A Working Definition of Continuous Discovery
In my experience working with product teams, many are already adopting many of the discovery activities you will learn about in this book. Customer interviews, usability testing, and A/B testing are pervasive. What is rare is for teams to adopt these discovery activities in a structured and sustainable way, enabling them to continuously infuse their product decisions with customer input. To distinguish teams who occasionally do modern discovery activities from teams who do continuous discovery, we’ll adopt the following definition of continuous discovery:
At a minimum, weekly touchpoints with customers
By the team building the product
Where they conduct small research activities
In pursuit of a desired outcome
Product teams make decisions every day. Our goal with continuous discovery is to infuse those daily decisions with as much customer input as possible. If teams are only engaging with customers on a monthly basis, they are making a month’s worth of decisions without customer input. Over the course of this book, you’ll learn habits that will help you adopt a continuous cadence in a structured and sustainable way. You’ll learn how to do your own research so that you can get fast answers to your daily questions. You’ll learn how to modify traditional research activities to make them sustainable week over week. And most importantly, you’ll learn to ensure that your research is in service of pursuing a desired business outcome while meeting customers’ needs.