If your backlog is full of tickets and zero customer contact, this episode is for you. Kent talks with Teresa Torres - product discovery coach, author of Continuous Discovery Habits, and host of Just Now Possible - about why engineers belong in discovery, what "just now possible" really means, and how curiosity beats solution advocacy.
They cover opportunity solution trees, confirmation bias in decision-making, the Mom Test trap of pitching your solution, and homework that starts with one real conversation (or observing one).
- (00:00) - Meet Teresa Torres
- (02:03) - Just now possible
- (04:14) - Why coding agents are not enough
- (08:07) - Engineers in the data model conversation
- (15:10) - Continuous discovery habits
- (19:01) - Prove the null hypothesis
- (21:22) - Where engineers should show up more
- (24:06) - Solving your own problem
- (27:27) - AI unlocks software for one
- (30:04) - The Mom Test trap
- (33:26) - Opportunity solution trees
- (39:19) - Confirmation bias vs status quo
- (42:07) - Informed opinion vs preference
- (43:16) - Start with curiosity
- (46:01) - Homework: talk to a customer
Teresa Torres has spent about twenty years coaching product teams to make better decisions about what to build. She is a maker at heart: product discovery exists so makers ship useful things instead of crickets.
The through-line is engineer involvement. Marty Cagan's line sticks: engineers know best what is just now possible. Teresa's Google Maps API story makes it concrete - a PM would never have invented map pins for customer connection without an engineer who saw the new API and understood the business. AI accelerates that dynamic. Her podcast Just Now Possible interviews teams building AI products for that reason. Coding agents write a lot of code; they do not replace judgment about scalability, security, maintainability, or a data model that will survive the next iteration.
They dig into continuous discovery habits: weekly customer contact, opportunity solution trees that separate outcomes from solutions, and the confirmation-bias trap of comparing every idea only to the status quo. The Mom Test warning is sharp - showing someone your solution teaches you whether they are polite, not whether the problem is real.
When leadership wants ticket-takers, Teresa's answer is not "quit immediately." Start with genuine curiosity: "I'm curious, can you tell me more?" Opinionated why-questions create defensiveness. Informed opinions matter after you have customer context - personal preference dressed up as technical expertise usually misses the mark.
Homework: talk to someone who matches your customer segment (even casually over coffee) and ask about the last time they experienced the problem your product exists to solve. Or sit in on interviews your PM, designer, researcher, sales, or support teams already run.
Homework
- Identify who uses your product (or who has the problem it solves) and find one person in your network who matches that segment.
- Have a casual conversation (coffee, LinkedIn second-degree, whatever fits) and ask: tell me about the last time you experienced [the problem your product solves]. Learn about them as a human - not about your product.
- If customer contact is blocked, ask to observe an interview your PM, designer, researcher, sales, or support team is already running.
Resources
Guest: Teresa Torres
Host: Kent C. Dodds
See on Epic Product Engineer
