Turning one-off research into a continuous learning loop
An initiative I led to move SCALAR from periodic discovery to ongoing customer conversations — sustained for a year.
Company
ZF SCALAR
Date
2025
Duration
1 year
Stage
Stopped
Role
Product designer
Team
4 Product Designer
The problem
At SCALAR, customer insight came from occasional, one-off research. In our sector every interview tells a different story — contexts and priorities vary widely — so when insights are gathered sporadically, recurring patterns stay hidden and product decisions lean on assumptions instead of evidence.
The initiative
I designed and led a continuous discovery practice to turn that variability into an advantage. I ran it as a weekly cadence: one 45-minute customer interview per week, each focused on a few topics, documented as an Interview Snapshot in Confluence to build a shared knowledge base. Every few interviews we reviewed the snapshots together to surface recurring opportunities, feeding an Opportunity Solution Tree that the product trio reviewed monthly to prioritize what to explore next.
Example of Opporttunity solution tree
Example of Interview snapshot
I led the rollout across functions — aligning product designers, product management, and customer success around the cadence, the documentation standard, and the booking process that made it sustainable.
Microsoft calendar used by Customers to book a session
What happened
The practice ran for about a year, holding to roughly one customer conversation per week — building a continuous stream of evidence rather than a one-time research burst. Those conversations became one of the inputs that shaped real product work, including the Live View redesign. A company restructuring later interrupted the initiative.
What I learned
The hardest part of continuous discovery isn't running it — it's making it survive. Because I owned much of the cadence directly, the practice was vulnerable when the organization changed around it. If I set this up again, I'd spread ownership from the start — rotating who runs and documents interviews across the trio — so the loop belongs to the team, not to one person, and keeps running regardless of who's there.