Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

by Teresa Torres

In the opening quote of this chapter, Marty Cagan, author of INSPIRED, highlights that the best product teams complete a dozen or more discovery iterations every week. This pace is possible only when we step away from the concept of testing ideas and instead focus on testing the assumptions that need to be true in order for our ideas to succeed. By explicitly enumerating our assumptions, we can start to look for both confirming and disconfirming evidence to either support or refute each assumption. Additionally, assumption testing is generally quicker than idea testing, and the faster pace helps us to guard against the escalation of commitment. The less time we invest in an idea, the less likely we are to fall in love with it.

Why assumptions are good for product teams