I had mentioned before that the product development is all about finding the right problem and the adequate solution to that problem. To develop the right product, we need to have the vision and the need for a solution.
There is no easy guideline on how to do it, since the conditions for the discovery can vary a lot. There are many ways requirements are gathered. There are some collected via user research (interviews, surveys, etc.), some are spotted when people use the product and give feedback, some are gathered from market research, some others are just pushed by stakeholders.
Of the few mentioned above, hopefully the direct push of “perceived request” by stakeholders should not be the one to dictate the product. There are many reasons why it cannot work. Firstly, a single person can only have a limited perspective towards the product and probably interested only in certain parts of the product and do not care about anything else. Secondly, the requirements coming from stakeholders are not thoroughly thought out but rather based on the most recent experience. Thirdly, the interest in the product can be due to different reasons, such as wanting to push this as their solution, or pressure some others, and so on. So, it won’t be objective and robust set of requirements if it comes only from a single homogeneous stakeholder thoughts.
There is only one way to solve it. Spening more time to talk to more people on a regular basis. Having a log of incomming feedback from different channels does help to receive the needs of the people. Then those feedback have to be categorized and prioritized using a prioritization technique. As soon as a solution is identified, it has to be developed and tested as soon as possible. That makes the difference. Shipping fast and receiving feedback is the game changer.