“A lot of product teams claim to be focused on their users. They might even have regular steps in their processes that remind them to put their users’ needs first. But even if this is the case, there’s always more they can do to improve. This is why Teresa”
Teresa Torres argues that asking how much time to spend in discovery is the wrong question, because discovery and delivery should happen continuously rather than in sequence. The right amount of discovery is whatever is…
Marty Cagan answers common follow-up questions to his earlier argument that builders should distinguish between building to learn (product discovery) and building to earn (product delivery). He argues that as delivery…
This Product in Practice piece profiles Chris Hockley, a lean agile coach at SuperAwesome, who introduced the opportunity solution tree to several product teams through a staggered rollout. He found that teams grasped…
Marty Cagan argues that product teams often use a predictable set of excuses to avoid doing real product discovery, and that these excuses usually reflect a misunderstanding of discovery rather than a genuine…
Marty Cagan explains where the term "product discovery" came from and why he chose it. He argues that software has always faced two core problems: figuring out the right product, and then building it right, which he…
Teresa Torres argues that product teams should monitor customer signals from support tickets, sales conversations, surveys, and behavioral analytics, but should not treat these fragments as a substitute for customer…
Teresa Torres argues that customer interviews are among the most valuable and sustainable ways for product teams to learn about customers, creating a compounding competitive advantage. She separates true customer…
Teresa Torres argues that engineers should be active participants in product discovery rather than only writing code, since they contribute distinct knowledge and skills. She explains that different team members…
Teresa Torres argues that user researchers have a vital place in continuous discovery, even though most product trios don't include one by default because companies rarely have enough researchers. She outlines three…
This is an index page from SVPG (Silicon Valley Product Group) curating its articles on product discovery, the work of deciding what to build before handing it to delivery. The page is organized into four groups…
Teresa Torres argues that product teams should bring justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) principles into continuous discovery, since products often encode existing social biases (e.g., pulse oximeters…
Teresa Torres surveys how early-stage teams recruit interviewees when they have no customers or even no product yet, a common blocker to continuous discovery. She draws on members of her Continuous Discovery Habits…
Teresa Torres argues that teams should adopt continuous discovery through small, sustainable habits rather than attempting a full transformation at once, which often leads to frustration. She adapts Nisha Vora's SPICEY…
Teresa Torres introduces opportunity solution trees as a visual tool that lets product trios map the paths from a desired outcome to customer opportunities, candidate solutions, and assumption tests. The article argues…
Part three of Lenny Rachitsky's B2B series argues that founders should define their ideal customer profile early, alongside the problem itself. Drawing on interviews with dozens of startup leaders, it outlines a list of…
Grailed's Discovery team spent eight months building a curated feed that barely moved the business. After adopting continuous discovery habits and an opportunity solution tree, they reframed the problem in customer…
This Tools of the Trade installment profiles Steve Cheshire, a PM at Pendo, to show how one team runs continuous discovery with a practical tech stack. The core argument is that there is no single correct toolset; the…
Teresa Torres argues that handing discovery findings from a product trio to the rest of the delivery team recreates the old waterfall 'game of telephone', losing context and distorting customer needs. Discovery should…
This opening post in a planned series argues that a company can only launch a successful product if it builds something customers actually want, which requires deep knowledge of the customer's need, context, and…
Cagan argues that product teams commonly treat requirements and design as a scheduled, sequential phase, which leads to engineers building unvalidated solutions that customers don't want. He reframes this stage as…
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…
Teresa Torres surveys how product teams build and maintain opportunity solution trees, the visual map linking a desired outcome to opportunities and candidate solutions. She interviewed six practitioners about the tools…
Teresa Torres profiles Gary Clift, a Senior Director of Product for a travel-industry API, who used continuous discovery habits to address why customers were resisting migration to a new version of his company's API…