Beyond focus groups and surveys, different paths lead to uncovering ways to delight your customers. It is important to recognize the problems, challenges, wants, and needs of people. “Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes” is also good advice for rolling out products.

One way to address poorly defined product backlog items is to spend time refining the items as you go. Refining the backlog continuously helps the team deliver consistently and can lead to shorter planning meetings at the start of the sprint. It can even help improve reliability, velocity, and the quality of work.

If you want feedback from your users, sometimes the best technique for gathering information is staying silent. After someone responds to your question, instead of continuing the conversation, just pause. This encourages the other person to keep talking, and that's when you may get the most valuable information.