Y Oslo 2024: When It Comes to Discovery, Something is Better Than Nothing

Teresa Torres recaps her talk and fireside chat at Y Oslo 2024 on continuous discovery. She argues discovery is a team activity involving engineers, designers and PMs, that teams should start with the smallest possible habit rather than adopting everything at once, and that 'something is better than nothing.' She explains the opportunity solution tree as a way to link outcomes, customer opportunities and tested solutions, and recommends weekly customer touchpoints run by the whole product trio. The piece also covers structuring interview insights via story-based mapping, automating customer recruitment, handling stakeholder requests with context, and cautious use of generative AI in synthesis.

01Key takeaways

• Discovery should be a cross-functional activity, with engineers, designers and PMs all hearing customer interviews directly.
• Start with the smallest habit, such as one 20-30 minute weekly customer conversation, and build from there.
• Structure interview insights around key moments in customers' stories before grouping opportunities, to avoid an unwieldy tree.
• Automate customer recruiting with opt-in prompts, triggers from customer-facing teams, or design partners so interviews stay on the calendar.
• When a feature request arrives, interview to learn the context behind it before choosing a solution.
• Use generative AI as a second perspective on synthesis, but do the core analysis yourself and anonymize customer data.

02Key sections

Discovery as a team sport

Torres stresses that discovery belongs to everyone building the product, not just PMs or UX, and draws on her varied career as engineer, designer and PM.

Continuous discovery benchmark

She defines continuous discovery as at least weekly customer touchpoints by the team building the product, aiming at a clear, aspirational benchmark.

Opportunity solution tree structure

The tree links an outcome to customer opportunities and solutions, and is best structured by mapping interview stories into key moments before grouping opportunities.

Recruiting customers automatically

Teams can keep interviews flowing by opt-in prompts, customer-facing triggers, design partners and targeted outreach, so recruiting doesn't depend on heroic effort.

Something is better than nothing

Torres warns against perfectionism and toxic comparisons, encouraging small, iterative first steps adapted to each organizational context.

Generative AI and human research

She uses AI for sentiment analysis and as a second perspective on synthesis, but insists on talking to real humans and anonymizing data.

03From the post

“I recently spoke at the Y Oslo conference in Oslo, Norway. I was asked to give a ten-minute overview of my continuous discovery framework and then participated in a fireside chat where the host, Cecilie Smedstad, asked me to go deeper in a few areas. We covered how to”

04Frameworks mentioned

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