The research rituals that keep a product team honest.

The research rituals that keep a product team honest

Teams drift when opinions outrun evidence. Small research rituals keep shipping grounded without slowing the sprint to a crawl.

Rituals worth keeping

1. Talk to one user every week — not a survey dump, a real conversation.
2. Write the decision memo — what you heard, what you chose, what you will revisit.
3. Re-test the happy path after every meaningful release.

These habits are cheap. Ignoring them is expensive.

Engineering angle

Backend and frontend both benefit: clearer requirements, fewer speculative features, and APIs shaped around real workflows instead of imagined ones.