Product Research Rules

Chapter 9. Good Research Habits Make Great Products

Now that you’ve learned the rules of product research, the next step is learning how to stick to them. How can you and your team change your habits to incorporate the best practices you’ve learned? This chapter is about making product research part of your company’s culture. We’ll look at how habits are formed, how habitual research practices can be a part of what you are already doing, and how you can make research a part of software development flows, and we will examine some case studies to see how real teams have made significant changes for the better.

Build a Habit Cycle Around Research

In his bestselling book Atomic Habits (Random House Business), James Clear identifies four concrete steps in habit formation: cue, craving, response, and reward. Cues are triggers, craving is the motivational force, the response is the action taken, and the reward is the prize for completing the action. Here’s how C. Todd unknowingly put these steps into action in his personal life. When he first started to exercise early in the morning, it seemed ludicrous to wake up at five a.m. for a workout. His sister wanted to exercise more, too, so they agreed to meet every weekday morning to work out together. This turned out to be one of the most powerful things they could have done for forming a habit: adding an element of social pressure. He didn’t want to let his big sister down! The emotional drivers were the most powerful forces in establishing ...