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

by Teresa Torres

As you work on requirements for the solutions you were asked to build, remember to story map your ideas. Use your story maps to identify hidden assumptions. Even if you don’t have the infrastructure to quickly prototype or test your assumptions, being aware of your assumptions will help you notice the evidence around you that either supports or refutes them. When you uncover a faulty assumption, work with your stakeholders to evolve the idea. Better yet, when a stakeholder brings a solution to you, story map and identify assumptions with them. The idea will improve right then and there. Work with your stakeholders to identify the impact they expect a given feature to have. Document that conversation. As you implement the feature, be sure to instrument what you need to measure against the expected impact. Start doing post-release impact reviews with your stakeholders. Remind them what impact they expected a feature to have. Share with them the impact the feature actually had.