Teresa Torres

@producttalk.bsky.social

Author, Speaker, Product Discovery Coach I write (words and code), teach, and make things at ProductTalk.org.

"Change is exciting, but too much change can feel chaotic." 🎢 Learn how to set up pilot teams for success when adopting a product operating model. Product leaders Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion share insights from working with hundreds of teams going through this transformation.

A video still of Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion discussing how to set pilot teams up for success in a product operating model transformation. Both are wearing headsets and appear side-by-side on a teal background with the title "Building Skills: Setting Pilot Teams Up for Product Operating Model Success" and the Product Talk logo.

"When you try to require change before people are ready, you're much more likely to encounter resistance." - Hope Gurion & Teresa Torres Want to set up successful pilot teams for your product operating model transformation?

A visual list titled "Criteria for Selecting Pilot Teams for the Product Operating Model," highlighting five factors: team relationships, willingness to learn, existing skills, access to customers, and product lifecycle stage.

"Good discovery drives outcomes. In a perfect world, a high-performing discovery team would hit their product outcomes quarter over quarter." 📈 Want to measure the success of your continuous discovery practice? This article breaks down practical ways to track and improve your discovery outcomes.

"A high-performing discovery team should hit their outcomes at a higher rate than a low-performing discovery team and that rate should grow over time as their discovery practice improves" by Teresa Torres.

Worthy Read: The Highest Paid Person's Opinion by Jeff Gothelf "Because Jeff wants it" - A cautionary tale of what happens when even the most successful leaders prioritize opinion over customer value. 📱

Hippos in water

"When we suddenly all work from home, our regular office norms disappear. That's why it's important to establish ground rules with our teams." 📱 Working remotely doesn't mean sacrificing collaboration. Here's how to maintain strong discovery practices while working from home:

"Showing your work helps you manage stakeholders throughout the discovery process. These same tactics will help you stay aligned with your team while you are working from home" by Teresa Torres.

Worthy Read: Ask Women in Product: What Does Great Product Vision Look Like? by Karmel Elshinnawi, Katerina Suchkova, and Hope Gurion "If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up somewhere else." - Yogi Berra

Two women sitting in a couch while discussing and looking at a laptop.

"We can’t possibly interview or observe everyone, but we can get a deep understanding and a rich description of the experiences of the people we do interview and observe." 📊 Want to better understand how to choose research participants for your customer interviews?

"When you select qualitative research participants, select for variation" by Teresa Torres.

Worthy Read: How Do You Create Accountability for Product Teams? by Hope Gurion "People who commit their goal to someone have a 65% probability of achieving it. With accountability appointments, that success rate increases to 95%" 📈

A poll asking, "What is the most effective way for product leaders to achieve accountability for outcomes in product teams?" with choices: "Show results vs goal", "Compensation change", "Celebrating successes", and "Increase responsibility"

"It's rare for a startup founder to start with a customer segment and a value proposition. Instead, most founders start with an idea." 💡 Wondering how continuous discovery works in early-stage startups?

"If you don't have a product or many customers yet, I recommend two approaches to discovery: Go to where your potential customers already hang out and pay to bring your customers to you" by Teresa Torres.

Worthy Read: You Don’t Need Permission by Steve Blank "Having real data turns conversations from faith-based to evidence-based." 💡 Learn how a medical device company's head of sales navigated the challenge of entering the U.S. market and why customer discovery matters more than methodology. 🏥

A screenshot of the article.

Worthy Read: Don’t Confuse Strategy with Lofty Goals by Constantinos C. Markides "Most companies communicate strategy as a set of aspirations or good sounding platitudes." 📢 Tired of vague corporate strategy statements?

A modern staircase ascends toward the sky, set against a backdrop of a clear blue sea and sky. The steps appear to lead to nowhere, creating an illusion of an infinite pathway.

"When we don't stop to examine our biases, we end up building them into our products." 💡 Learn how to create more just and equitable products through continuous discovery. This article explores: 🤝 Why design justice matters in product development 🎯 How to design WITH customers, not FOR them

"Combine your knowledge of what's possible with your customers' knowledge of their life, needs, and context, and use that combined effort to start to think about how technology can impact people's lives" by Teresa Torres.

Worthy Read: Creativity Is Not an Accident by Scott Berkun "We love stories that make creativity seem easy and fun, regardless of how misleading they are." 🤔 Think accidents lead to great inventions? Think again.

A monochromatic candid image of Scott Berkun

Worthy Read: Remote Discovery – Teresa Torres on The Product Experience by Mind the Product I broke one of my own rules for 2020 and appeared as a guest on Mind the Product's podcast, The Product Experience. (What can I say—it's been a crazy year!)

A headshot of Teresa Torres

Worthy Read: The visual language of comic books can improve brain function by Mary Widdicks "The human brain is actually structured more like comics than traditional language, because we first understand the world around us by mapping spatial and relational information onto our own bodies" 🧠

A person reading a comic book

"If you’ve never talked to a customer, I don’t want you to worry about optimizing who to talk to. I want you to talk to whoever it’s easiest to talk to. But with time, I want you to start to think about how to increase the variation.”

"If you've never talked to a customer, I don't want you to worry about optimizing who to talk to. I want you to talk to whoever it’s easiest to talk to" by Teresa Torres.

Worthy Read: Hiten Shah on How to Avoid Common Pitfalls of Product Development by Anna Savina "Nobody wants to give another person feedback, but everyone is willing to share their opinion." - Hiten Shah

A person with a map converses with a colleague holding a laptop, both engaging in a collaborative planning session, encapsulated by fluid lines and speech bubbles.

"When we use the same artifacts to do the work, communicate the work, and archive the work, all three purposes get the attention they deserve." 📈 Struggling with managing all your discovery artifacts?

"When communicating our progress or archiving our decisions, the iterations we've gone through previously don’t matter. In fact, they distract us" by Teresa Torres.

"Product development is a team sport. While we each bring a unique set of skills and expertise to the team, we'll only win by working together." 🎯 Learn six key principles for effective product discovery: 1. Building genuine empathy for your audience 2. Continuously exploring the problem space

"Product development is a team sport. While we each bring a unique set of skills and expertise to the team, we’ll only win by working together" by Teresa Torres.

Worthy Read: How We Introduced Product Discovery Methods at Overleaf in 3 Steps by Roberta Cucuzza "We didn't write any code and yet we were able to see 2 ideas fail and 1 succeed!" 💡 Learn how Overleaf integrated continuous product discovery into their development process in three key steps:

A Discovery Sprint Template depicting a Week Before Preparation space and a 5-day format of Opportunity Map, Idea Generation, Assumption Mapping, Assumption Testing, and Solutions

Worthy Read: The Trust-Communication Trade-Off: A Tool for Building Innovative Teams by Emily Levada "To accomplish any goal with two or more people, the amount of trust between the team members and the amount of communication required are inversely related." 💡

Two employees holding a rope to prop up a third employee over a gap illustrating trust and communication between team members leading to faster movement and delivery.

"The product trio concept isn't designed to exclude. Everyone plays a role in discovery." 🎯 Want to understand how to structure your product discovery team? This article addresses the common question of who should be included in your product trio.

"The product trio concept is flexible. It can expand and contract based on the roles available at your company" by Teresa Torres.

"Find any format where people can get curiously interested. Find your biggest, most important stakeholders and ask them if you're sharing what they want to know or if they want to know anything else." 💡

Quote by @trixiemaru: Continuous discovery is a journey, not a destination. Adopt habits into daily practice, but there's always room to improve.