Continuous Discovery Habits Quotes

“Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, made this exact argument in his 2015 letter to shareholders,33 where he introduced the idea of Level 1 and Level 2 decisions. He describes a Level 1 decision as one that is hard to reverse, whereas a Level 2 decision is one that is easy to reverse. Bezos argues that we should be slow and cautious when making Level 1 decisions, but that we should move fast and not wait for perfect data when making Level 2 decisions.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“Shifting to an outcome mindset is harder than it looks. We spend most of our time talking about outputs. So, it’s not surprising that we tend to confuse the two. Even when teams intend to choose an outcome, they often fall into the trap of selecting an output. I see teams set their outcome as “Launch an Android app” instead of “Increase mobile engagement” or “Get to feature parity on the new tech stack” instead of “Transition customer to the new tech stack.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“In this book, I’ll refer to the work that you do to decide what to build as discovery and the work that you do to build and ship a product as delivery.1 This distinction matters. As you’ll see, many companies put a heavy emphasis on delivery—they focus on whether you shipped what you said you would on time and on budget—while under-investing in discovery, forgetting to assess if you built the right stuff. This book aims to correct for that imbalance.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“Which of these opportunities affects the most customers?” and “the most often?”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“opportunity sizing, market factors, company factors, and customer factors.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“The easiest way to distinguish between an opportunity and a solution is to ask, “Is there more than one way to address this opportunity?” In this example, the only way to allow people to fast-forward through commercials is to offer a fast-forward solution. This isn’t an opportunity at all. Instead, we want to uncover the implied opportunity. Maybe it’s as simple as, “I don’t like commercials.” Why does this reframing help? If we then ask, “How might we address ‘I don’t like commercials’?” we can generate several options.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“this story also highlights the iterative nature of discovery and delivery. Many teams ask, “When are we done with discovery? When do we get to send our ideas to delivery?” The answer to the first question is simple. You are never done with discovery. Remember, this book is about continuous discovery. There is always more to learn and to discover. The second question is harder to answer. In the AfterCollege story, we had already started the delivery work. Our prototype had a working interface that real customers could use. We were collecting real data. Our discovery required that we start delivery. Measuring the impact of that delivery resulted in us needing to do more discovery. This is why we say discovery feeds delivery and delivery feeds discovery. They aren’t two distinct phases. You can’t have one without the other. In Chapter 10, you learned to iteratively invest in experiments, to start small, and to grow your investment over time. Inevitably, as your experiments grow, you are going to need to test with a real audience, in a real context, with real data. Testing in your production environment is a natural progression for your discovery work. It’s also where your delivery work begins. If you instrument your delivery work, discovery will not only feed delivery, but delivery will feed discovery.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“It’s easy when working in a team to experience groupthink. Groupthink occurs when a group of individuals underperform due to the dynamics of the group. There are a number of reasons for this. When working in a group, it’s common for some members to put in more effort than others; some group members may hesitate or even refrain from speaking up, and groups tend to perform at the level of the least-capable member.19 In order to leverage the knowledge and expertise in our trios, we need to actively work to counter groupthink.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“Focusing on one outcome to the detriment of all else. Like we saw in the Wells Fargo story, focusing on one metric at the cost of all else can quickly derail a team and company. In addition to your primary outcome, a team needs to monitor health metrics to ensure they aren’t causing detrimental effects elsewhere. For example, customer-acquisition goals are often paired with customer-satisfaction metrics to ensure that we aren’t acquiring unhappy customers. To be clear, this doesn’t mean one team is focused on both acquisition and satisfaction at the same time. It means their goal is to increase acquisition without negatively impacting satisfaction.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“Choosing an output as an outcome. Shifting to an outcome mindset is harder than it looks. We spend most of our time talking about outputs. So, it’s not surprising that we tend to confuse the two. Even when teams intend to choose an outcome, they often fall into the trap of selecting an output. I see teams set their outcome as “Launch an Android app” instead of “Increase mobile engagement” or “Get to feature parity on the new tech stack” instead of “Transition customer to the new tech stack.” A good place to start is to make sure your outcome represents a number even if you aren’t sure yet how to measure it. But even then, outputs can creep in. I worked with a team that helped students choose university courses who set their outcome as “Increase the number of course reviews on our platform.” When I asked them what the impact of more reviews was, they answered, “More students would see courses with reviews.” That’s not necessarily true. The team could have increased the number of reviews on their platform, but if they all clustered around a small number of courses, or if they were all on courses that students didn’t view, they wouldn’t have an impact. A better outcome is “Increase the number of course views that include reviews.” To shift your outcome from less of an output to more of an outcome, question the impact it will have.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“Setting individual outcomes instead of product-trio outcomes. Because product managers, designers, and software engineers typically report up, to their respective departments, it’s not uncommon for a product trio to get pulled in three different directions, with each member tasked with a different goal. Perhaps the product manager is tasked with a business outcome, the designer is tasked with a usability outcome, and the engineer is tasked with a technical-performance outcome. This is most common at companies that tie outcomes to compensation. However, it has a detrimental effect. The goal is for the product trio to collaborate to achieve product outcomes that drive business outcomes. This isn’t possible if each member is focused on their own goal. Instead of setting individual outcomes, set team outcomes.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“Ping-ponging from one outcome to another. Because many businesses have developed fire-fighting cultures—where every customer complaint is treated like a crisis—it’s common for product trios to ping-pong from one outcome to the next, quarter to quarter. However, you’ve already learned that it takes time to learn how to impact a new outcome. When we ping-pong from outcome to outcome, we never reap the benefits of this learning curve. Instead, set an outcome for your team, and focus on it for a few quarters. You’ll be amazed at how much impact you have in the second and third quarters after you’ve had some time to learn and explore.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“Pursuing too many outcomes at once. Most of us are overly optimistic about what we can achieve in a short period of time. No matter how hard we work, our companies will always ask more of us. Put these two together, and we often see product trios pursuing multiple outcomes at once. What happens when we do this is that we spread ourselves too thin. We make incremental progress (at best) on some of our outcomes but rarely have a big impact on any of our outcomes. Most teams will have more of an impact by focusing on one outcome at a time.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“If your product trio is already negotiating outcomes with your product leader, congratulations! However, remember to keep these tips in mind as you set outcomes with your leader: Is your team being tasked with a product outcome and not a business outcome or a traction metric? If you are being tasked with a traction metric, is the metric well known? Have you already confirmed that your customers want to exhibit the behavior being tracked? If it’s the first time you are working on a new metric, are you starting with a learning goal (e.g., discover the relevant opportunities) before committing to a challenging performance goal?”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“If your team is setting their own outcome with no input from the product leader, try these tips to shift to a two-way negotiation: Before you set your own outcome, ask your product leader for more business context. Try these questions: What’s most important to the business right now? Try to frame this conversation in terms of business outcomes. Is there a customer segment that is more important than other customer segments? Are there strategic initiatives we should know about? Use the information you gain to map out the most important business outcomes and what product outcomes might drive those business outcomes. Get feedback from your leader. Choose a product outcome that your team has the most influence over.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“If your product leader is asking you to deliver an outcome with no input from your team, try these tips to shift to a two-way negotiation: If you are being asked to deliver a business outcome, try mapping out which product outcomes might drive that business outcome, and get feedback from your leader. If you are being asked to deliver a product outcome, ask your leader for more of the business context. Try asking, “What business outcomes are we trying to drive with this product outcome?” In either case, clearly communicate how far you think you can get in the allotted time.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“When your product leader assigns a new initiative to your product trio, ask your leader to share more of the business context with you. Explore these questions: Who is the target customer for this initiative? What business outcome are we trying to drive with this initiative? Why do we think this initiative will drive that outcome? (Be careful with Why? questions. They can put some leaders on the defensive. Use your best judgment, based on your knowledge of your specific leader.) Try to connect the dots between the business outcome and potential product outcomes. Can you clearly define how this new initiative will impact a product outcome? Is that outcome a leading indicator of the lagging indicator, business outcome?”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“It’s perfectly fine to start with a learning goal and work your way toward a S.M.A.R.T. performance goal.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“Assigning product outcomes to product trios increases a sense of responsibility and ownership. If a product team is assigned a business outcome, it’s easy for the trio to blame the marketing or customer-support team for not hitting their goal. However, if they are assigned a product outcome, they alone are responsible for driving results. When multiple teams are assigned the same outcome, it’s easy to shift blame for lack of progress.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“By definition, a product outcome is within the product trio’s span of control. Business outcomes, on the other hand, often require coordination across many business functions. For example, suppose Sonja’s team discovered that, in addition to some customers not understanding the value of tailor-made dog food and some dogs not liking the food, poor customer-support response times and surprise price increases that occurred after their trial period ended also influenced their high churn rate. In this case, product, marketing, and customer support might need to coordinate their efforts to increase retention.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“Many business outcomes, however, are lagging indicators. They measure something after it has happened. It’s hard for lagging indicators to guide a team’s work because it puts them in react mode, rather than empowers them to proactively drive results. For Sonja’s team, 90-day retention was a lagging indicator of customer satisfaction with the service. By the time the team was able to measure the impact of their product changes, customers had already churned. Therefore, we want to identify leading indicators that predict the direction of the lagging indicator. Sonja’s team believed that increasing the perceived value of tailor-made dog food and increasing the number of dogs who liked the food were leading indicators of customer retention. Assigning a team a leading indicator is always better than assigning a lagging indicator.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“A fixed roadmap communicates false certainty. It says we know these are the right features to build, even though we know from experience their impact will likely fall short. An outcome communicates uncertainty. It says, We know we need this problem solved, but we don’t know the best way to solve it. It gives the product trio the latitude they need to explore and pivot when needed.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“The key to bringing stakeholders along is to show your work. You want to summarize what you are learning in a way that is easy to understand, that highlights your key decision points and the options that you considered, and creates space for them to give constructive feedback. A well-constructed opportunity solution tree does exactly this. When sharing your discovery work with stakeholders, you can use your tree to first remind them of your desired outcome. Next, you can share what you’ve learned about your customer, by walking them through the opportunity space. The tree structure makes it easy to communicate the big picture while also diving into the details when needed. Your tree should visually show what solutions you are considering and what tests you are running to evaluate those solutions. Instead of communicating your conclusions (e.g., “We should build these solutions”), you are showing the thinking and learning that got you there. This allows your stakeholders to truly evaluate your work and to weigh in with information you may not have.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“Instead of asking, “Should we solve this customer need?” we’ll ask, “Which of these customer needs is most important for us to address right now?”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“How do customers entertain themselves today?”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“experience maps, opportunity solution trees, and story maps,”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“the long-term connection between your product outcome and your business outcome.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“But starting with one event might allow you to circumvent a good chunk of that work, allowing both parties to test their assumptions before they commit to a longer-term agreement.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“pick up a copy of Laura Klein’s UX for Lean Startups.”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

“unmoderated testing tools”
― Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value