Yesterday Askable hosted a webinar panel discussion on the topic of continuous discovery. On the panel were Nate Cutcliffe – Enterprise Customer Success, Askable; Emily Barnes – Senior Research Consultant, Askable Plus; and Katharina Rochjadi – Digital Customer Experience Research Manager, Bupa.

The research approach “Continuous Discovery” was coined by Teresa Torres in her book “Continuous Discovery Habits”. In it she argues that product development should involve ongoing customer engagement and feedback, rather than relying solely on upfront research and assumptions. She argues that a one-time research phase followed by development and launch can lead to building features that don’t actually meet customer needs.

Instead, Torres proposes continuous discovery activity where product teams:

• Establish specific desired outcomes for the product.
• Regularly (at least weekly) engage with customers through various methods like interviews, usability testing, and surveys.
• Use this ongoing feedback to iterate and refine their understanding of customer needs and test assumptions.
• Develop solutions based on validated learning, not just initial assumptions.

By continuously learning and adapting throughout the development process product teams can increase their chances of building products that deliver real value to customers and achieve business goals.

What did the panel have to say about it?

The panel shared their real world experience of following the approach with benefits that included:

• Staying up-to-date with evolving user expectations and technological advancements.
• Identifying customer problems early and often.
• Improved decision making throughout the product development process.
• Identifying potential roadblocks and issues early on.
• Developing a deeper understanding of customers across the business by involving colleagues and stakeholders to actively participate in research (e.g. by observing, note taking, or co-facilitating sessions).

While proposing a “winning combo of generative and evaluative research” the panel emphasised the point that this was a discovery exercise. They argued that limiting product research to a validation exercise only risked producing false positives or missing out on finding more impactful opportunities.

In advocating for more regular, smaller research pieces they contented that bigger upfront research can produce too many “meaty insights” that a business is not capable of taking onboard. They argued that this can create a mismatch between research and iterative workflows.

If all of this sounds like jargon so far, the panel agreed and proposed removing jargon in favour of terms like ‘continuous learning’ or ‘cadence’.

My take

“Meatier” research should not be decried yet. It can help shape multi-year strategy and is worth pursuing if resources and need allow. One could argue if priorities allow too, but good research informs priorities.

I’ve seen how regular iterative testing can drive team confidence and effectiveness – so a method that takes a principle of velocity and rhythm to discovery is welcome.

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Curious to learn more

• https://maze.co/guides/ux-research/evaluative/ – Defines evaluative and generative research with examples
• https://www.userinterviews.com/blog/continuous-discovery-research-report
• https://www.boldare.com/blog/continuous-product-discovery/ – 5 reasons why Continuous Discovery is the new standard in product development
• https://greatquestion.co/blog/continuous-discovery-guide
• https://www.linkedin.com/advice/3/how-can-you-involve-stakeholders-user-research

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