Last quarter's workaround, compared
Because the core questions are asked again every week, this quarter's customers can be set against last quarter's on the same workaround. A product lead can then show whether a release made it less common.
Use caseRun always-on discovery
Run always-on discovery with AI interviews
Keep a small study in the field every week, with a fixed core of questions and a slot for whatever assumption the roadmap raised last, and pin what customers say onto the team's opportunity tree as it arrives.
A standing study with a rotating slot
A product trio can run the same discovery study for a year without redesigning it, because only one part of it changes from week to week.
A core that stays put
The core covers what never goes out of date for this product: the goal the customer was pursuing the last time they used it, the problem in the way and the workaround they reached for.
This week's assumption
Beside the core sits a slot the team rewrites each Monday for the assumption the roadmap raised most recently, such as whether admins would delegate setup, so it is tested before anyone designs around it.
No calls to book, week after week
Customers take the interview whenever they open the invitation, from a phone at lunch or a laptop at night, so a weekly cadence never depends on someone finding and hosting five calls.
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GrowwFrom interview to opportunity tree
Discovery earns its place at planning when its evidence is current, easy to find and tied to the outcome the team is chasing.
Quotes pinned to opportunities
Each opportunity on the tree carries the customer quotes that raised it, so when two opportunities compete for next quarter, the product trio can see which one more customers brought up without being asked.
Needs noticed before the tickets
A problem that surfaces once in March and three times by May reaches the tree months before it would show up in support tickets, usage data or cancellations.
A record that grows by the week
Every week's conversations go into Pulse's Insights library beside the weeks before, queryable across projects, so a designer joining in the fall can ask what customers said in spring before writing the next slot.
How Pulse does it
Fix the standing core
Rotate in this week's assumption
Pin quotes to opportunities
Retire or promote assumptions
The method behind it
Continuous discovery, a practice Teresa Torres popularized, means the team building a product talks to customers every week in small numbers, instead of relying on an occasional large study. The conversations test assumptions, explore opportunities and check solutions while they are still being shaped, and an opportunity solution tree connects what customers say to the outcome the team is pursuing. A standing set of questions about goals and problems runs beside questions that change as the roadmap raises new assumptions. Recruiting and scheduling every week is the part that takes the most effort, so teams automate it where they can. Findings go into a shared repository so they build up over time. Product, design and engineering leads review the recordings and transcripts together, so decisions rest on evidence the whole team has seen. Interviews ask about a specific recent experience, never a hypothetical preference, and the jobs-to-be-done interview is built for exactly that: a real occasion, reconstructed step by step, with what prompted it and what the customer did.
Related
Weekly discovery that keeps its standards
The assumption's author frames the test
The designer who proposed a new empty state is the one who writes the week's question about it, with its audience and screener, so the person closest to the assumption frames the test of it.
Week forty as careful as week one
Over a year of weekly studies, the person launching will change many times. The AI moderator asks the guide's questions the same way every week, so week forty is asked as week one was, and the trend stays trustworthy.