Asking users for solutions yields incremental ideas like "faster horses." Instead, ask them to tell detailed stories about their workflow. This narrative approach uncovers the true context, pain points, and decision journeys that direct questions miss, leading to breakthrough insights about the actual problem to be solved.

Don't just collect feedback from all users equally. Identify and listen closely to the few "visionary users" who intuitively grasp what's next. Their detailed feedback can serve as a powerful validation and even a blueprint for your long-term product strategy.

Structured analysis works when you can theorize potential causes and test them. However, for problems where the causes are "unknown unknowns," design thinking is superior. It starts with user empathy and observation to build a theory from the ground up, rather than imposing one prematurely.

Users aren't product designers; they can only identify problems and create workarounds with the tools they have. Their feature requests represent these workarounds, not the optimal solution. A researcher's job is to uncover the deeper, underlying problem.

Don't design solely for the user. The best product opportunities lie at the nexus of what users truly need (not what they say they want), the company's established product principles, and its core business objectives.

When handed a specific solution to build, don't just execute. Reverse-engineer the intended customer behavior and outcome. This creates an opportunity to define better success metrics, pressure-test the underlying problem, and potentially propose more effective solutions in the future.