Discovery Collaboration
is about Skills, not Titles

READ ON

PUBLISHED

Aug 29, 2025

READING TIME

3 min & 15 sec

Dear Reader,

Too many people get fixated on “we have to hire these roles to set up a Product Trio” when, in reality, they can get going from wherever they are.

Having one representative from each domain of expertise is ideal, but it’s rarely the reality for product teams. So, instead of waiting until everything’s “in place,” here’s how to get going even without all the roles on your team.

In Product Discovery collaboration, it’s not so much about the role but the skills that are present. So, what skills (or unfair advantages, as I’d like to call them) would a UX person bring?

You can list these in a Miro board or somewhere else and then categorize them into one of these buckets:

Upskill - Skills any other member of your team could learn and get to a “good enough” threshold without months (i.e., foundations of running user interviews or prototyping) →. Then, think about which team member could take on this journey. Think about natural talents (introvert vs. extrovert) and intrinsic motivation (people who have always wanted to do this. → Research upskilling courses/training/tools/resources and execute
Outsource - There will always be skills where upskilling doesn’t make sense (i.e., pixel-perfect visual design or running large-scale research studies). When hiring is not an option, you could hire freelancers on a project basis to get going.
Drop - be deliberate about the skills you can’t upskill/replace and can’t/won’t outsource (for whatever reason). Make these explicit within the team and the org to showcase the consequences (i.e., lack of conceptual and technical A/B testing skills/tools: Downgrade in the possibility of making evidence-informed decisions)

If you want to bring structure to the question of whom to involve at what stage of Discovery, I have my clients categorize people along the lines of who will contribute temporarily, and who are general Supporters of the Mission (yes, I used roles here to illustrate the categorization).

These roles are examples, not suggestions or rules.

Please keep in mind that the definition of Product Discovery collaborators will and should change throughout your Discovery. The degree to which each group is involved ultimately depends on your Discovery setup. Involving fellow Product Teams during the Alignment phase might be necessary due to a high degree of dependency. Whether sales reps are valuable participants in an ideation session depends on the way you typically involve this department. And this is not a set-in-stone categorization and should allow for context-dependent adaptations.

1 Question For You To Put This Into Practice

What is the unfair advantage you bring to Discovery activities, and do you focus with enough time and attention on it, or get distracted by shiny objects?

Reply and let me know your answer.

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Thank you for Practicing Product,

Tim

PS.: How it feels like reviewing the first full layout of my upcoming book, Real Progress.

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