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Product in Practice: Tackling Big Hairy Product Challenges with Continuous Discovery

Hello, Product Talk readers! It’s time for another installment of Product in Practice. In this series, we highlight the impressive work that forward-thinking product teams are doing. Want to check out the other people and companies we’ve featured? Find our other Product in Practice posts here. Ask 100

What I’m Saying Yes to in 2020 (With 2 Big Announcements)

For many of us, the beginning of the year is a fresh start. It’s an opportunity to recommit to the things that matter most to us. Last year, I wrote “What I’m Saying No to This Year—And Why” to clearly outline what I wanted to focus on

Product in Practice: Getting Started with Opportunity Solution Trees at SuperAwesome

Hi there, Product Talk readers! It’s me, Melissa. I’m Teresa’s blog editor. I mostly work behind the scenes here, polishing and proofreading posts prior to publication. But every once in a while, I’ll contribute a post like this one. Here at Product Talk, we’re excited

2020 Product Conferences

We are starting to pull together our 2020 conference list. This list is by no means exhaustive. If you know of a product conference that is not on the list and you think it should be, please feel free to recommend it in the comments or send an email to

Everyone Thinks They’re Managing by Outcomes. Here’s How to Actually Do it.

Last month, I spoke at the Business of Software (BoS) conference in Boston. BoS has been on my short list for a very long time and it did not disappoint. Mark Littlewood, the organizer of the event, does a fantastic job and it shows up in every little detail of

Product in Practice: How One Product Manager Innovates in Big Companies

One of my goals at Product Talk is to showcase what good product management looks like. Today, I’m excited to introduce a new series, Product in Practice, where I’ll profile product managers doing great work. To kick off the series, we interviewed Rachel Allen, Director of Product at

Show Your Work: How to Justify Your Decisions & Get Stakeholder Buy-In

Last month, I spoke at Mind the Product San Francisco. The following transcript is how the speech was written and does not match the talk exactly. I want you to take a minute—think back to elementary school when you were learning multiplication tables. Don’t worry; I’m not

Engaging Stakeholders with Opportunity Solution Trees: 3 Tactics to Try

Two and a half years ago, I introduced the opportunity solution tree. It’s been a blast seeing product people put it into practice. Today, I’m excited to share Hope Gurion’s thoughts on using opportunity solution trees. Like a true Agilist, she hasn’t just adopted the tool,

Continuous Product Discovery is for Everyone [Case Study]

When I write or speak about continuous discovery, I worry that people are enamored with this way of working, but aren’t doing the work to put it into practice. It’s easy to read about a continuous discovery habit and think, “That could never work for my team. Our

Taking Continuous Discovery to the Next Level at SEEK [Case Study]

As a discovery coach, I work with all kinds of companies and teams. Some are brand new to discovery, others are already far along in their journey. To start, I always work with the leaders to identify one or two teams who we think will become champions for continuous discovery

Adopting a Continuous Discovery Mindset Across the Organization

I teach two courses at Northwestern University. I want to share a little bit more about the work that I am doing there as I think it’s relevant for people working at companies who are starting to adopt continuous discovery practices (in other words, many of you). The first

Prioritize Opportunities, Not Solutions

I cringe every time I see product teams use a spreadsheet to rank the ideas in their backlog based on some made-up math formula usually consisting of things like business value, user value, and technical difficulty. While this exercise is pervasive, it misses the point entirely. Our job is not

What I’m Saying No to This Year—And Why

The hardest part of my day is saying no to things I shouldn’t be doing. I’m in a fortunate position. I have a thriving coaching business. I write a popular product blog. I get invited to speak at conferences. I teach at a university. I participate in an

Why Engineers Should Participate in Discovery

Are you inviting your engineers to participate in discovery with you? If yes, do you get pushback from them? Does your organization prefer that your engineers only write code? Marty Cagan, in Inspired, argues, “If you’re just using your engineers to code, you’re only getting about half their

2019 Product Conferences

We are starting to pull together our 2019 conference list. This list is by no means exhaustive. If you know of a product conference that is not on the list and you think it should be, please feel free to recommend it in the comments or send an email to

The Best Continuous Discovery Teams Cultivate These Mindsets

Last week, I was in Cleveland for the Industry Product Conference. I spoke about the three mindsets that help a team find success as a continuous discovery team. You can view the video or read my slides and the full script below. Enjoy! Full Script The following script may deviate

Creating a Sustainable Continuous Discovery Practice at CarMax [Case Study]

Back in March, I shared a case study about one of the product teams I worked with at Snagajob (now Snag). I’m excited to share another one with you today. This case study is about a team at CarMax that I just finished working with. You’ll see that

6 Guiding Principles for Effective Product Discovery

I’m co-teaching a design course at Northwestern with my friend Jeff Merrell. We are teaching business leaders and change agents how to prototype their way to viable solutions. In this context, solutions aren’t product solutions, but rather internal programs and processes that effect change within the organization. Our

The Art of Managing Stakeholders Through Product Discovery

So, you’re feeling pretty good about your product discovery habits. You are interviewing customers, iterating on prototypes, running sound experiments, and your team is gaining confidence that you are on a path to reach your desired outcome. It feels like you’ve reached product team nirvana. There’s only

How Much Time Should You Spend in Product Discovery?

I get asked all the time, “How much time should we spend in discovery?” I have two problems with this question. First, it assumes you do discovery first and then delivery second, which is not true. You should be discovering and delivering all the time. Second, it implies that there

What a Good Continuous Discovery Team Looks Like [Case Study]

One of my favorite parts of Mind the Product London this past fall was meeting a product manager and a designer who I had coached in the prior year. We met for afternoon tea and to my surprise they gushed about our time working together. They had so much they

Stop Validating & Start Co-Creating

Meet Sally and Pam. Sally is a product manager, Pam a user experience designer, and they are working on a new mobile app. They’ve conducted customer interviews, defined their MVP, and are now working through the initial designs. Even though their MVP will only include a fraction of their

4 Powerful Ways to Use Rapid Prototyping to Drive Product Success

When you hear the term “rapid prototyping,” what’s the first thing that comes to mind? For most of us who work with digital products, we tend to think of wireframes or mockups. We equate prototyping with a quick way to get user feedback on our designs. But when we

The Results Are In! Feedback from the First Continuous Interviewing Cohort

Hi there, Product Talk readers! I’m Melissa Suzuno. I’ve been helping Teresa with Product Talk content behind the scenes for the past few years. You may have noticed my handiwork if you’re a fan of the Oxford comma or em dash. If you’ve been reading Product

2018 Product Conferences

We are starting to pull together our 2018 conference list. This list is by no means exhaustive. If you know of a product conference that is not on the list and you think it should be, please feel free to recommend it in the comments or send an email to