8 ways to make sure your discovery process actually helps you discover something ??

1?? Remember that you’re out to learn something, not to prove something

It’s fine, we all have our hypothesis. But remember when you’re drafting formats and questions that you’re not trying to prove your hypothesis, you’re trying to learn what’s true. So be wary of leading questions or limited answer options that drive to your desired outcomes.

2?? Understand your objectives

In addition to knowing what you want to know, it’s good to think in advance about why you want to know that. How will you use this information? How will knowing this advance your business objectives, change your strategy, or lead you to new hypotheses? With a theoretical endless amount of information you can get, it’s helpful to have creative constraints.

3?? Cross-functional collaboration

If you know me already, you knew this would be here! Who else in your organization would be impacted by, learn from, or otherwise have thoughts (suggestions or red flags) about this effort? Talk to them before you create your plan so you can incorporate their diverse perspectives. Trust me, your outcomes will be better and you’ll create stronger relationships.

4?? Use the right approach(es)

Is a survey enough? Or just a start? Do you need to talk directly with users one-on-one, or can you use a testing platform? How about a focus group??

Understand what you need to learn and what type of format will get you there without overspending — or, what do you need to do in sequence so that the next step builds on the learnings of the previous effort?

5?? Balance staying on script & following the user’s lead

While it’s true that it’s important to ask the same questions so that we can tag, score, rank, and sort answers … it’s also true that sometimes you hit a wall, and sometimes you hit an unexpected goldmine. An experienced researcher knows when to pivot off script, and how to get back on, in order to make the most of the individual conversation while still keeping the outcome usable.

?6?? Cultivate empathy

This is a corollary to the above. Yes, there’s a script — but as you go, strive to understand your users' perspectives, challenges, and emotions. By empathizing with their experiences, you'll gain deeper insights that will help you with the next step: analyzing the data.

7?? Find the throughlines

This is expert level! Analyzing the data doesn’t just mean stopping at the topline info. What does this information tell you? What patterns or trends might it expose, or what does it tell you about new way to think about segmenting your audience or creating cohorts or personas? Is their user journey different from how you imagined, and what does that mean for CRO or new feature development?

8?? Rinse and repeat!

The more you make continuous learning a habit, the easier it is to optimize your learnings as well as to train your organization to keep an open mind on their hypotheses and follow the data.

What else do you do to optimize discovery in your organization??

Need help framing, executing, or analyzing research? Reach out — I’m always up for a brainstorm!

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Hi! I’m Lisa Schneider . I help companies develop and implement product strategy that aligns with business goals to help start-ups scale and enterprises accelerate innovation and growth. Reach out any time if you’d like to learn more or just brainstorm.

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