01.5.6 · Skill in Opportunity validation
Concierge and Wizard of Oz tests
Delivering the service by hand before automating it.
In a concierge test you do the work manually for a few customers. In a Wizard of Oz test users see a product while a person works behind it. Both reveal what the solution must do before any automation is built, which saves engineering time.
Resources
2- articleStart hereTwo MVPs every product manager should know, and how to tell them apart ↗Mind the Product · 2026 · 8 min
The difference between a concierge test, where customers know it is manual, and a Wizard of Oz test, where they do not.
- articleStart hereConcierge testing versus Wizard of Oz prototyping: what to choose? ↗Netguru · 2021 · 10 min
When each manual test fits, with examples of products that started this way.
Tools
none yetTools for this topic are being researched.