Hey everyone, let’s talk about a tension I see in so many teams right now. We all champion the principles of continuous discovery—constantly learning from our users to de-risk our ideas and build what matters. Yet, the reality is often a relentless focus on the delivery pipeline. The pressure from stakeholders for predictability, velocity, and shipping more features, faster, is immense.
This creates a classic conflict: the deep, sometimes messy, work of discovery versus the clean, linear path of a delivery-focused roadmap. When the push for output overshadows the pull for outcomes, we risk becoming a feature factory. We build beautifully engineered solutions to problems nobody has, accumulate tech debt on unused features, and burn out our teams in the process.
True product-led growth isn’t just about shipping; it’s about learning and iterating. But finding that balance is one of the hardest parts of being a PM. We’re caught between being a ‘good partner’ to engineering by providing a steady, predictable backlog and being a true advocate for the user by embracing the uncertainty of discovery.