"Change is exciting, but too much change can feel chaotic." 🎢 Learn how to set up pilot teams for success when adopting a product operating model. Product leaders Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion share insights from working with hundreds of teams going through this transformation.

This will be my last Bluesky post. if you'd like to continue to follow my work, please do so at ProductTalk.org.

"When you try to require change before people are ready, you're much more likely to encounter resistance." - Hope Gurion & Teresa Torres Want to set up successful pilot teams for your product operating model transformation?

"Good discovery drives outcomes. In a perfect world, a high-performing discovery team would hit their product outcomes quarter over quarter." 📈 Want to measure the success of your continuous discovery practice? This article breaks down practical ways to track and improve your discovery outcomes.

Worthy Read: The Highest Paid Person's Opinion by Jeff Gothelf "Because Jeff wants it" - A cautionary tale of what happens when even the most successful leaders prioritize opinion over customer value. 📱

"When we suddenly all work from home, our regular office norms disappear. That's why it's important to establish ground rules with our teams." 📱 Working remotely doesn't mean sacrificing collaboration. Here's how to maintain strong discovery practices while working from home:

Worthy Read: Ask Women in Product: What Does Great Product Vision Look Like? by Karmel Elshinnawi, Katerina Suchkova, and Hope Gurion "If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up somewhere else." - Yogi Berra

"We can’t possibly interview or observe everyone, but we can get a deep understanding and a rich description of the experiences of the people we do interview and observe." 📊 Want to better understand how to choose research participants for your customer interviews?

Worthy Read: How Do You Create Accountability for Product Teams? by Hope Gurion "People who commit their goal to someone have a 65% probability of achieving it. With accountability appointments, that success rate increases to 95%" 📈

"It's rare for a startup founder to start with a customer segment and a value proposition. Instead, most founders start with an idea." 💡 Wondering how continuous discovery works in early-stage startups?

Worthy Read: You Don’t Need Permission by Steve Blank "Having real data turns conversations from faith-based to evidence-based." 💡 Learn how a medical device company's head of sales navigated the challenge of entering the U.S. market and why customer discovery matters more than methodology. 🏥

"The hardest part about continuous interviews is finding people to talk to. In order to make continuous interviewing sustainable, we need to automate the recruiting process."

Opportunities vs. Problems Learn more about discovery: buff.ly/rQCOn66 How do you make sure you aren't stuck in problem-solving mode and remember to also look for unmet desires? Share your best tip in the comments below. #ContinuousDiscoveryHabits #prodmgmt #ux #engineering

Worthy Read: Don’t Confuse Strategy with Lofty Goals by Constantinos C. Markides "Most companies communicate strategy as a set of aspirations or good sounding platitudes." 📢 Tired of vague corporate strategy statements?

"When we don't stop to examine our biases, we end up building them into our products." 💡 Learn how to create more just and equitable products through continuous discovery. This article explores: 🤝 Why design justice matters in product development 🎯 How to design WITH customers, not FOR them

Combatting confirmation bias in customer interviews Learn more about customers interviews: buff.ly/80xMI1z #ContinuousDiscoveryHabits #CustomerInterviews #ConfirmationBias

Worthy Read: Creativity Is Not an Accident by Scott Berkun "We love stories that make creativity seem easy and fun, regardless of how misleading they are." 🤔 Think accidents lead to great inventions? Think again.

Worthy Read: Remote Discovery – Teresa Torres on The Product Experience by Mind the Product I broke one of my own rules for 2020 and appeared as a guest on Mind the Product's podcast, The Product Experience. (What can I say—it's been a crazy year!)

Every interview is a test of your opportunity space. Learn more about customers interviews: buff.ly/PUfV5q9 #ContinuousDiscoveryHabits #CustomerInterviews #OpportunityMapping #OpportunitySolutionTree

Worthy Read: The visual language of comic books can improve brain function by Mary Widdicks "The human brain is actually structured more like comics than traditional language, because we first understand the world around us by mapping spatial and relational information onto our own bodies" 🧠

How do I know when I’ve interviewed enough customers? Learn more about customers interviews: buff.ly/Osx8qJc #ContinuousDiscoveryHabits #CustomerInterviews #UserInterviews

"If you’ve never talked to a customer, I don’t want you to worry about optimizing who to talk to. I want you to talk to whoever it’s easiest to talk to. But with time, I want you to start to think about how to increase the variation.”

Feelings aren’t opportunities. Learn more about opportunity mapping: buff.ly/cboBZeE #ContinuousDiscoveryHabits #OpportunityMapping #OpportunitySolutionTree #prodmgm #ux #engineering

Worthy Read: Hiten Shah on How to Avoid Common Pitfalls of Product Development by Anna Savina "Nobody wants to give another person feedback, but everyone is willing to share their opinion." - Hiten Shah

"When we use the same artifacts to do the work, communicate the work, and archive the work, all three purposes get the attention they deserve." 📈 Struggling with managing all your discovery artifacts?

"Product development is a team sport. While we each bring a unique set of skills and expertise to the team, we'll only win by working together." 🎯 Learn six key principles for effective product discovery: 1. Building genuine empathy for your audience 2. Continuously exploring the problem space

Worthy Read: How We Introduced Product Discovery Methods at Overleaf in 3 Steps by Roberta Cucuzza "We didn't write any code and yet we were able to see 2 ideas fail and 1 succeed!" 💡 Learn how Overleaf integrated continuous product discovery into their development process in three key steps:

Worthy Read: The Trust-Communication Trade-Off: A Tool for Building Innovative Teams by Emily Levada "To accomplish any goal with two or more people, the amount of trust between the team members and the amount of communication required are inversely related." 💡

"The product trio concept isn't designed to exclude. Everyone plays a role in discovery." 🎯 Want to understand how to structure your product discovery team? This article addresses the common question of who should be included in your product trio.

"Find any format where people can get curiously interested. Find your biggest, most important stakeholders and ask them if you're sharing what they want to know or if they want to know anything else." 💡

Worthy Read: How Engagement Metrics Can Be Misleading by Oleg Yakubenkov "Time spent per active user gives you a rough idea of which apps have the most engaged users" 📱

Avoid opportunities that are solutions in disguise. Learn more about opportunity mapping: buff.ly/ZwZh1GZ #ContinuousDiscoveryHabits #OpportunityMapping #OpportunitySolutionTree #prodmgm #ux #engineering

"Product teams work on a faster cadence. We don't have time for perfect research. And that's okay. We are trying to mitigate risk, not seek absolute truth." 🎯 Learn how user researchers and product trios can work together effectively in continuous discovery. This article breaks down:

An opportunity lives in one moment in time. Learn more about opportunity mapping: buff.ly/sr1h0Vi #ContinuousDiscoveryHabits #OpportunityMapping #OpportunitySolutionTree #prodmgm #ux #engineering

Worthy Read: Making Business Decisions in Uncertain Times by Sean Murphy "A real strategy is neither a document nor a forecast but rather an overall approach based on a diagnosis of a challenge." Making business decisions during uncertain times?

Avoid vertical stacks of opportunities. Learn more about opportunity mapping: buff.ly/GRyw86A #ContinuousDiscoveryHabits #OpportunityMapping #OpportunitySolutionTree #prodmgm #ux #engineering

"Instead of trying to find time for a new phase, we want to integrate small discovery activities into our weekly cadence." Learn how product teams can realistically achieve a weekly cadence of shipping customer value through smart opportunity mapping and ruthless simplification. Key takeaways:

Worthy Read: There’s No Guarantee Your Product Strategy Will Work. Here’s How to De-Risk It. by Jeff Gothelf "Every aspect of the way we run our business is our current best guess about how to succeed."

Worthy Read: What Do We Do About the Biases in AI? by James Manyika, Jake Silberg, and Brittany Presten "Human biases can make their way into artificial intelligence systems — with harmful results."

Worthy Read: Survey Questions by Seth Godin "If you're not going to read the answers and take action, why are you asking?" 💭 Before you create your next customer survey, here's what you should consider: 🎯 Know if you need a survey (sampling) or census (asking everyone)

Frame opportunities from your customers’ perspective. Learn more about opportunity mapping: buff.ly/yuS3MZE #ContinuousDiscoveryHabits #OpportunityMapping #OpportunitySolutionTree #prodmgm #ux #engineering

"Continuous interviewing is a keystone habit for continuous discovery." 🔄 Just like exercise leads to better eating habits, continuous customer interviews naturally drive better discovery practices.

Worthy Read: What Do We Do About the Biases in AI? by James Manyika, Jake Silberg, and Brittany Presten "Human biases can make their way into artificial intelligence systems — with harmful results."

Add just enough structure to your opportunity map. Learn more about opportunity mapping: buff.ly/S3X71Q6 #ContinuousDiscoveryHabits #OpportunityMapping #OpportunitySolutionTree #prodmgm #ux #engineering

"Our goal with discovery is to determine if we are building the right thing before we design or build it—not after." 🔍 Stop testing entire solutions and start testing assumptions. Learn how top product teams run 12-15 discovery iterations per week by breaking down ideas into testable assumptions.

Worthy Read: How to Write Concisely by Jane Rosenzweig "You've probably found yourself in more than one meeting this year that could have been the inspiration for one of those 'I survived another meeting that should have been an email' memes." Are your emails too long?

"The best teams recognize that digital products are never done. We can always iterate and improve." 💡 Learn how to move beyond project-based research to continuous product discovery. This article breaks down: 🤔 What product discovery really means

"When we work in silos, we do more work, we take longer to complete that work, and we often build sub-optimal solutions." 💡 Want to build better products faster?

Worthy Read: How Not To Be Stupid by Shane Parrish "Stupidity is overlooking or dismissing conspicuously crucial information" - Adam Robinson Want to learn how not to be stupid?

How to map an opportunity space. Learn more about opportunity mapping: buff.ly/34GDOO9 #ContinuousDiscoveryHabits #OpportunityMapping #OpportunitySolutionTree #prodmgm #ux #engineering