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

As a product discovery coach, I help product teams make better decisions about what to build. I teach them how to:
- Identify clear business outcomes 
- Uncover unmet customer needs, pain points, and desires
- Discover the right solutions that deliver both business value and customer value

My book Continuous Discovery Habits has sold over 100,000 copies, we've taught over 15,000 students from 102 countries through the Product Talk Academy, and reach 100,000s of product people through our free blog posts and social media content.

If you aren't satisfied with how your teams decide what to build, get in touch.

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. 

I recently launched 7 free mini courses on the following topics: 

Product Discovery Basics
Product Trios
Opportunity Solution Trees
Defining Outcomes
Continuous Interviewing
Opportunity Mapping
Assumption Testing

The courses are delivered via daily emails where each email introduces a key concept. If you are new to any of these topics, these courses are a great place to start. And they are completely free. 

Browse the lineup here: https://lnkd.in/gYWDubri

Comment below to let me know which one you signed up for.

As a product discovery coach, I help product teams make better decisions about what to build. I teach them how to:
- Identify clear business outcomes 
- Uncover unmet customer needs, pain points, and desires
- Discover the right solutions that deliver both business value and customer value

My book Continuous Discovery Habits has sold over 90,000 copies, we've taught over 13,000 students from 102 countries through the Product Talk Academy, and reach 100,000s of product people through our free blog posts and social media content.

If you aren't satisfied with how your teams decide what to build, get in touch.

learn.producttalk.org

Mini Courses

Jeff Gothelf

Worthy Read: A Minimum Viable Product Is Not a Product, It's a Process by Yevgeniy (Jim) Brikman

MVP is one of the most misunderstood terms in our industry. Many teams equate it with version 1.0. Instead, an MVP should help you test a risky assumption. It's not a one and done activity. It's an iterative process. I long moved away from this term for this very reason, and much prefer we frame this work as assumption testing. But I like that this article does a good job of highlighting that working with MVPs is an iterative process not a specific output.

Check it out here: https://buff.ly/3IyWuG5

❓ What is the riskiest assumption you have about your current project, and what small experiment can you run to test it?

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

Worthy Read: S.I.M.P.L.E. before S.M.A.R.T. – A Guide to Smart Business Experiments by Tristan Kromer

"With an innovation team, it's better to start running experiments than to worry about whether we're running the right experiment or a perfectly designed one," argues Tristan Kromer. In this post, Kromer shares his S.I.M.P.L.E. template that's designed to help teams quickly integrate experimenting into their workflow.

Check it out here: https://buff.ly/2Gl17rL

❓ What is one simple experiment you can run this week to test a key assumption about your product or business model?

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

Most product trios don’t have a lot of experience with driving outcomes. 

They grew up in a world where they were told what to build. Or they were asked to generate outputs, with little thought for what impact those outputs had. 

So, when we shift from an output mindset to an outcome mindset, we have to relearn how to do our jobs.

Learn more in my book: https://buff.ly/3xdNqqN

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

From Product Talk: Defining Product Outcomes: The 8 Most Common Mistakes You Should Avoid

Fellow Product Talk coach Hope Gurion and I got together to discuss some of the most common mistakes we see product teams make when it comes to defining product outcomes. This post features a video of our conversation as well as a lightly edited transcript.

Read more: https://buff.ly/4csKkhu

❓ When defining outcomes for your product team, how do you balance ensuring they are within the team's control while also aligning them with broader business objectives?

From Product Talk: Sourcing Opportunities: Unlocking the Power of Opportunity Mapping

I've been hearing from more and more teams who are trying to create opportunity solution trees, but they've gotten stuck or given up. If this is you, know that you aren't alone. For this blog post, I recorded a short video to dig into why opportunity mapping can be hard and help you overcome some common challenges.

Read more: https://buff.ly/3XwIVSU

❓ When you're mapping opportunities from customer stories, how do you ensure that you're capturing the right level of detail to make those opportunities actionable? Have you faced any challenges with this, and how did you overcome them?

"When we use generative AI to replace customer interviews, to generate opportunity solution trees, or to do our thinking for us, we fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of discovery." - @‌ttorres

https://buff.ly/4b8EQaz

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

Worthy Read: Not Everyone Needs Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) by Christina Wodtke

"Trying to use OKRs before you understand modern Product Management is like trying to make a soufflé before you know how to scramble eggs," writes Christina Wodtke. Check out this insightful post for an overview of who needs OKRs, who doesn't, and why.

Check it out here: https://buff.ly/3oUC42A

❓ What are some alternative ways your team stays aligned and focused if OKRs don't fit your needs?

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

"When teams interview together and visually express their thinking—through both experience maps and opportunity solution trees—they develop their knowledge and expertise together." - @‌ttorres

https://buff.ly/4c1XD8e

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

From Product Talk: Ask Teresa: What’s the Difference Between OKRs and Outcomes?

One of the most common questions I get is on the difference between OKRs and outcomes. I don’t believe there’s a single way to answer, but in this post, I define each of these terms and provide examples of how I think about these concepts when setting goals for my own business.

Read more: https://buff.ly/4ctSzdi

❓ How has your team approached the shift from focusing on outputs to outcomes? What challenges did you face, and what strategies helped you overcome them?

Worthy Read: Bias Is a Big Problem. But So Is 'Noise’ by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein

We've heard a lot about bias and its impact on decision-making in recent years. But it hasn't been nearly as common to talk about "noise." Yet noise can be just as harmful, as this article demonstrates with examples of judicial sentencing, hiring decisions, and insurance risk assessment. As product people, we have a responsibility to consider how noise may affect our decisions and how to mitigate this.

Check it out here: https://buff.ly/3eQiosL

❓ What steps can organizations take to reduce noise in their decision-making processes?

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

nytimes.com

Opinion | Bias Is a Big Problem. But So Is ‘Noise.’ (Published 2021)

Understanding false positives and false negatives. 

Learn more about assumption testing: https://buff.ly/3xmSsBj

#ContinuousDiscoveryHabits #AssumptionTesting #prodmgmt #ux #engineering

From Product Talk: Insights from the CDH Benchmark Survey: How Are Teams Adopting Discovery Habits?

I’m continuing to comb through the data from the CDH Benchmark Survey and this blog post takes a closer look at how teams are adopting discovery habits. I share the trends that the data reveals about what’s working well and what remains challenging as well as some of my own hypotheses and observations.

Read more: https://buff.ly/4eD9OKU

❓ In the latest CDH Benchmark Survey, we saw that only 28.8% of teams are working on a single outcome at a time, despite the belief that focusing on one outcome can lead to greater impact. For those of you who have experience with both approaches, what are the biggest challenges and benefits you've encountered when trying to focus on a single outcome versus multiple outcomes? How do you balance the pressures of delivering outputs while striving to drive meaningful outcomes?

"Conducting a test in person was great, both because of the volume of users we were able to access quickly, and because the task users had to perform was something they’d typically do on their mobile device." - Craig F.

https://buff.ly/3Xm1eKu

#prodmgmt #ux (via @‌ttorres)

"The intent with a product trio is not to exclude other roles from discovery. It’s to highlight the need for cross-functional collaboration when building digital products." - @‌ttorres

https://buff.ly/4c1XD8e

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

From Product Talk: Slowing Down: Choosing Not to Set Goals for 2023

Every January for the past several years, I've published a state of my business report as the first post of the year. While I still spent time reflecting on 2022 and looking ahead to 2023, there was one major change that year: I did not plan any major new projects or initiatives. You can read more about my reasons why—and what I'm planning to do instead—in this post.

Read more: https://buff.ly/4c9v1dK

❓ How do you think taking a break from goal-setting might impact personal and professional growth? Have you ever taken a step back from setting goals, and what was your experience?

Ever feel overwhelmed by all the product-related content out there? 
I curate my list of top product resources every month and share it with Product Talk newsletter subscribers.
Sound good? 

You can sign up here: https://buff.ly/3MJ68Lf

#prodmgmt #ux #engineering

We are not scientists. 

Learn more about assumption testing: https://buff.ly/3VVAyPg

#ContinuousDiscoveryHabits #AssumptionTesting #prodmgmt #ux #engineering

Why we define success upfront

Learn more about assumption testing: https://buff.ly/3KG250H

#ContinuousDiscoveryHabits #AssumptionTesting #prodmgmt #ux #engineering

The value of early signals. 

Learn more about assumption testing: https://buff.ly/3z8wbr7

#ContinuousDiscoveryHabits #AssumptionTesting #prodmgmt #ux #engineering

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