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A/B Testing

Continuous Discovery

Ongoing research integrated into product development process

Continuous Discovery is a product development approach where teams engage with customers and conduct research regularly throughout development rather than in separate phases. This practice, championed by Teresa Torres, ensures product decisions are grounded in current user needs, behaviors, and feedback rather than outdated assumptions. Traditional discovery happens upfront before development, but customer needs evolve and initial understanding proves incomplete. Continuous Discovery integrates research activities into weekly rhythms, with product teams talking to customers at least weekly. This includes user interviews, usability testing, prototype validation, data analysis, customer observation, and feedback synthesis. The approach creates tight feedback loops between learning and building, reducing risk of building unwanted features. Key practices include regular customer touchpoints scheduled into team calendars, cross-functional participation in research, documenting insights in shared repositories, mapping opportunities and solutions, testing assumptions continuously, and connecting discoveries to outcomes. Product teams using Continuous Discovery maintain opportunity solution trees visualizing the path from desired outcomes through customer problems to potential solutions. This ensures teams explore the problem space thoroughly before committing to solutions. Benefits include reduced wasted effort, better product-market fit, faster validation of ideas, improved team alignment, and customer-centric culture. The practice requires organizational support, dedicated time, accessible customers, and discipline to maintain research cadence alongside delivery pressures.

Learn about Continuous Discovery in product management. Discover how regular customer interaction informs better product decisions.