How Product Development Methods Solve I-O Psychology’s Relevance Problem

Fifteen years ago, Ryan and Ford (2010) argued that I-O psychology’s professional identity was facing a tipping point of losing its distinctiveness. I-O psychology has grown, but irrelevance amid growing competition is still a risk. The challenge lies in failing to truly understand the needs of ‘customers.’ To overcome these challenges, we argue that I-O psychologists should view the field as a “product,” a solution set aligned with a deep understanding of customer needs, by adopting product development methods such as continuous discovery. In doing so, I-O psychology can address its existential identity crisis and adoption challenges, ultimately leading to the intended goal of positively impacting the workplace. We give a brief background on product development, introduce three continuous discovery practices, and provide several illustrations of continuous discovery from four I-O personas.