Continuous discovery for Arts & Culture teams: How to stay lean, focused, and customer-centered
Arts and culture organizations have always operated with the mantra "do more with less." Now, with the sector navigating financial uncertainty, staffing changes post-pandemic, and changing audience expectations, the pressure is even higher. The question is: How do we ensure we’re working on the right things?
One possible way to approach answering this is Continuous Discovery—a framework from product thought leader Teresa Torres that helps teams stay focused on the outcomes that matter most, using lightweight, repeatable practices. While rooted in tech product mojo, this approach translates beautifully to nonprofit, mission-driven projects.
What is Continuous Discovery?
In short: Continuous Discovery means your team is in constant, direct conversation with your audience (patrons, donors, members, visitors). Every. Single. Week.
It’s not a one-off survey. It’s not a quarterly focus group. It’s a rhythm of small, frequent research moments that keep you laser-focused on delivering value where it matters most.
How to get started: Mapping what you know
Let’s say leadership tasks your team with a big goal:
"Increase mid-tier donations by 20% this year."
Before you jump to solutions ("Let's launch a new campaign!"), think like a product person. Start by mapping the current experience and getting real insights from life today.
🎯 Set your scope:
Too broad: How do donors give to arts organizations?
Too narrow: Why didn’t more people give to our December appeal?
Just right: How are donors engaging with our organization today?
Hat trick: Have each member of your team draft their own version of today’s experience map first, then compare. Divergent thinking upfront surfaces blind spots and covers more ground.
Spotting opportunities in the chaos
Once you’ve mapped the current state, you'll see pain points from the customer everywhere:
“I’m not sure which fund to support.”
“The donation process felt clunky.”
“Why didn't I get a personalized thank you?”
This is where many teams get overwhelmed. Instead of chasing every good idea, organize your insights using an Opportunity Solution Tree. This simple visual helps you cluster related opportunities, prioritize what really drives your target outcome (increased donations, ticket sales, visitor experience —you name it), and avoid getting distracted by too many shiny objects.
OPPORTUNITY SOLUTION TREE MAPPING
(inspired by Teresa Torres)
Pick ONE (maybe two) target opportunity to focus on
Here's the hardest part: choosing.
Some good starter questions:
Which opportunity impacts the most people?
Where is the pain the biggest?
Where is the potential payoff/benefit largest?
Keep it scrappy. Use box office feedback, customer service requests, quick interviews, analytics to prioritize the opportunity you’ll focus on. Resist overcomplicated scoring. Trust your team's judgment—but debate fiercely. Then DECIDE.
Generating (and testing) smarter solutions
No more brainstorming in a vacuum. Instead:
Each person generates 15-20 solutions for the chosen target opportunity.
As a group, dot vote to narrow the list to the top three possible solutions to your target opportunity.
Then… identify the assumptions lurking inside your top three solutions.
Assumptions like:
Donors want curated recommendations.
One-click donations will definitely increase donations.
Testing assumptions, not ideas (and test the riskiest assumptions first)
Ok. You have your assumptions in-hand for your top three solutions. It’s easy at this stage to get distracted. Torres recommends slowing down to be sure you’re continuing to compare/contrast ideas against each other instead of testing one idea at a time (“the more time we invest in testing an idea, the better we like it.” —Torres) One way to combat that confirmation bias is to test the assumptions baked into all three of your possible solutions, concurrently. Teresa says you’re looking for a frontrunner in a race… not time trials taken serially.
Think:
Unmoderated user tests.
Quick, one-question surveys.
Quick A/B tweaks to your donation form to look at results.
Don’t wait for perfect data. Start with tiny sample sizes. The goal is to prove or disprove key assumptions quickly. And from there, a direction on what solution feels like the best bet to proceed further with will emerge.
Why this matters for Arts & Culture
Continuous Discovery is one way lean Silicon Valley startups can thrive with tiny, mighty teams. It’s exactly the kind of muscle small organizations need now. This practice keeps your scarce resources aimed squarely at what drives real impact—without burning out your staff or your budget.
The Payoff
✅ No more guessing what your audiences want.
✅ Less “solution” overwhelm as a team.
✅ Faster learning from real life.
✅ You’re building innovation culture muscles as a team and organization.
Final Thought
Teresa Torres specializes in a subset of product thinking called Discovery'. A core tenet of working like a product team is doing continuous discovery… not as a kickoff task. It’s how you work. Every week, every cycle, every project.
And here’s the kicker: this isn’t just for your tech projects. You can apply this same thinking to your programming decisions, your membership modeling, your visitor services planning—anywhere you want to stay deeply connected to the people you serve.
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Kristin Darrow works with Arts and Culture organizations to do more with less using technology and lean startup methodologies effectively.
Hire her to work with your team.
