March 2023: What can we learn from a 2 minute TikTok video

Last week I ran a training session I had put together over a couple of weeks. In training design, I try and take inspiration from various different places to make things more engaging. To that end, a recent popular TikTok video about a person who makes a home for a frog living in their fence sprang to mind.

Why? Have a look here

When I watched this video it amused me. But more than that, the frog house creator has an idea, validates it, iterates on it and creates a whole ecosystem which I believe is far beyond the original intent.

Analogies are a great way of helping people connect theory to practice.

I realised it served as a parallelism for modern software development, specifically- Discovery.

The idea:

With the frog living in the fence, the assumption is that the frog will sit in the little house. This is tested by creating the first simple test that fits in to the fence post. It takes a week but the assumption is validated!

Iterations and stakeholder input

There's no shortage of ideas from the audience (consider the audience -> stakeholders) as we see a stream of different product ideas that might add value.

Know your customer

In product development there is a real risk of building the wrong thing. The possum was perceived to be a threat and an emergency cave was built. The possum turns out to be a friend to the frog(s) not a predator, this part of the product is waste.

Product market fit

Product market fit can be described as the degree to which a product satisfies market demand. One question to answer might be "is the product creating organic growth?" With the frogs making a home not just for themselves but a host of offspring and other animals, the frog house certainly achieves this.

What next with this product?

Could we see a version of then frog house in store near you? T-shirts, tote bags?

I may have just taken something fun and made it boring, but either way we can find analogies in many places to refer to our work and tell stories, and whilst only a mere 2 minutes, this video tells a great story on product development.