Product in Practice: One Product Manager’s Quest to Adopt Continuous Discovery at Her Company

Teresa Torres profiles Bianca Starling, a senior product manager at Voxy, who adopted continuous discovery habits by starting with a small, time-boxed MVP rather than overhauling the whole product organization. She built a personal OKR, ran a one-quarter experiment with a product trio, recruited learners through an in-app guide, interviewed eight of them weekly, and mapped opportunities into an opportunity solution tree. Three quick experiments produced concrete evidence, which persuaded leadership to roll the practice out to other teams. The story argues that showing results beats persuasion, and that small wins build the momentum needed for bigger change.

01Key takeaways

• Pilot continuous discovery with a small, time-boxed experiment before asking for organization-wide change.
• Tie existing team goals to the framework to surface opportunities to adopt it without asking for new budget.
• Frame the ask around low time cost: a weekly interview is small compared with the insight it produces.
• Show concrete results to stakeholders, since evidence persuades more reliably than explanation.
• Lead the first customer interview yourself to make the practice feel approachable for hesitant trio members.
• Use in-product guides to recruit participants; learners often eagerly volunteer when invited.

02Key sections

Start small with an MVP

Large adoption goals feel daunting, so breaking continuous discovery into small pieces makes buy-in easier and creates early wins. Bianca chose to pilot the practice rather than transform the whole organization.

Championing the practice

Bianca repeatedly tied team conversations back to the framework until people came to expect her references. When progress stalled, she turned her advocacy into a personal OKR with her VP's approval.

Running the quarter-long experiment

A trio ran weekly customer interviews, rotated interviewer and note-taker roles, built an opportunity solution tree on engagement, and tested assumptions with lightweight prototypes and surveys. One test showed 90% of learners were more willing to join a class taught in their native language.

Results and rollout

Evidence from the experiments impressed leadership, and the manager asked Bianca to roll the practice out to every team as a team OKR. She began coaching other trios on recruiting and interviewing.

Lessons learned

Bianca stresses persistence, leading the first interview to lower the barrier for hesitant teammates, and learning alongside peers in structured courses.

03From the post

“Adopting continuous discovery can feel like a big, audacious goal. If you’ve never spoken with a customer, how will you be able to set up interviews every single week? If you don’t currently work in a product trio at all, how will you be able to work and”

04Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.