Teresa Torres

Product Talk

I help digital product teams adopt continuous product discovery practices including a regular cadence of customer interviews, rapid prototyping, and assumption testing. I emphasize strong critical thinking practices to ensure there is a strong connection between what the teams are learning in their research activities with the product decisions that they are making. 

Recent clients include: Allstate, CarMax, CapitalOne, Snagajob, Spotify, among others.

Product Discovery Coach

Master of Science in Learning & Organizational Change at Northwestern University

Instructor, Designing Solutions for Organizational Effectiveness

Executive Learning & Organizational Change Program at Northwestern University

Instructor, Co-Creating Change

Kindling

Advisor

AfterCollege

- Relaunched www.aftercollege.com to move away from traditional search and toward career exploration and discovery to better meet college students needs. 
- Repositioned employer products away from transactional job listing-based recruiting and toward on-campus relationship-building recruiting.
- Grew engaged users by 65% month over month and reduced audience churn by 3x.
- Redesigned product email strategy tripling MAU in first quarter.
- Introduced user-centered, hypothesis-driven product development practices.
- Launched content marketing strategy targeting college students (blog.aftercollege.com) and employers (employers.aftercollege.com).

Vice President, Products

Affinity Circles

Affinity Circles was acquired by Mingle LLC. 

Affinity Circles operates exclusive social networks for over 150 university alumni associations, professional organizations and honor societies, connecting 18 million members.

President & CEO

- Led an operational turnaround by focusing on core products, implementing new sales and account management processes, growing a key channel partner relationship and reducing operating expenses. 
- Extended operating runway from months to sustained profitability.

Vice President, Operations

- Drove product vision, strategy and execution for 2 revenue-generating product lines, including a social networking platform used by Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Purdue and 150+ other organizations and a corporate recruiting solution used by Google, Merrill Lynch, UBS and dozens of other Fortune 500 clients.
- Drove product discovery through client interviews, user research, usability studies and traffic analysis. 
- Managed a 4-person team of product managers and an interaction designer.

Senior Director, Product Management & User Experience Design

Become, Inc.

Become.com provides shoppers with product research and price comparison.

- Led design on core product from site launch to 3.5 million monthly unique visitors.
- Drove product discovery through user research, usability studies and site traffic analysis.
- Led design and development of key-performing features from concept to launch: “Suggest as You Type” Search Suggestions, “My Favorites” shopping cart, innovative shop filters including Find by Color and community-based shopping lists.

Product Manager / UI Designer

HighWire Press

HighWire Press, a division of the Stanford University Libraries, is the online publisher for over 1400 journals, books, reference works and other scholarly publications.

- Lead interaction designer for several Knowledge Environments (i.e. research collaboration communities) for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Oxford University Press and the International Bone and Mineral Society.
- Managed client design projects from concept to launch.
- Drove the design and implementation of several core features that became part of the Knowledge Environment platform including a suite of personalization services (i.e. saved searches, research folders, etc) and an innovative virtual journal that pooled topical articles from multiple publications.
- Implemented a robust template system that allowed diverse Knowledge Environments to maximize shared code while accommodating customizations.

Interaction Designer

Due to high volume (and a high spam rate), I am no longer able to monitor my Linkedin message. To reach me, please send me an email. You can find my email address by clicking on Contact Info above.

I help digital product teams adopt continuous product discovery practices including a regular cadence of customer interviews, rapid prototyping, and assumption testing. I emphasize strong critical thinking practices to ensure there is a strong connection between what the teams are learning in their research activities with the product decisions that they are making.

I help digital product teams adopt continuous product discovery practices including a regular cadence of customer interviews, rapid prototyping, and assumption testing. I emphasize strong critical thinking practices to ensure there is a strong connection between what the teams are learning in their research activities with the product decisions that they are making. 

Recent clients include: Allstate, CarMax, CapitalOne, Snagajob, Spotify, among others. 

Make your interview requests specific. 

#ContinuousDiscoveryHabits #CustomerInterviews #prodmgmt #ux #engineering

Are you a product leader who is trying to help your teams build strong discovery habits? 

If you manage product managers, designers, software engineers, user researchers, or anyone else involved in building digital products, then this session is for you. 

I’m hosting a product discovery ask-me-anything session specifically for senior product leaders. 

The intent is to create a safe space for product leaders to ask questions, share challenges, and learn from peers. 

This session is only intended for senior product leaders who manage teams. Other registrations will be denied. Registration will also be limited to ensure the quality of discussion. 

The session will not be recorded. 

What: Product Discovery, Ask-Me-Anything Session with Teresa Torres for Senior Product Leaders
When: Monday, October 2, 2023, 9am-10am PDT
Who: Senior leaders who manage product managers, software engineers, designers, etc. 
Why: To support each other as we bring strong discovery habits to our own organizations.

A quick update on who this is for: If you are a product manager that works on a product trio, this is not the event for you. This event is for CPOs, CTOs, VPs of Product, VPs of Design, VPs of Engineering, and Directors who manage many product trios. The questions and topics will be focused on the needs of these folks. I am declining most registrations as most folks who are registering are not in these roles. My goal with this event is to create a safe place for senior leaders to connect.

Register by clicking below.

Open article: Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: A Product Discovery Ask-Me-Anything Session with Teresa Torres for Senior Product Leaders. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting. by us02web.zoom.us

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMrf-qgrDMoHdTxhE1yEQ7QFygrB5LaZxjO

"We used to have a messy process to decide on OKRs and priorities. Now that we base quarterly planning on the opportunity solution tree, it's much easier to communicate why a certain objective was chosen." - Sören W.

https://buff.ly/3GBvXL8

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

"The opportunity solution tree was designed to help you chart the best path to a desired outcome. That's its purpose."

https://buff.ly/3o2OJ6X

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

"The criteria for what constitutes a ‘big enough’ opportunity and an impactful solution should be determined with the cross-functional product team and key stakeholders." - @hopegrrr

https://buff.ly/3k7ii5a

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

"You don't need to motivate people, you just have to prevent demotivating them." - @loomista

https://buff.ly/431XnBH

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

You don’t have to do discovery for everything. 

#ContinuousDiscoveryHabits #prodmgmt #ux #engineering

TOMORROW! I'll be discussing the what and why of continuous discovery. Join me at 12pm Pacific for a live webinar. 

Save your spot here: 
https://buff.ly/3s1FhCB 
 
#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

Worthy Read: Why Product Teams Work Best Without a Single Leader by Brian Donohue

https://buff.ly/3uwMdUg

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

"Regular touch points with customers are a pillar of continuous discovery. If you’re not regularly talking directly with your customers, you increase your risk of building a product that no one wants or needs."

https://buff.ly/3xYmVSL

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

"Opportunities are centered around your customer. What are your customers’ needs? What are your customers’ pain points? What are your customers’ desires?"

https://buff.ly/3SYDlTm

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

Worthy Read: Why There’s No Such Thing as Perfect (Agile) Transformation by Petra Wille

https://buff.ly/3y8VSCA

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

Worthy Read: Designing the Smallest Possible Thing by Laura Klein

https://buff.ly/34SsRih

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

"In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have imagined that the book launch would go so well. I knew many of you were anxiously awaiting the book, I just grossly underestimated how many of you there were."

https://buff.ly/3iTMIYi

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

Do you have questions about how to put continuous discovery into practice? 

My "Product Discovery AMA for Senior Product Leaders" filled up quickly, so I'm adding a second one to the calendar. This one is for all roles. If you weren't able to get into the one on Oct. 2nd, this one has more capacity. 

What: Product Discovery Ask-Me-Anything session with Teresa Torres
When: Monday, October 23, 2023, 9am-10am PDT
Where: Zoom Webinar
Who: Anyone interested in continuous discovery
Register here:

Open article: Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Product Discovery AMA with Teresa Torres. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar. by us02web.zoom.us

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dWBLIFLESziFP-9KRzPO4g

Are you being asked to improve a financial metric like increase revenue or grow market share? 
We can help you translate that business outcome into a product outcome you can deliver. 

We start soon: https://buff.ly/3E9aare

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

Worthy Read: A 40-Year Debate Over Corporate Strategy Gets Revived by Elon Musk and Warren Buffett by Walter Frick

https://buff.ly/2jN8zyy

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

Have you ever wondered how successful product teams make team decisions without endless opinion battles? 

Find out in my upcoming webinar on the what and why of continuous discovery. 

Sign up here: https://buff.ly/47kPavz 
 
#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

"We rarely take the time to understand our behavior. But if asked, we don’t hesitate to give an answer."

https://buff.ly/3j2qdAq

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

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