Avoid These Common Anti-Patterns

As you work to adopt the continuous discovery habits, be sure to avoid these common anti-patterns.

Focusing on why a given strategy won’t work (AKA “That will never work here”), instead of focusing on what is within your control. After every conference or meetup talk, participants always ask a question that falls into the form of, “That would never work at my company.” It’s easy to hear or read about what other companies do and think their tactics won’t work at your company. It’s true that every organization is unique. However, I’ve worked with teams in a variety of industries (from banking to healthcare to retail to marketing automation to security), at companies of all sizes (from two founders just getting started to global companies with hundreds of thousands of employees), on all types of products and services. The habits in this book have been adopted and worked at all of them. Do they need to be adapted to the unique organizational context? Absolutely! But in every instance, we were able to look at what each team could do, given the context in which they worked, and we found a way. So, I encourage you to consider what you can do and let go of the “That would never work here” mentality that is so easy to fall into.

Being the annoying champion for the “right way” of working. Some people, instead of adopting a “That will never work here” mindset, swing the pendulum too far in the other direction. They want to work using the “one right way” to do discovery. I have news for you. There is no “one right way” to do discovery. All of the habits in this book can and should be adopted to match your team’s preferences and needs. This book isn’t designed to be recipes that should be followed to the T, but rather templates that should help you get started. Once you have a handle on how they work, you can and should adopt them to better meet your own needs. Especially when you’re new to adopting continuous discovery habits, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Instead, adopt a continuous-improvement mindset. If next week looks better than last week, you are on the right track.

Waiting for permission instead of starting with what is within your control. I’ve met dozens of teams who have never talked to customers because they believe they aren’t allowed to. However, they regularly engage with customers outside of work. They work for a major bank, and most (if not all) of their friends have a bank account. They build sales software, and their best friend’s dad works in sales. They work on hospital badge systems, and they have three clinicians in their extended family. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Get started by talking to anyone who is like your customers. Iterate from there.