How can you find the best online resources and communities for Product R&D tools?

I have been heavily depending on Facebook Communities and the Reddit communities for feedbacks, knowledge and fruitful discussion. In my 9 years of journey, these communities on Facebook and reddit have been very helpful. One of the reason is that they are always built around a specific niche and is always vetted properly due to community guidelines.

Getting your needs defined and locked down can be a tricky job! In my experience your R&D tool needs are heavily tied to your actual product needs. Software, physical or combination products need tools that compliment existing workflows. Identify the needs at each point of the development path and specify how to meet them. Having this level of clarity will make it much easier to identify which tools, information, skills and communities are a good fit for your R&D journey!

Reviews and discussions are an important starting point for assessment but shouldn’t be where decisions come from in this instance. Use them to identify two or three leading options and then find walkthroughs / tutorial videos for those platforms and watch those. This will give you a level of insight much deeper than reviews (remember, you don’t know the use case or seniority of reviewers most of the time). After that, see if the platforms actually offers trials where you can test them. If so, jump in. Now you’ve gone deep and completed thorough due diligence. You’re now in a position to choose without so many of the risks and assumptions that you would have had from relying on reviews alone.

When discussing with others keep in mind that their evaluation of a tool will be a reflection of their own needs. Try to eliminate bias by asking questions about their product R&D workflow, as it may differ from your own!

Eliminate Bias: During the research and evaluation phases, be very conscious of how your own biases may drive your decisions. The biases could be formed due to seeing a particular option first (or last), the volume as opposed to the quality of the content, or even geographical or human factors. Be sure to validate your decision with diverse group of individuals such that you are making a choice not influenced by such biases.

Finding a fascinating idea is just the genesis. The real magic lies in interpolating such ideas and steering the research outcomes to solve practical problems. What I find an excellent skill to have is, formulating a recipe during casual conversations with peers and customers. But, to make it a reality, we need a team & a collaborative mindset that harmonizes with the ideas, shares similar goals, aligns with the roadmap, constructively criticizes, and suggests making it better to assimilate research into solutions.