Learning Path: User Research & Discovery

Who This Is For

You're a PM who wants to get better at understanding customers, a UX researcher looking to deepen your practice, or a founder who needs to validate product ideas. This path covers Jobs to Be Done methodology, interview techniques, continuous discovery, and building a research practice.

What You'll Learn

• Master the Jobs to Be Done framework for understanding customer motivation
• Conduct interviews that reveal real insights, not just what users say they want
• Build a continuous discovery habit that informs every product decision
• Turn research insights into actionable product opportunities
• Create a sustainable research practice that scales

Time Commitment

• Total Estimated Time: 14-18 hours
• Recommended Pace: 3-4 hours/week over 5 weeks
• Can Be Compressed: Yes, to 2-3 weeks for intensive study

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Module 1: Jobs to Be Done Foundations

Estimated Time: 3-4 hours

Learning Objectives

• Understand why customers "hire" products to make progress
• Learn the four forces that drive and block behavior change
• Identify the three sources of energy behind customer decisions

Core Episodes

Guest	Episode Focus	Key Insight
Bob Moesta	Jobs to Be Done	People hire products to make progress in their life
Teresa Torres	Continuous product discovery	Building discovery into your workflow
Kristen Berman	Behavioral science in product	Why users don't do what they say
Rahul Vohra	Superhuman's success	Finding and designing for the "job"

Key Frameworks

• Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) - Understand context and outcome, not just pain and gain
• Four Forces of Progress - Push + pull must outweigh anxiety + habit
• Three Sources of Energy - Functional, emotional, and social drivers

Exercises

1. Your Own Switch: Recall a product you recently switched to. Map the four forces: What pushed you away from the old solution? What pulled you toward the new one? What anxieties did you have? What habits were hard to break?

2. Job Story Writing: For your product, write 3 job stories in the format: "When [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [expected outcome]."

3. Forces Mapping: Interview someone who recently adopted your product. Map their four forces of progress.

Reflection Questions

1. What's the difference between the "job" and the "feature"?
2. Why do customers often describe their job incorrectly?
3. How might your product's job be different for different segments?

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Module 2: Interview Techniques

Estimated Time: 3-4 hours

Learning Objectives

• Conduct interviews that reveal the real story, not rehearsed answers
• Navigate through layers of language to get to reality
• Know who to study (people who switched, not just complainers)

Core Episodes

Guest	Episode Focus	Key Insight
Bob Moesta	Jobs to Be Done (interview technique)	The timeline interview method
Kristen Berman	Behavioral science in product	Understanding actual behavior
Teresa Torres	Continuous discovery (interviews)	Weekly customer conversations
Kevin Yien	Unorthodox PM tips	Creative research techniques

Key Frameworks

• Layers of Language - Get past pablum and fantasy to reality
• Bitchin' Ain't Switchin' - Only study people who actually switched
• Six Phases of Buying - Meet customers where they are

Exercises

1. Timeline Interview: Conduct a JTBD-style interview focusing on a specific "switch" moment. Document the timeline from first thought to purchase.

2. Layer Navigation: In your next interview, practice pushing past vague language. When you hear generalities, ask: "Can you tell me about a specific time when that happened?"

3. Behavioral Observation: Watch someone use your product (or a competitor's) without saying anything. What do you observe that you wouldn't learn from asking?

Reflection Questions

1. Why should you study recent switchers rather than loyal customers?
2. What's the difference between what people say, what people do, and what people want?
3. How do you know when you've gotten to "reality" in an interview?

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Module 3: Continuous Discovery

Estimated Time: 3-4 hours

Learning Objectives

• Build discovery into your weekly routine
• Create living documents that capture ongoing insights
• Balance discovery with delivery pressure

Core Episodes

Guest	Episode Focus	Key Insight
Teresa Torres	Continuous product discovery	Weekly conversations as a habit
Kevin Yien	Unorthodox PM tips	Making research practical
Nickey Skarstad	Vision, goals, execution	Balancing research with shipping
Marty Cagan	Product management excellence	Discovery vs. delivery

Key Frameworks

• Top 10 Things You Should Know - A living document of important problems
• Dog Food and Cat Food - Use your product and competitors' obsessively
• Friction Logging - Systematically identify UX issues

Exercises

1. Weekly Habit: Commit to having at least one customer conversation per week for the next month. Schedule them now.

2. Top 10 List: Create your "Top 10 Things You Should Know" document. What are the most important unanswered questions in your product area?

3. Friction Log: Walk through your product as a new user and create a friction log. Do the same for your top competitor.

Reflection Questions

1. How do you balance the time for discovery with the pressure to ship?
2. When do you have enough research to make a decision?
3. How do you share insights with stakeholders who didn't attend the research?

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Module 4: From Insights to Opportunities

Estimated Time: 3-4 hours

Learning Objectives

• Synthesize research into actionable opportunities
• Evaluate opportunities against multiple risk dimensions
• Map the customer experience to find high-leverage intervention points

Core Episodes

Guest	Episode Focus	Key Insight
Teresa Torres	Opportunity Solution Trees	Structure your discovery output
Marty Cagan	Product management excellence	The four risks of product development
Donna Lichaw	Storytelling in product	Mapping customer narratives
Oji Udezue	Sharp problems and virality	Identifying sharp problems

Key Frameworks

• Four Risks Framework - Value, usability, feasibility, and viability risks
• Customer Experience Mapping - Map how customers meet, grow with your product
• Best Customer Definition - Define who gets value, pays willingly, is low-maintenance

Exercises

1. Opportunity Synthesis: Take your last 5 customer interviews. What opportunities emerge? Write each as a problem statement, not a solution.

2. Risk Assessment: For your top opportunity, assess the four risks. Which is the biggest? What would reduce it?

3. Experience Map: Create a simple customer experience map for your product. Where are the biggest drop-offs or friction points?

Reflection Questions

1. How do you know when you have an "opportunity" vs. just an "observation"?
2. What's the relationship between the size of an opportunity and the risk involved?
3. How do you prioritize opportunities when you have many?

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Module 5: Building a Research Practice

Estimated Time: 2-3 hours

Learning Objectives

• Create processes that sustain research over time
• Involve the whole team in customer understanding
• Build reference customers who accelerate your learning

Core Episodes

Guest	Episode Focus	Key Insight
Rahul Vohra	Superhuman's success	Building with alpha users
Nickey Skarstad	Vision, goals, execution	Scaling research practices
Marty Cagan	Product management excellence	Empowered teams do discovery
Teresa Torres	Continuous discovery	Democratizing research

Key Frameworks

• Reference Customer Development - Find customers willing to stake their reputation
• Co-Creation Product Development - Build with users, not just for them
• Frustration Mining - Find ideas in your own frustrations

Exercises

1. Reference Customer Identification: Identify 3-5 customers who could become reference customers. What would make them willing to stake their reputation on your product?

2. Team Involvement: Design a way to involve engineers and designers in customer conversations. Pilot it this month.

3. Research Repository: Create a simple system for capturing and sharing research insights. It doesn't need to be fancy—a shared doc works.

Reflection Questions

1. How do you build customer empathy across the whole team, not just PMs?
2. What's the line between "co-creation" and "building what customers ask for"?
3. How do you maintain research quality as you scale the practice?

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Customization Notes

By Product Type

• B2C: Module 1 (JTBD) and Module 2 (interviews) are critical. Emotional and social forces often dominate.
• B2B: Module 4 (insights to opportunities) matters more. Multiple stakeholders complicate the "job."
• Platform/Marketplace: You have multiple customer types. Apply the frameworks to each side separately.

By Research Experience

• Beginner: Focus heavily on Modules 1-2. The interview techniques are foundational.
• Intermediate: Modules 3-4 help you systematize and scale your practice.
• Advanced: Module 5 helps you build organizational capability, not just personal skill.

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Next Steps After Completion

1. Build PM Foundations: If new to PM, take First PM Role
2. Strategic Application: Apply research to Product Strategy
3. Interactive Learning: Run /learn jtbd or /learn user-interviews for practice
4. Test Knowledge: Run /quiz discovery to validate understanding
5. Explore Frameworks: Run /frameworks discovery to browse all 15 discovery frameworks