By Teresa Torres · producttalk.org · @ttorres on X · LinkedIn
Teresa Torres argues that product trios, small cross-functional teams of product, design, and engineering, should jointly own both discovery (deciding what to build) and delivery. She contrasts this with waterfall handoffs, which create repeated loops of rework and wasted effort. Shared customer interviews and shared opportunity mapping give the trio a common basis for decisions, and disagreements become testable rather than personal. The piece also covers conflict resolution, shared responsibility for risks, engineer and researcher involvement, remote work, and first steps. It matters because it offers a concrete operating model for teams trying to ship better products faster.
01Key takeaways
- Keep the discovery-leading group as small as possible while still covering the relevant perspectives.
- Share customer interviews and opportunity maps so disagreements rest on shared evidence, not personal preference.
- Make every trio member accountable for desirability, viability, feasibility, usability, and ethics, not just their functional slice.
- When conflict persists, test the competing assumptions quickly rather than letting the loudest voice decide.
- Onboard engineers into discovery gradually: watch an interview, take notes, suggest questions, then conduct them.
- Start small by aligning on an outcome, interviewing customers together, and mapping assumptions to test.
02Key sections
- What a product trio is
- A trio is a subset of the cross-functional team that leads discovery, while remaining part of the team that builds the product. The core roles are usually product manager, designer, and engineer, but the model can expand to fit the context.
- Why trios beat siloed handoffs
- Waterfall handoffs between PM, design, and engineering produce repeated loops of gaps, rework, and scope cuts. Working together from the start yields decisions that are desirable, usable, and feasible.
- Collaboration, conflict, and shared responsibility
- Trios interview customers and map opportunities together, so disagreements shift from preferences to testable beliefs about customers. Every member is accountable for all risk areas, which prevents competing interests.
- Involving engineers, researchers, and the wider team
- Engineers can be onboarded gradually into discovery, starting with watching interviews and building up to running them. Researchers should coach the trio rather than run all research alone, and the broader team is consulted without slowing decisions.
- Getting started and adapting
- Teams new to discovery can begin by inviting cross-functional input, then move to interviews, opportunity mapping, and assumption testing. Remote trios need overlapping hours and clear team norms.
03From the post
“Product trios are cross-functional product teams who are responsible for both deciding what to build and then building it. The goal is for a product trio to represent balanced perspectives while still remaining as small as possible to facilitate and expedite collaborative decision-making. In this article, we’ll”
04Frameworks mentioned
Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.