Scaling Product Discovery: A 4-Part Series on Going from Single Tactics to Joint Progress

Many teams get stuck somewhere between trying Discovery and actually making it work. If your company has partially bought into Product Discovery—but the results are mixed, the consistency is shaky, or the adoption is uneven—you’re in that messy middle. And what you need isn’t another tactic. You need a way to make sense of where you are, and how to scale Discovery in a way that sticks.

In this series, I’ll walk through the frameworks I’ve used to help companies build adaptable, evidence-driven Discovery practices—and make real progress.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why teams struggle to scale Discovery, and how to get to the root of those issues

• The four phases most organizations move through when evolving Discovery

• How one company, ApexSoft, approached scaling—and what they learned

• Practical ways to measure and improve your Discovery adoption

This series gives you a high-level map of what scaling Discovery looks like—and a set of articles that go deeper into each step when you’re ready.

Introduction: Discovery Never Really Ends

As long as your company’s alive, there will always be open questions—what’s worth solving next, which user behaviors need to change, and how to find that out without guessing.

This series helps you upgrade how you approach Product Discovery by identifying where you are, what to fix, and how to grow. Whether you're just starting or trying to fix fragmentation, these insights will help you course-correct and sustain progress.

Content Overview

1. Start with What’s Missing

2. Evaluate Where You Want to Go

3. How ApexSoft Scales Product Discovery

4. Measuring Product Discovery Adoption

Section 1: Start with What’s Missing

Scaling Product Discovery doesn’t start by adding more frameworks.
It starts by identifying what’s broken—or just plain missing.

Here are three types of gaps that tend to get in the way as companies expand Discovery:

1. Systemic Gaps

Multiple teams are involved. Discovery is happening. But there’s no consistent way to track, measure, or align efforts. Without shared systems or structures, teams work in silos and miss the opportunity to build a continuous, cohesive Discovery practice.

2. Skill Gaps

Teams are trying to do Discovery—but they’re stuck using a narrow set of tools or methods. When Discovery is limited to what people already know, it’s hard to dig deeper into user problems or explore unfamiliar areas.

3. Insight Gaps

Teams might run research and experiments, but they’re not using the results to drive decisions. Insight doesn’t spread, gets buried in docs, or is hard to interpret. Without a way to share and apply what they’ve learned, Discovery loses impact.

Your team might be facing just one of these—or all three.
Understanding where the biggest friction is gives you a solid starting point for improvement.

And it helps you figure out what kind of support, tools, or structure to prioritize next.

Section 2: Evaluate Where You Want to Go

Once you've identified what’s missing in your current Product Discovery practice, the next step is figuring out where your team actually is—and where it needs to go.

A useful way to do this is by evaluating your team’s position in what I call the NADA Evolution of Product Discovery.

The NADA Evolution

This framework breaks down four common states product teams tend to fall into as they scale Discovery:

• Neglected
  Discovery isn’t treated as a system. There’s no real connection between Discovery activities and actual product outcomes.

• Alibi
  Teams go through the motions. They cite insights or borrow tactics from other companies, but don’t dig deep enough to make intentional, evidence-backed decisions.

• Dogmatic
  Teams follow frameworks to the letter—even when they don’t make sense for the problem at hand. Rigid processes take priority over judgment.

• Adapted
  Discovery is integrated, not imposed. Teams have the skills, autonomy, and support to choose the right tools and apply them in context.

The goal is to operate from an Adapted state. But teams will naturally move between these states depending on what they’re working on and what challenges they’re facing.

Recognizing this state isn’t about assigning blame. It’s about building awareness so you can support the right change, at the right time.

Why This Matters

Much like identifying systemic, skill, or insight gaps, understanding which Discovery state your team is in gives you a clear lens to pinpoint the root causes behind inconsistent results or stalled efforts.

It’s tempting to jump straight into fixing things. But without this kind of evaluation, your “fixes” may only treat symptoms.

Take the time to understand where your team stands.

It’s the only way to make sustainable improvements that actually move the needle.

Section 3: Case Study — Scaling Product Discovery with ApexSoft

While every organization’s path to mature Product Discovery looks different, there’s always something to learn from how others approach scaling it. One example is a mid-sized B2B software company we’ll refer to as ApexSoft (a fictional name used for illustrative purposes due to NDA restrictions). The team at ApexSoft made deliberate moves to evolve their Discovery practices across the organization.

After working closely with their leadership team, I spoke with the Head of Product Operations to unpack how they approached scaling—and what takeaways emerged along the way.

A Key Takeaway: Use Product Thinking to Guide Discovery

One standout insight from that conversation was how ApexSoft leaned on core product principles to inform how Discovery was adopted across teams.

“Do more of an MVP for certain areas to find and prove value quickly,” the Head of Product Ops shared. “That gives you evidence to show the benefit of doing things this way.”

In short: treat scaling Discovery like building a product.

What That Looks Like in Practice

Here’s how that approach played out for them:

• Define a clear, lightweight MVP version of the Discovery process

• Pilot it with a focused group of teams

• Measure whether it leads to better ways of working or outcomes

• Use that evidence to inform how and when to scale

This made it easier for teams to gain early traction, show progress with real results, and avoid forcing a top-down process before it was validated.

By applying a product mindset to internal change, ApexSoft was able to scale Discovery with purpose—not just adoption, but impact.

Section 4: Measuring Your Progress and Success

If you're serious about scaling Product Discovery, you need to get serious about how you measure its adoption and impact. And that means moving beyond just counting the number of interviews or experiments your team has run.

Measuring Discovery Is About More Than Activity Logs

Yes, it can be helpful to track how often teams run interviews, usability tests, or other research activities. These metrics can show how engaged teams are with Discovery work.

But volume alone isn’t enough. The real question is:

Are teams using the right Discovery tactics to answer the actual questions in front of them?

Without that context, you risk measuring activity without meaning.

Don’t Overlook Qualitative Signals

When scaling Discovery across a company, you also need to keep an eye on qualitative indicators:

• Are teams asking the right questions during Discovery?

• Are insights influencing real decisions?

• Are cross-functional teams collaborating more effectively?

• Is Discovery contributing to better outcomes—not just more artifacts?

These softer signals are critical, especially when it comes to tracking progress on team upskilling and building stronger product-thinking habits.

Product Discovery maturity isn’t just about doing more—it’s about doing it with intention.

Maintaining Momentum

If there’s one theme that runs through this entire series, it’s this:

Scaling Product Discovery is not a one-time project—it’s an ongoing process.

You need to continuously process what’s working, what’s not, and how your team’s approach is evolving. Building effective Discovery habits isn’t about going from point A to point B. It’s about creating the resilience, awareness, and discipline required to keep Discovery meaningful as your organization grows.

Keep Refining. Keep Learning.

Everything we’ve covered—closing the gaps, identifying your current state, learning from case studies, and improving how you measure success—is just the beginning.

If you haven’t yet explored all the sections from this series, here’s your chance:

• [The Gaps of Product Discovery]
  Learn how to identify the most common blockers holding teams back from effective Discovery.

• [The “NADA” Evolution of Product Discovery]
  Understand the different maturity levels of Discovery adoption and where your team fits.

• [Scaling Product Discovery with The ApexSoft Group]
  A real-world example of how one company used principles, MVPs, and evidence to scale Discovery intentionally.

• [Measuring Product Discovery on Quality, Not Just Quantity]
  Why adoption metrics must go beyond activity logs to include signals of impact and alignment.

Scaling Discovery isn’t about following someone else’s process. It’s about finding your own rhythm, adjusting your system, and staying focused on what matters: creating better outcomes through better decisions.