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Product discovery validates ideas against four risks: value, usability, feasibility, and viability. Use techniques like customer behavior interviews, high-fidelity prototype testing with five target users, Wizard of Oz tests, and engineering spikes before committing delivery resources.

Feature teams receive a roadmap of features and are measured on output like stories shipped. Empowered teams receive problems and business objectives, run their own discovery, and are accountable for outcomes such as adoption, retention, and revenue.

Answer seven questions: the business objective served, the target customer, the problem and its severity, success metrics, current alternatives, your competitive advantage, and key risks. A first draft should take two to three hours, with remaining uncertainties becoming discovery questions.

Outcome-based roadmaps communicate problems to solve and target metrics rather than features with delivery dates. This avoids committing to solutions before discovery validates them and lets teams pivot to better approaches based on evidence.

Redirect from the proposed solution to the underlying problem, respond with evidence from customer interviews and data rather than opinions, and propose low-cost experiments. Build trust over time by consistently delivering measurable outcomes and sharing discovery findings proactively.

Engineers should participate in discovery continuously, roughly two to four hours per week, including customer interviews, prototype reviews, and feasibility spikes. They are often the best source of innovation because they know what is newly technically possible.