interview-script

The interview-script skill creates a structured customer interview script designed to surface real insights rather than opinions, following The Mom Test principles — ask about the participant's life, not your idea. It solves a core discovery problem: interviews that lead witnesses, pitch the product, or ask about the future tend to produce misleading signals, so this skill builds a guide with Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) probing questions, warm-up, core exploration, and wrap-up sections that focus on past behavior and specific instances. It positions customer interviews as one source in Stage 1 (Explore) of continuous discovery and encourages the Product Trio (PM, Designer, Engineer) to work on discovery together.

The skill first clarifies research objectives (what questions the team needs answered, what decisions the research informs, what assumptions need validation), reading any provided files such as personas, hypothesis lists, product briefs, or previous notes. It then produces a script with timed sections: Opening (2-3 min), Warm-Up context and background (5 min), Core Exploration of Jobs to Be Done (15-20 min) covering current behavior in past tense, pain points, desired outcomes, and willingness to pay, followed by Probing Techniques (such as "Tell me more about that," "Why?", and "Can you give me a specific example?"), The Mom Test Rules, and a Wrap-Up (3-5 min). It also includes a note-taking template capturing Participant, Date, Key Jobs, Current Solution, Biggest Pain, Desired Outcome, Willingness to Pay, Surprise Finding, and Follow-up.

This skill targets product managers and discovery researchers preparing for user interviews or building interview guides, with input passed through $ARGUMENTS for the research topic. It emphasizes talking less and listening more (an 80/20 split), never pitching, and looking for strong emotions as signals of real pain or delight while treating compliments as noise. The output is saved as markdown containing both the customized script and the note-taking template, and it points to further reading including a research interview guide and the Continuous Product Discovery Masterclass.