Embrace the Discomfort of the Problem Space Teams often struggle to shift from building product features to exploring the problem space. The Opportunity Solution Tree provides structure for this shift by helping teams understand the distinction between the problem space and the solution space. It emphasizes the importance of framing a problem well and truly understanding the unmet needs before jumping to solutions, despite the discomfort it may cause. Many people struggle with differentiating between the problem space and the solution space, but itās crucial for developing good products.
Teresa Torres
A lot of teams, they learn how to do their jobs building products by being told, build these features. And thatās a really structured, okay, just churn out some work kind of problem. And so weāre asking teams to fundamentally do a really different type of job. And I think teams needed some scaffolding for how do you make that shift. And so that was the purpose of the opportunity solution tree is how do I add some structure to this wide open messy problem? Now, the reason why it looks simple, but itās really hard in practice is like, well, whatās an opportunity and how do I structure the opportunity space? And I can tell you that opportunity is an unmet need, pain point, or desire. And thatās great. But I can tell you that 98% of people that write opportunities write them as solutions. So we tend to just really struggle with this distinction between the problem space and the solution space. And I think that the heart of good product is really getting comfortable in the problem space or the opportunity space, really taking the time to frame a problem well, and to really get Into whatās needed before we jump to solutions. But itās like the opposite of how our brains are wired. And so teaching people to be comfortable with that discomfort of like staying there is hard. And I think, I mean, I see blog posts written about how theyāre using the opportunity solution tree. And I cry a little bit because their opportunity space is all solutions.Deciding What to Watch: Understanding User Needs and Pain Points The process of deciding what to watch involves considering factors like the platform, evaluating the content, ensuring a good viewing experience, and potential post-viewing interactions. Within this process, various user needs and pain points arise, ranging from tactical issues like finding a specific movie to broader concerns such as determining the quality of a show. These needs and pain points are common across different streaming platforms, presenting a shared opportunity space for improvement.
Teresa Torres
Usually wrapped up in that is like, what platform am I watching it on? Those are sometimes intermixed. Because maybe youāre deciding I want to watch Game of Thrones, and thatās right away sending you to HBO Max. Or maybe youāre like, well, I want to watch a movie, and I could be on any platform, right? And then thereās sort of the evaluation process of like, is this movie good or not? Does it look like something I want to watch? And then I want to get into, okay, Iām ready to watch. Is it a good viewing experience? And then for a lot of these platforms, thereās also this sort of post viewing experience of like, am I going to encourage you to keep watching? Things like that. So thatās how I would structure that opportunity space is just thereās these distinct moments in time. And then what Iām capturing is below each of those, what are the needs and pain points and desires that arise? So if we just focus on that one around, like, how do I decide what to watch? Thereās all sorts of needs that come up. Some are really tactical, like I have a movie title in mind and I just donāt know how to find it. Right? Thatās a pain point. Or, hey, I was watching a show. How do I get back to it? Itās also a pain point. But then thereās also these big media opportunities like I canāt tell if the show is good or not. Right. And so like everything that I just said, there was no solutions in there. In fact, whether I work at Netflix or I work at Hulu, our opportunity spaces probably look pretty similar. Now,Thinking Deeply Yields Superior Results Thinking deeply and engaging in critical thinking exercises at work can lead to a deeper understanding of customer needs and the ability to build better products. Emphasizing outcome-oriented thinking can help push a team and company towards delivering value, even in organizations that tend to focus on building features without clear purpose. When faced with a large organization resistant to change, it may be more effective to focus on changing individual work approach rather than attempting to force organizational change.
Teresa Torres
Because like, we donāt think that much at work. We go from meeting to meeting, we stay surface level a lot. And here I am coming in with this like, really hard critical thinking exercise. But Iāve just seen from teams that are willing to put in that work. It really is a game changer. You have a deeper understanding of what your customers need, and you build better products.
Lenny Rachitsky
Man, thinking deeply. No fun, but so important. I want to chat about interviewing and all the advice you have about just how to interview. But before we get to that, one last question around the opportunity solution kind of work. So the whole idea is to think outcome oriented. And to your point, a lot of companies have product teams that are just like build these things for us. Donāt worry about why weāre doing these. If your company is of that latter sort, more of like a feature factory, can you use this framework to kind of push the team and the company in a direction of thinking outcome oriented? Or is there like a more direct approach to kind of address that problem?
Teresa Torres
Yeah. Okay. Letās talk about this based on the role. Like if youāre an individual contributor and youāre not at a 10 person company, I would say, donāt try to force the organizational change. Organizational change is such a hard and messy problem. I feel like what I would do in that situation is I would just change the way that I individually worked. And this is what I always did in every job.Create change through individual action Instead of trying to force organizational change, focus on changing the way you individually work within the organization. Carve out your own path and find ways to make a difference through individual actions, such as talking to customers or users, even if it means going outside the established channels. Use your own ability and initiative to create change within the organization.
Teresa Torres
Yeah. Okay. Letās talk about this based on the role. Like if youāre an individual contributor and youāre not at a 10 person company, I would say, donāt try to force the organizational change. Organizational change is such a hard and messy problem. I feel like what I would do in that situation is I would just change the way that I individually worked. And this is what I always did in every job. I mean, I made a lot of mistakes trying to change the organization, but I also just carved out a way for me to work this way. And I think we underestimate how much ability we have to do that. So like, even if youāre being prescribed a fixed roadmap, you still can find customers to talk to. And I hear from people all the time and say, Iām not allowed to talk to customers. I go, okay, well, your company doesnāt own you when youāre not at work. And I bet you know people like your customers. Why donāt you just start there? Right? So like we overthink it. We think we have to go through these proper channels and we have to get permission from sales. And a lot of us, especially if we work on a consumer product, like just go find somebody thatās like your user. But Iāve also seen instances in B2B environments where like I worked with a team that worked on badges for healthcare, like the badges that nurses and doctors use to like unlock a workstation That they chart in. AndContinuous Discovery and Customer Inclusion The shift to digital products requires a continuous mindset for product evolution and decision-making, necessitating the continuous inclusion of the customer in the process. Continuous discovery involves building in continuous feedback loops to adapt to the fast-paced nature of delivering continuous value in the business environment.
Teresa Torres
Like we designed them, we built them, we manufactured them, we put them on the store shelf, we were done, we moved on to the next thing. But with digital products, thereās no done. So weāre seeing this shift to more of a continuous mindset. Weāre continuously evolving our products, which means weāre continuously making decisions about what to build. And therefore, I think we need to continuously include the customer in that process. So for me, I define continuous discovery as building in those continuous feedback loops.
Lenny Rachitsky
Awesome. Thatās such a simple, clear way of thinking about this. Because yeah, broadly, itās like a new term people have to get used to. And I think you saw I made a call on Twitter for people to ask me to ask you questions about continuous discovery. And so Iām going to try to get as many of those in there in this chat as I can. And one actually was around, what do you do when your leaders tell you thereās no time for discovery?
Teresa Torres
Yeah, this is a tough one. I think this comes from old project-based research methods. So we donāt most of the time have time to stop what weāre doing and go do some research. And Iām not poo-pooing research. I mean, Iāve worked as a user researcher, like research is critical. And if we had the luxury of doing long longitudinal studies, we would probably build better products. Thatās not our business environment, right? Our businesses are expecting us to deliver continuous value. So we need to look at how do we match that cadence?Always Discover and Deliver: Making Better Bets Donāt delay making bets until full discovery; everything in the backlog is a bet, and discovery helps make better bets. Continuous discovery and delivery lead to making better bets over time, rather than thinking of them as separate phases.
Teresa Torres
We donāt have time for project-based research. So if Iām getting that pushback, I want to look for, okay, I definitely donāt, like, people make this mistake of we shouldnāt put something in our backlog that hasnāt been properly discovered. Itās not true, right? Like everything in our backlog is a bet. Everything, whether we do discovery or not, everything is a bet. Discovery is helping us make a better bet. Now, sometimes in our organizations, we need to do a lot of discovery and make as good of a bet as we can. But thereās other times we can make a risky bet. Like thereās times in business where it makes sense to make a risky bet. And if you work somewhere where all of your bets have been risky because youāre doing zero discovery, the best way to kill any appetite for discovery is to say letās stop making bets until We discover. No, donāt do that. Keep making bets. In parallel, start doing some discovery so that eventually those bets get better. And I think the reason why people make this mistake is they think about it as phases. First I discover and then I deliver. No, youāre always delivering and youāre always discovering. And the more you build this discovery habit, the better those bets are going to get with time. So itās not that you do one first and then the other, itās youāre always doing both. And the benefit of always doing both is with time, you make better bets.Make Desired Behaviors Easier to Adopt The speaker recommends automating the recruiting process by making it easier for product teams to conduct interviews every week. This idea was inspired by the concept of ānudgeā from the book āNudgeā by Thaler and Sunstein, which focuses on designing a choice architecture to make the desired behavior easier to adopt. The strategy involves making use of recurring meetings on the calendar and allowing customers to opt in while using the product or service.
Lenny Rachitsky
You said that you could do this with one meeting, like an hour a week. And I know you have kind of a system that you recommend for people to make this kind of automated. So youāre not just constantly pinging your customers. Hey, can I chat with you this week? Can you just share that?
Teresa Torres
Came from, I had just read Nudge by Baylor and Sunstein when it came out a few years ago. And they have this idea of like, when youāre designing a choice architecture, how do you make it easier to adopt the behavior you want to see than to not adopt the behavior? So I started thinking about this in the context of interviewing. Like I want to see product teams interview every week. So how do I make it easier for them to do that than to not do that? Okay, well, a lot of us have recurring meetings that we go to every week because theyāre on our calendar. So I just started to think about how do I make an interview or recurring meeting? Like, can I make it so that when you wake up on Monday morning, thereās an interview on your calendar and you literally did nothing to get it there? And so thereās a few ways to think about this. The most common strategy is to allow your customers to opt in while theyāre using your product or service. So just like almost everybodyās seen an NPS survey embedded in a product, right? Thatās pretty prevalent now.Utilizing Embedded Scheduling in Surveys for Customer and Internal Team Recruitment Embedded scheduling in surveys allows for easy customer interview scheduling, enabling tailored and strategic positioning to capture the attention of consumers and B2B end users. Internal teams, such as sales, account managers, and support staff, can also utilize embedded scheduling to recruit interview participants based on specific triggers, without direct involvement of the product team.
Teresa Torres
Just like almost everybodyās seen an NPS survey embedded in a product, right? Thatās pretty prevalent now. Same idea, but instead of saying, would you recommend our product or service to a friend or colleague, it says, do you have 20 minutes to talk to us, right? They say yes, you send them some scheduling software, they pick a time on your calendar, and voila, youāve got an interview scheduled. You obviously can get more advanced. Where do you show it? Who do you show it to? How much do you tailor it? How do you position it? But the core idea is to let people opt in while you already have their attention. That works really well for consumers and B2B end users. If youāre trying to get in touch with like buyers and decision makers, same idea, but use your internal teams that are already on the phone with those folks. So thatās sales people, account managers, maybe support folks, right? Theyāre literally on the phone with those people all day, every day. So instead of using your product to recruit, you can use those teams to recruit. And what I do is I just have teams define a trigger every week. Like, hey, this week weāre looking to talk to somebody whoās experiencing this need or pain point. If you happen to be on the phone with someone whoās experiencing that, again, just go ahead and use scheduling software, put it on our calendar. The goal is for the product team to not be involved at all. They literally just have to show up and conduct the interview. ThatāsThe Power of Well-Functioning Product Trios Well-functioning product trios, consisting of the product manager, the designer, and the software engineer, have the ability to work together effectively in a shared understanding, resulting in reduced disagreements and a continuous search for better options. Working in such teams fosters a ājust do itā mentality, as opposed to the posturing and negotiation often found in traditional business settings. However, the concept of well-functioning product trios may be unfamiliar to many in the industry, with the majority having never experienced such a dynamic collaboration.
Teresa Torres
Why is this? Kindergarteners just start doing. They donāt worry about their roles. They donāt worry about whoās in charge. They just brute force trial and error. What do MBA students do? Thereās posturing, like who has power and whoās the decision maker and whoās right. And we need a plan and we need to have a strategy. And they spend the whole time like negotiating this political social space instead of just doing. And I really think we got to learn how to get back to just doing. And so people think that Iām like Pollyanna naive about this, but Iāve worked on teams that work this way. And Iāve coached teams that work this way where the trio really does decide. So the trio is the product manager, the designer, and the software engineer. And if youāve never worked on a well-functioning trio, this breaks peopleās brains because they say, well, what are we going to do when we disagree? Youāre going to find an option where you donāt disagree, right? And the thing is, if you only worked on a siloed dysfunctional team, that sounds like a nightmare. But if youāve worked on a well-functioning team thatās doing discovery well together, youāre working from a shared understanding. So your disagreements right away are going to go way down because youāre working from a shared understanding. And when you disagree, you recognize, okay, we donāt agree. We donāt have the best option yet. And you keep looking for that better option. And whatās hard about talking about this is I fully understand probably 98% of the industry has never worked on a well-functioning product trio.The product trio model works well when scope is defined, but in experimental contexts ā inventing new ways to meet requirements quickly ā the nature of disagreements shifts. The question becomes less āwhere does this thing not work wellā and more ācan we figure out what is important to the user.ā 3plQuality interviewing is about natural conversation and minimal questioning Interviewers should focus on having a natural, casual and conversational interview style, avoiding long lists of questions. The goal is to create a comfortable environment where the interviewee can share their story in a conversational manner. Rather than focusing on asking numerous questions, interviewers should aim to elicit the intervieweeās story through open-ended questions and create a conversational flow.
Teresa Torres
Awesome.
Lenny Rachitsky
Going back to discovery and interviewing, I definitely wanted to ask you, what are like, I donāt know, two or three tips and best practices for interviewing slash what are like two or Three things people usually do wrong that they should try to avoid?
Teresa Torres
Like who, what, why, how, 50 question long, like interview protocols. And it leads to a cadence of the interview that is not a natural conversation. So I think like the first thing to remember is that youāre just talking to a human. I actually tell people like, if your interview feels like youāre having a beer with a buddy, thatās a good sign. Like it should be that casual and that conversational, but weāre not going to get there if I pepper you with 50 questions, right? Weāre going to get there by Iām going to collect your story. Iām going to be really curious. I might still have to pepper you with 50 questions to get your story, right? Because thereās sort of this conversational norm of I say something, you say something. So I got to teach you that I want your whole story and help you open up. So thatās one piece of it is just the cadence of the conversation really should feel like a natural conversation. And then the second piece of it is how do we do that? Like whatās the skill? How do we elicit that story? And I teach in our interviewing class, you really donāt have to think about what to ask. Like you could run an entire interview by asking them one question. InCuriosity Fuels Natural Conversation Creating a natural conversation involves the skill of eliciting stories through curiosity-driven questions. By simply being curious about the other personās experience and asking timeline-situating questions, an entire interview can be conducted with just one initial question, allowing the interviewee to naturally share their story.
Teresa Torres
Should feel like a natural conversation. And then the second piece of it is how do we do that? Like whatās the skill? How do we elicit that story? And I teach in our interviewing class, you really donāt have to think about what to ask. Like you could run an entire interview by asking them one question. In fact, letās replay this a little bit. Lenny, tell me about the last time you watched something on a streaming entertainment service.
Lenny Rachitsky
Just last night, I was watching Obi-Wan Kenobi on Disney+.
Teresa Torres
Okay, yeah, great. Okay, so it was last night. Set the scene for me. Where were you?
Lenny Rachitsky
I was at home on my couch, just lounging.
Teresa Torres
Okay, and tell me about the moment where you decided you wanted to watch something.
Lenny Rachitsky
It was like eight oāclock, and Iām like, itās time to watch something.
Teresa Torres
Okay. Is that part of your normal routine? Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky
In the evenings, itās a good way to unwind and let my brain relax a little bit.
Teresa Torres
Okay. So youāre sitting on the couch. You decided itās time to watch something. What did you do next?
Lenny Rachitsky
Turned on the TV, went to Netflix, didnāt find anything. Went to Prime, didnāt find anything. And Iām like, oh yeah, Obi-Wan. Letās check that out.
Teresa Torres
Okay. So I literally could continue this entire interview by just saying, oh, you opened Netflix. What happened next? Oh, you didnāt find anything. How come? Right? Like all I have to do is just be curious about your experience. And what Iām doing with my questions is just helping you tell the timeline, right? Like set the scene. Iām situating you back in that moment. Like,The Art of Curiosity in Interviewing Interviewing should focus on being genuinely curious about the intervieweeās experiences and actions, allowing them to naturally recount their timeline. Often, interviewers become so concerned with asking the next question that they stop actively listening and miss crucial details and moments of friction in the intervieweeās narrative.
Lenny Rachitsky
Just last night, I was watching Obi-Wan Kenobi on Disney+.
Teresa Torres
Okay, yeah, great. Okay, so it was last night. Set the scene for me. Where were you?
Lenny Rachitsky
I was at home on my couch, just lounging.
Teresa Torres
Okay, and tell me about the moment where you decided you wanted to watch something.
Lenny Rachitsky
It was like eight oāclock, and Iām like, itās time to watch something.
Teresa Torres
Okay. Is that part of your normal routine? Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky
In the evenings, itās a good way to unwind and let my brain relax a little bit.
Teresa Torres
Okay. So youāre sitting on the couch. You decided itās time to watch something. What did you do next?
Lenny Rachitsky
Turned on the TV, went to Netflix, didnāt find anything. Went to Prime, didnāt find anything. And Iām like, oh yeah, Obi-Wan. Letās check that out.
Teresa Torres
Okay. So I literally could continue this entire interview by just saying, oh, you opened Netflix. What happened next? Oh, you didnāt find anything. How come? Right? Like all I have to do is just be curious about your experience. And what Iām doing with my questions is just helping you tell the timeline, right? Like set the scene. Iām situating you back in that moment. Like, letās remember what you actually did. It was after dinner, youāre sitting on the couch. What happened next? Right? I can do that over and over again. And so one of the reasons why we get bad at interviewing, weāre so worried about asking the next question. We stop listening to the interviewee. We just missed everything we were told. We missed those moments of like, oh, there was some friction. You couldnāt find something to watch. Tell me about that.Good interviewing is not about impressing with clever questions ā it is about genuine curiosity. The goal is to unwrap the timeline rather than worry about what to ask next. This is the kind of love is inefficient approach that does not scale: it reveals itself only in individual conversations. The open question is whether product discovery could become a conversational interface that elicits a timeline from a brief description.Uncover Deeper Insights Through Curiosity Interviewers can extract valuable insights from interviewees by simply being curious about their experiences and asking specific questions to help the interviewees recall and elaborate on their actions. By focusing on the details and reasons behind the intervieweeās choices, interviewers can uncover valuable information and avoid missing key moments or dismissing potential points of friction. Taking a slower, more curious approach akin to a five-year-old asking āwhy?ā can lead to a deeper understanding and richer insights.
Teresa Torres
I literally could continue this entire interview by just saying, oh, you opened Netflix. What happened next? Oh, you didnāt find anything. How come? Right? Like all I have to do is just be curious about your experience. And what Iām doing with my questions is just helping you tell the timeline, right? Like set the scene. Iām situating you back in that moment. Like, letās remember what you actually did. It was after dinner, youāre sitting on the couch. What happened next? Right? I can do that over and over again. And so one of the reasons why we get bad at interviewing, weāre so worried about asking the next question. We stop listening to the interviewee. We just missed everything we were told. We missed those moments of like, oh, there was some friction. You couldnāt find something to watch. Tell me about that. What did you consider on Netflix? Like, letās dig into that. And if I work on a team thatās trying to help you find something to watch, thatās a goldmine, right? Like you just told me you went on Netflix, you went on Prime. Like, what were you looking at? And what didnāt resonate? And is it because youād watched everything? Is it because it just didnāt match your profile, right? Like thereās so much to explore there. But what I see most teams do is they stay really shallow. Oh, okay. So you watched Obi-Wan on Prime. Great. Tell me another story, right? And we just lost all the value. And so some of it is just slowing down and almost being like a five-year right? Like you really, instead of saying, why, why, why? You can say, what happened next?Empowerment and Collaboration in Managing Dependencies Starting with an outcome, being empowered to come up with solutions, and collaborating with adjacent teams are crucial in managing dependencies. As companies grow, the need for glateral collaboration increases to ensure a coherent product. In larger companies, there may be cynicism towards user research, but the speaker emphasizes that making decisions based on at least one interview is better than making decisions with zero data, a standard to which other business decisions are not usually held.
Teresa Torres
And so you probably have some dependencies to manage. But you still should start with an outcome, be empowered to go after it, be empowered to come up with your own solutions. Whatās going to be different in that 100,000 person company is you probably have like design patterns and libraries you got to rely on for a coherent user experience. And you probably have another team thatās working adjacent to you that you need to share your discovery work and be aware of what theyāre working on because you do need to build a coherent Product. And so as our companies get bigger, we have a lot of that lateral collaboration we have to do to make sure weāre still building a coherent product. But I think the fundamental base unit stays the same.
Lenny Rachitsky
Something that Iāve seen happen with larger companies, especially as companies grow, is a little bit of cynicism of user research, specifically how few people you talk to and how that Leads to you making a decision. How do you respond to those kinds of concerns?
Teresa Torres
I love this. I donāt know why product teams suddenly are held to a standard that nobody else is held to. Like when somebody says something like, why is it reliable to make a decision based on one interview? I just flip the question around. Tell me about the decisions you made last week. How many customers did you talk to? What data did you use? Like every human in business is making decisions with zero data. So Iām going to go with one is better than zero.-
Episode AI notes
- Teams often struggle to shift from building product features to exploring the problem space. The Opportunity Solution Tree provides structure for this shift by helping teams understand the distinction between the problem space and the solution space.
- The process of deciding what to watch involves considering factors like the platform, evaluating the content, ensuring a good viewing experience, and potential post-viewing interactions. Within this process, various user needs and pain points arise, ranging from tactical issues like finding a specific movie to broader concerns such as determining the quality of a show.
- Thinking deeply and engaging in critical thinking exercises at work can lead to a deeper understanding of customer needs and the ability to build better products.
- Instead of trying to force organizational change, focus on changing the way you individually work within the organization.
- The shift to digital products requires a continuous mindset for product evolution and decision-making, necessitating the continuous inclusion of the customer in the process.
- Donāt delay making bets until full discovery; everything in the backlog is a bet, and discovery helps make better bets.
- The speaker recommends automating the recruiting process by making it easier for product teams to conduct interviews every week.
- Embedded scheduling in surveys allows for easy customer interview scheduling, enabling tailored and strategic positioning to capture the attention of consumers and B2B end users.
- Well-functioning product trios, consisting of the product manager, the designer, and the software engineer, have the ability to work together effectively in a shared understanding, resulting in reduced disagreements and a continuous search for better options.
- Interviewers should focus on having a natural, casual and conversational interview style, avoiding long lists of questions.
- Creating a natural conversation involves the skill of eliciting stories through curiosity-driven questions.
- Interviewing should focus on being genuinely curious about the intervieweeās experiences and actions, allowing them to naturally recount their timeline.
- Interviewers can extract valuable insights from interviewees by simply being curious about their experiences and asking specific questions to help the interviewees recall and elaborate on their actions.
Starting with an outcome, being empowered to come up with solutions, and collaborating with adjacent teams are crucial in managing dependencies. In larger companies, there may be cynicism towards user research, but making decisions based on at least one interview is better than making decisions with zero data. TimeĀ 0:00:00
