Now you would be thinking how can we know if the hypothesis were proven to be beneficial? This is where it’s essential to read vanity and actionable metrics.

Metrics Matters

When you release a product for your end-users, you tend to wait for results to pour in, primarily to understand the reaction of the users and what attributes of your product worked well for them.

While some metrics offer you insights regarding your campaign and product launch, some metrics offer you feel-good results. Vanity Metrics give a feel-good result, wherein, you know that you are doing good, but you aren’t aware of what is it that’s working well for your business. This reduces your chances of maintaining success in the long term.

On the other hand, Actionable metrics offers you an in-depth result along with the details that are required to analyse your company’s or product’s failure or success.

For example, you know that your software product is selling and people are liking it, but you aren’t aware of what is it that they are liking. Hence, the metrics that you are using to measure success is a complete waste. However, if your metrics tell you which industry is buying your software and which particular attributes are working well for them, you’ll be able to focus your attention on them.

Hence, it’s important to focus more on Actionable metrics instead of Vanity metrics.

Key Steps to Follow for Product Development Via HDD

 

How Can Hypothesis-Driven Product Development Help Employees?

A hypothesis is set for two common reasons:-

• To know whether the team understands the reason behind the product development and addition of attributes, and
• To learn the tricks of development while offering end-users a product that works well with the growing demands of the customers.

Once your developers commence understanding the reason behind the hypothesis-driven development, they will bag several learning opportunities for themselves. Even if they aren’t able to prove a particular hypothesis, they will come across major insights that can be used in another hypothesis.

Businesses need to inculcate the importance of experimentation in the employees to help them develop and aid the product or software to reach its peak with new attributes and dispositions.

Working Procedure of Hypothesis-Driven Product Development

The Project We Worked On

We have worked on several projects while following the Hypothesis-Driven development criteria. However, one project that was challenging yet fruitful for our client was identifying the issues behind stagnant customer reach and low sales online.

Client Introduction: Our client is a Jewellery designer who designs exclusive jewellery designs for his customers offline. He came to us with a motive to be a part of the online market.

We developed an app as per his requirement successfully displaying his jewellery designs through High Definition images and creative content that emphasised the beauty of the designs in detail.

During the development of the application, our team of developers defined the hypothesis or problem statement to understand the issues that could arise in the app.

Problem Statement: What our designers and developers hypothesised was that the application might not gain satisfying online sales and a loyal customer base in the near future due to the missing attributes.

Missing Attributes: After studying the problem statement, our team came to the conclusion that:-

• The app will require to build a trust factor for its potential customers.
• A customisation tool to order personalised jewellery will be required.
• The image quality of the jewellery would be a prerequisite for customers to clearly view the designs.

Hypothesis: After brainstorming with the team of designers and developers we came up with relevant solutions and a plan of action including:-

• Required Action: The plan was to add a separate customisation tool for people who wanted personalised jewellery along with a final bill calculator, an at-home trial option to build trust between the customers and the designer and enhance the image resolution for easy zoom in and zoom out.
• Expected Outcome: An increased number of visitors and sales on the app.
• Measurable Condition: The number of clicks for jewellery customisation and the at-home trial button will be the measurable metrics to understand whether the hypothesis is approved or disapproved.

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Analysing the Result

After performing the actions and measuring the actionable metrics, we found better results for the clients. The hypothesis was approved and was ready to be implemented live on the app.

Did it Work?

Well, yes the addition of features and our hypothesis matched the demand of the customers.

 

• The at-home trial option will help to build trust and get a 45% loyal customer base for the client.
• Customisation of jewellery will aid in increasing sales by 55%
• Enhanced image resolution will increase the number of customers who switched through the product options.

Our Insights

Hypothesis-driven development will enable you to work with the right attributes for the success of the projects. Instead of working on mere assumptions while offering software product development services, commence working with user data which will further help you launch a project that would be relevant in the market.