This dedicated role studies end-users in their environment to understand needs and constraints before development begins. This preempts building features that are easy for developers but wrong for users, mitigating the risk of creating unused or ineffective software, framing user research as a key risk mitigation strategy.

Instead of inventing solutions from a blank slate, Nike's innovation team focuses on discovering pre-existing needs within the athlete. The user becomes a "living, breathing brief," meaning ideas are found through exploration, not forced creation, thus eliminating creative blocks.

Embed engineers directly with customers to hear feedback and ship solutions, often on the same day. This radical structure eliminates layers of communication (Product Managers, Customer Success) and scales the 'founder energy' of talking to users and immediately building what they need.

Customers, like founders, have a gap between their stated beliefs and actual behaviors. Instead of relying on discovery interviews, watch them work. Observing their actions reveals their true operating philosophy—what they genuinely value—which is a more reliable guide for product development than what they say.

Tock rejected traditional focus groups and instead embedded its software engineers directly into restaurants to work shifts as hosts. This forced immersion gave the engineering team firsthand experience with the end-user's pain points, leading to a far more intuitive and effective product than surveys could produce.

Rainbird hosts 'fly-in' events, bringing customer groups (like architects or contractors) to its headquarters. These events include an 'innovation lab' where product managers showcase early-stage concepts under NDA. This institutionalizes customer feedback, making it a predictable and recurring part of the development process.

To truly understand customers, go to their natural environment—their home or shop. Observing their context reveals far more than sterile office interviews. This practice, internally branded "Listen or Die," ensures the entire team stays connected to the user's reality.

Design thinking's immersion phase goes beyond understanding customer needs. By having innovators physically mirror the customer's experience, it forces them to confront and dismantle their own unexamined biases, leading to a fundamental reframing of the problem itself.

Siphoning off cutting-edge work to a separate 'labs' group demotivates core teams and disconnects innovation from those who own the customer. Instead, foster 'innovating teams' by making innovation the responsibility of the core product teams themselves.