Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value

In Chapter 14, Torres discusses how individuals can implement product discovery practices even in organizations that do not officially support such methods. The chapter opens with Torres’s personal narrative from 1999 when she began working as a software developer at HighWire Press, a Stanford University Libraries division focused on digitizing academic journals. As a recent college graduate with training in human-centered design, Torres encountered immediate challenges when her initial navigation design for the American Association for the Advancement of Science received harsh criticism from a client who had previously specified different requirements.

This formative experience taught Torres that she needed to maintain close connections with clients and end users, regardless of her company’s standard practices. She initiated regular client meetings, attended conferences, monitored discussion forums, and established feedback mechanisms within products. These self-directed changes to her work process yielded significant results—by age 32, she had become CEO of a company.

Torres uses this personal history to introduce her central argument: Individuals possess more agency in their work processes than they might realize. Rather than waiting for organizational change or seeking permission, she advocates for making incremental improvements within one’s sphere of influence. The chapter then presents specific strategies for implementing discovery practices, beginning with the formation of a cross-functional trio comprising a product manager, designer, and engineer. If formal roles do not exist, Torres suggests finding colleagues who demonstrate relevant skills and mindsets.

The author identifies regular customer interviews as a keystone habit—a practice that catalyzes additional positive changes. Drawing on Charles Duhigg’s concept from The Power of Habit, Torres explains that teams who regularly engage with customers naturally increase their prototyping and experimentation activities while improving their ability to connect research insights to product decisions.

For teams operating under a feature-delivery model, Torres recommends working backward from assigned solutions to understand underlying customer needs and business objectives. This approach helps teams identify assumptions, measure impact, and gradually demonstrate the value of discovery practices to stakeholders. The chapter emphasizes conducting post-release impact reviews and using instances when features fall short of expectations as opportunities to advocate for more robust discovery processes.

Torres concludes with practical guidance for implementation, including using team retrospectives to reflect on surprising discoveries and analyze how insights could have been obtained earlier. She addresses common pitfalls, such as dismissing strategies that seem incompatible with one’s organization, becoming overly rigid about “correct” methodologies, or waiting for formal permission to begin discovery work. The chapter’s final message reinforces its opening premise: Individuals should focus on implementing manageable changes within their control rather than attempting to transform entire organizations at once.