Discovery Interview Prep vs Problem Statement Framework

Discovery Interview Prep

By Dean Peters (PM)

Plan customer interviews that uncover real problems instead of confirming your assumptions.

Problem Statement Framework

By Dean Peters (PM)

Frame customer problems with empathy and evidence before jumping to solutions.

Discovery Interview Prep

• Asks adaptive questions about your research goals, target customers, and constraints
• Recommends the right interview methodology based on your product stage and what you need to learn
• Generates a tailored question framework with bias warnings and success criteria
• Helps you avoid leading questions and confirmation bias during customer interviews
• Outputs a ready-to-use interview guide for qualitative customer research

Problem Statement Framework

• Guides you through a five-part narrative: who the user is, what they're trying to do, what's blocking them, why, and how it makes them feel
• Produces a single-sentence problem statement that teams can rally around
• Helps you avoid solution smuggling and ensures you're solving a problem worth solving
• Provides quality checks and examples to validate your problem framing with real users

Reach for Discovery Interview Prep when…

• You're validating a new product idea and need to confirm the problem is real
• You're investigating why customers are churning or not activating on key features
• You need to prepare for customer development interviews but aren't sure where to start
• You want to understand what jobs customers are trying to get done before building features

Reach for Problem Statement Framework when…

• You're kicking off discovery or user research and need to align the team on what problem you're solving
• Stakeholders are pushing for features but no one has articulated the underlying user problem
• You need to pitch why a problem is worth solving to engineering, design, or executives
• You're writing a PRD and want to start with a rock-solid problem definition