Continuous discovery makes customer learning part of the ordinary working week. The team investigates needs, explores possible responses, and tests assumptions while the product develops, rather than waiting for a separate research project whenever a decision becomes difficult.
Teresa Torres’s formulation of continuous discovery sets a cadence of at least weekly customer contact by the team building the product, connected to an intended outcome. Frequency supports the habit, but the contact still needs to influence a question the team is working through.
Begin with an outcome people can experience
“Launch a new onboarding checklist” specifies an output. “Help new administrators complete their first account setup without assistance” gives the team a change to investigate. A checklist becomes one possible response alongside clearer permissions, better defaults, or assistance at a different point.
Conversations about recent experience help reveal where the difficulty occurs. In this illustrative onboarding example, an administrator might describe postponing setup because they needed approval from a colleague. That account leads to a different investigation from a complaint about finding the next button.
An opportunity solution tree can help organise those needs and possible responses. Keep the underlying evidence accessible so a branch of the diagram does not quietly acquire more certainty than the research supports.
Choose a small activity that can resolve an uncertainty
Some questions call for user interviews; others need a prototype, an examination of usage data, or a technical investigation. A weekly conversation does not automatically test every assumption behind a proposed feature.
For the approval problem, a team might first investigate who makes the decision and what information they need. It could then test a proposed invitation flow through Ballpark’s prototype testing. Each activity contributes different evidence, and the team should be able to explain how that evidence affects its choice.
Recruit beyond the customers easiest to reach. If only engaged regulars respond to an invitation, people who abandoned setup may remain absent from the very research intended to help them.
Keep a frequent habit from becoming a narrow one
Small studies work within a wider research programme. Questions about rare events, long-term behaviour, unfamiliar audiences, or population-level estimates may need more time and a different design. Maintaining weekly contact does not remove those needs.
Record which opportunities were explored, which assumptions were tested, and what changed as a result. This makes learning available across weeks and helps the team notice when it is repeatedly studying the same small part of the experience. A sustainable discovery practice leaves room both for the next practical decision and for evidence that challenges the direction of the product.