Everyone agrees that user knowledge is crucial. Yet, in 2025, Discovery continues to be questioned, misunderstood, or outright pushed aside. Why? In this new episode of Convictions, Anna Colliot, Head of Product Design at Cheerz, takes a clear-eyed (and committed) look at the persistent obstacles to user research. In her piece, she dismantles the most common objections and calls for a true shift in mindset: making Discovery a collective, structuring, and strategic reflex.
Almost everyone agrees: understanding the user is fundamental. What savvy Product person would tell you it doesn’t matter? And yet, user research still struggles to find its place. Regardless of company size, industry, or team seniority, we hear the same arguments again and again: “We already know that,” “We don’t have time,” “We need to deliver value,” “It costs money.”
I completely understand this point of view! These objections often stem from real constraints: timelines, delivery, budget, business pressure... After all, what could be more illogical than investigating something we already know? And why take time we don’t have? But these remarks are also symptomatic of something deeper: many people’s inability to recognize the strategic impact of Discovery, and a lack of understanding of its methods. A confusion between intuition and knowledge. Between speed and haste. In short, between produced value… and perceived value.
It’s up to us, at the heart of the machine and driving the momentum, to make things shift so that Discovery becomes a unanimous and systematic practice!
Discovery = Lack of Expertise?
There’s this lingering idea that Discovery implies a lack of expertise, intuition, or worse — vision! So when the word “Discovery” is waved around at the start of a project, you can often hear: where are the experts?
The real issue is that we’ve collectively failed to establish Discovery as a legitimate, structuring, and non-negotiable practice — on the same level as Delivery. And that’s on us. We haven’t been properly equipped, and we haven’t equipped our teams or the younger generation to respond to these objections with anything more than a sigh. We haven’t explained enough, shown enough, passed things on enough. We’ve often worked silently, assuming the results would speak for themselves. But the truth is, they never speak on their own.
We can’t keep patching things up while the organization still believes Discovery is a fad.
Discovery as a Strategic Lever
Consistently investing energy into Discovery, often without any guarantee of recognition or immediate results, has been a constant challenge in every Product team I’ve worked with. And it’s not an isolated case. I hear the same thing from many Product people: we spend a crazy amount of time trying to convince others.
Knowledge is multifaceted (qualitative, quantitative, pre- and post-purchase, across different targets, devices, etc.). We have to constantly show that a bit of research will help identify the right problem to solve and the best solution, in order to secure delivery. With one single goal: business success!
Over ten years, I’ve seen the same roadblocks come up again and again. And at the start, I wasn’t equipped to deal with them. No one taught me how to explain why strong user knowledge — qualitative, quantitative, across all channels and journey stages — helps reduce risk, prioritize, and deliver better.
But the hardest part is getting across one simple message: we don’t do research because we lack ideas; we do it to aim accurately. It’s not a sign of weakness — it’s a stance of responsibility.
And more importantly: how do we stop this same conversation from coming up every quarter? How do we avoid starting from scratch with every roadmap? I’m not going to pull out the old trick of the stealth side project — the one you do secretly at night to later prove you were right. Sure, it can work. But at what cost? You’ll have worked in the shadows, with no resources. And more importantly: without changing the culture. Because people will say “Well done” and expect you to keep doing this hidden work. After all, you managed it once!
No. We can’t keep patching things up while the organization still believes Discovery is a fad. It needs to be visible. We need to move beyond solo mode and build a collective dynamic around research. We need a real shift in posture. A deliberate effort to challenge perceptions. To clearly show what solid, useful, concrete, cross-team knowledge looks like — and dismantle, once and for all, the four objections that keep undermining it.
“We already know.”
This roadblock isn’t so much about what’s said… as what’s refused to be questioned. It’s based on a dangerous confusion: equating intuition with knowledge. But the gap between the two is massive. Intuition is a hypothesis, a gut feeling, sometimes correct — but still unverified. Knowledge is based on structured, analyzed, updated data.
Before charging ahead, we need to stop and take stock. What do we really know? What do we think we know? What are we still in the dark about? This moment of collective clarity is what prevents us from falling into the trap of the never-ending Discovery tunnel. No, not everything needs to be de-risked. And not everything deserves a three-week study. What matters is choosing what to explore, why, and with what level of effort — in short, scoping the project. Tools exist for that: importance/uncertainty matrix, RAT… The real challenge is aligning the team on the level of unknown we’re willing — or not willing — to accept!
And this starts very early on. Showing the importance of Discovery doesn’t happen at the end, but right at the beginning of the project. Align with your sponsors on what you don’t know (and what they don’t either!), even if it’s uncomfortable. Make internal perspectives (what leadership thinks) and what you learn from users talk to each other. Shift the narrative using facts and the gap between what we believed and what actually is. It will be eye-opening for everyone (even if hard to swallow for some) to learn how to chart a course — and a roadmap — that balances business vision AND user need.
“It takes too much time”
Behind this second objection is the fear of having to start from scratch with every project. As if understanding your users was a project you have to reboot from zero each time. In reality, it’s a continuous learning process, happening along the way, in cycles.
But we also need to accept an uncomfortable truth that is rarely taught or shared: more information doesn’t always lead to better decisions. The information bias is believing that collecting more and more will eventually reveal the perfect answer. But what matters isn’t the quantity — it’s the relevance. What we truly need to act, here and now. The rest can wait.
Another often forgotten lever: use what already exists. We constantly underestimate how rich our existing materials are. Product data, user feedback, internal analysis, support, sales, reviews, tickets… Why start from zero when we can already clarify things with all this material? The obsession with “right now, perfectly” is a trap. Learnings from launch and post-release iterations need to regain their place in the product cycle. A/B tests, impact analysis, data, usability testing, progressive rollouts, shadowing sessions, concierge tests, fake doors… There are countless ways to learn while the product is live. That’s where the virtuous cycle kicks in.
Discovery shouldn’t be a heavy, front-loaded phase. It should be as fluid and iterative as Delivery. With short cycles, pivots, stop & go, its own rhythm. And above all, with the advantage of staying grounded in reality — because the product is already in users’ hands.
“We need to deliver value”
That infamous “We need to deliver value” makes perfect sense — when we forget to connect what we learn (insight) to what we do and decide. And at that point, Discovery seems abstract, theoretical, disconnected from reality. When in fact, it should be the opposite: hyper-concrete, highly actionable. Every time you conduct research, the framing must be clear: what levers you’re trying to activate, what KPIs you want to move, by how much, with what deliverables at the end. The translation into action must be immediately visible (without ruling out pivoting, refining, or adjusting), and most of all: what decision this will enable.
Conversely, when you present your findings — during a sprint review, a release impact, a Product or Tech demo — never forget to go back to the source: what you learned, how you learned it, and what it triggered. We don’t highlight enough the link between what we discover and what we build. And yet, that’s the very link that gives meaning to the Product approach.
Delivery and Discovery should never be in competition. They are two parallel tracks: Delivery grounds action, and Discovery lights the next curve. Time can’t stand still for Discovery. And Discovery can’t pause either, or we’ll be too unprepared to anticipate and provide vision.
“It costs money.”
This objection reveals a deeper issue: we sorely lack a ROI-driven vision of Discovery. Yet we know how to do it for Delivery! We track every sprint, calculate efforts, justify every roadmap line. But for research? It’s a blurry mess.
And yet, we must talk about value — real, created value. KPIs need to be set from the start, because yes — you don’t invest the same for a 1% or 10% improvement on a metric. And that’s exactly what gives weight to what we do.
We must think of Delivery and Discovery as a whole. Here too, continuous Discovery makes all the difference. It allows us to put the time spent — and therefore the cost — into perspective. Today, everything is at our disposal: tracking, dashboards, CES questionnaires, regular internal testing, client feedback, store reviews, support tickets, bots, NPS, and AI to help us analyze and synthesize it all. Costs get smoothed out and ROI becomes visible in just a few months.
And above all, we must own what we learn: name your sources and show where your choices come from. Highlight the signals you saw. Not as a justification, but as a sign of mastery. That’s what legitimizes the process: showing that research informs action — concretely, measurably, visibly. We must think of Delivery and Discovery as a whole. Because they work together, in a unified flow of investment. When separated, we lose coherence. When connected, we align effort with ambition. That’s when we start speaking the language of business.
So yes, it costs money! And precisely because it costs money, it must be framed, owned, valued. The era of submarine-mode Discovery is over. All the time we spend on it is money — so let’s make it a lever for learning, decision-making, transformation, and thereby position stakeholders as partners in success, within a relationship of trust. That’s what a mature Product organization looks like.
Don’t ask which side I’m on — clearly that of Product and research. Can’t help it. But over time, I’ve understood why the word “Discovery” still intimidates. It’s a catch-all. It can mean a thousand things: methods, formats, timelines, scopes, ambition levels. And it’s precisely that complexity that causes many to back off or set it aside.
So no, we don’t need to go head-to-head: we need to reassure and clarify. Use the right tool, at the right time, with the right level of intensity. Not to water it down, but to show that Discovery is not an intimidating monolith. It’s a set of approaches that can be tailored to the culture, context, and timing. And above all, we need to stop thinking everything happens “before.” The entire execution of the project — and even post-launch — offers chances to learn. That’s the whole point of doing Product, not Projects: it never really stops. We listen, we adjust, we iterate. Discovery doesn’t stop at kick-off. It follows the product throughout its lifecycle.
One last thing — but not the least: a company culture doesn’t shift in one iteration. It moves slowly. In small steps. Through visible wins, better-guided decisions, more relevant roadmaps, and internal champions who carry the torch. There are no shortcuts, no hacks, no miracle solutions. Just patient, clear-eyed, iterative work. And that’s what I find exciting. This sort of infinite loop: doing Discovery… on Discovery itself! On the right habits to build. The right principles to pass on. The right balances to strike. It’s alive. And to me, that’s what makes it the real heart of Product.
Want to excel at user research? Discover the 7 steps of the Discovery Discipline method!
