Great!
Let’s walk through a real-world product discovery case in the Banking & Financial Services
(BFSI) space — tailored to your domain of Commercial Lending or Trade Platforms.
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🧾 Scenario: Commercial Lending – Loan Origination Process Is Too Slow
🎯 Business Goal:
Reduce average commercial loan origination time from 20 days to under 10 days, to improve client
satisfaction and increase loan volumes.
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🧭 Step-by-Step Discovery Process
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1. Define Objectives & Success Metrics
Business Metric:
Reduce loan origination time by 50%
Increase Net Promoter Score (NPS) by 10 points
User Metric:
90% of Relationship Managers (RMs) find the new workflow easier
Reduction in manual document collection steps
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2. Stakeholder Interviews
You meet with:
Relationship Managers (RMs) – complain that credit approval takes too long.
Credit Analysts – struggle due to incomplete customer data.
Operations Team – say document collection is manual and error-prone.
Compliance Team – need more visibility into client risk scoring.
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3. User Research & Journey Mapping
You shadow 5 RMs and credit officers. Common pain points identified:
Customers submit documents via email or in-person
Data entry is duplicated in multiple internal systems
Risk score calculation is opaque and manual
Create a User Journey Map showing:
Steps from loan request → underwriting → approval → disbursal
Identify bottlenecks, delays, handoff issues
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4. Problem Framing
Key problem statements:
"RMs spend 3–4 hours per application chasing documentation."
"There’s no real-time status tracker for customers."
"Internal teams re-enter the same data 2–3 times."
Reframed into “How Might We” (HMW) questions:
HMW reduce manual document collection?
HMW automate borrower data validation?
HMW improve transparency of loan status?
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5. Ideation & Hypothesis Generation
Workshop with Product, Tech, Ops, and UX.
Ideas:
A digital borrower portal to upload and track documents
API integration with credit bureaus and KYC services
Pre-approval engine based on pre-fed eligibility rules
Hypothesis Example:
> We believe that adding a self-service document upload and KYC flow will reduce RM effort by 50%
and shorten loan processing time.
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6. Prototyping
Create:
Figma mockup of borrower portal (dashboard + doc upload)
Workflow diagram for RM dashboard showing borrower status
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7. Validation with Users
8 RMs test the prototype → feedback: “Big improvement, but want SMS/email updates for clients.”
5 borrowers test → like the dashboard, suggest checklist for required docs.
You run a fake door test in the current system: “Try our new instant document upload!” – 65%
click-through indicates strong interest.
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8. Prioritization
Using RICE framework:
Idea Reach ImpactConfidence Effort RICE Score
Digital borrower portalHigh High Medium High 80
Auto risk scoring engine Medium High Low High 40
RM dashboard + alerts High Medium High Medium 90
You choose to build the RM dashboard first, followed by the borrower portal.
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9. Alignment & Roadmap
Present validated ideas, mockups, and user quotes to business heads
Define MVP scope with Tech: dashboard, upload feature, status tracker
Engineering estimates 2 sprints → ready to move to Delivery track
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✅ Outcome of Discovery
Clear understanding of pain points (document handling, visibility)
Validated ideas (RM dashboard, borrower portal)
Prioritized solutions aligned with both user and business needs
Team alignment across Ops, Risk, and Tech
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📌 Summary: Discovery Principles in Action
Principle Real-World Action
Understand users deeply Shadowed RMs, did borrower interviews
Focus on problems, not features Framed challenges as “How Might We” questions
Validate before building Fake door + prototyping with feedback
Collaborate widely Included Ops, Risk, Tech, and Front Office
Reduce risk early Validated solution before investing in engineering time
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If you want, I can also turn this into a 1-pager PDF case study or LinkedIn post template — just say
the word!
