7 Iterative Steps to Build the Right Features, Not to Just Ship Fast!

Building great products requires a deep understanding of user needs and continuous iteration on solutions. In her book ‘Continuous Discovery Habits’, Teresa Torres outlines a process that a product trio — comprising a Product Manager, Product Designer, and Engineering Manager — can follow to integrate continuous learning into the product development lifecycle. By doing so, teams can stay aligned with customer needs while minimizing risk and fostering innovation.

This article outlines the key steps a Product Trio should follow to build great products through continuous discovery and iteration.

#1 Build a Product Trio

As a foundational step, a Product Manager should establish a Product Trio consisting of a Product Manager, Product Designer, and Engineering Manager. This trio collaborates to understand customer needs, explore potential solutions, and ensure feasibility from both a user experience and technical perspective.

#2 Weekly customer interviews

To ensure that product decisions are based on the latest insights, the Product Trio should engage with customers weekly to gather qualitative feedback from their experiences. These interactions help identify pain points, validate ideas, and shape the product roadmap based on real user needs.

#3 Seek out users’ experiences and pain points

During the weekly customer interactions, rather than asking users what features they want, the Product Trio should focus on understanding their challenges and pain points. By framing the problem statement correctly, the trio can ensure they brainstorm impactful solutions that truly address user needs.

#4 Define Outcome, not Output

Outputs are the deliverables, the products or features a product trio ships, but they do not guarantee incremental value. In contrast, an outcome is a measurable change in customer behavior that drives business benefits. Therefore, focusing on outcomes rather than just shipping features ensures that the trio creates a meaningful impact.

#5 Create Opportunity Solution Trees (OST)

Before jumping to solutions, it is crucial for the Product Trio to map out the opportunity space. These opportunities are identified through weekly user interactions and are aligned with business goals. The trio then collaborates to create an opportunity map, helping to visualize and structure potential areas of focus. Next, the Product Trio prioritizes these opportunities, working on one leaf-level opportunity at a time to deliver incremental outcomes. Opportunity Solution Trees (OSTs) ensure that the team focuses on meaningful problems rather than simply building features that do not address core user needs.

#6 Develop solutions and validate them through testing

Once a leaf-level opportunity is prioritized, the Product Trio should brainstorm multiple solutions to address it. They should generate as many ideas as possible and then collectively shortlist them based on user insights, data analysis, and alignment with desired outcomes. Next, the trio should validate these shortlisted ideas and their underlying assumptions through rapid prototyping, quick A/B testing (if needed), usability studies, and continuous customer feedback. This iterative approach allows the team to make incremental improvements rather than taking large, high-risk bets.

#7 Iterate based on how the North Star metric evolves after shipping features

As the next step, refine the shipped product or feature based on experiment results and customer feedback. This iterative approach minimizes risk and ensures the team develops products that truly address user needs.