Book 23 of 141

    From the library

    Continuous Discovery Habits

    Teresa Torres, 2021

    In one paragraph

    Torres turns customer discovery from an occasional research project into a weekly habit, with the opportunity solution tree as the device that keeps interviews connected to a decision. The contribution is cadence: small, continuous contact with customers by the team that will build the thing. Most useful for product teams who already ship and cannot say who asked for it. Least useful outside software, where the interview rhythm is harder to sustain.

    Where this sits in the operating system

    Feedback Loops

    Systems Over Goals

    Systematic Operations

    Systems Over Goals

    Regular Review Rhythms

    Systems Over Goals

    Key insights

    Discovery is a weekly habit, not a research project. Small and continuous beats large and occasional.

    The opportunity solution tree keeps interviews tied to a decision, which is what separates discovery from customer theatre.

    The team that will build the thing must have the customer contact. Handing it to a research function breaks the loop.

    Recognise it early

    The failure and the correction sit side by side deliberately. Read the left column asking whether any of it is already true of you.

    What goes wrong

    Feature-first thinking

    Prioritize opportunities and outcomes; use OST

    Sporadic research

    Book weekly interviews on repeat

    Big, slow bets

    Test the smallest, riskiest assumption first

    Opinion wars

    Decide by evidence; pre-register success signals

    Discovery vs. delivery split

    Integrate into the same sprint cadence

    The same idea, argued differently

    Julie Zhuo

    Masaaki Imai

    Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford

    Ryan Deiss

    The full breakdown

    Before you close this

    Naming the specific moment you will act roughly doubles the odds you do.

    Reference

    Author
    Teresa Torres
    Published
    2021
    Category
    Business

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