gettyIn the rush to innovate, it’s easy for a tech company to become enamored with a new technology tool or service the team is building and lose sight of the people the product is meant to serve. New offerings and features may be technically impressive, but if they don’t address a meaningful need, adoption and long-term success will be difficult to achieve.The most effective innovations are rooted in a deep understanding of customer pain points, industry challenges and real-world workflows. Validating that a product meets those criteria requires disciplined research, testing and feedback throughout the development process. Below, members of Forbes Technology Council share ways companies can ensure the technologies they build are solving genuine problems.Put A Human In The Loop Before You BuildPut a human in the loop before you build anything. Before we wrote a single line of code, I put a live person on our website to talk to every visitor. Those conversations told us more about the real problem than months of user research ever could, because people are honest when they think they’re just asking a question, not participating in a study. - Suyash Karn, Interact AIDefine The Specific Problem Your Solution AddressesTechnology is a means to an end, but enterprise teams keep inverting that because building the capability feels concrete, while defining the problem feels abstract. Refuse to fund a build until someone can name the specific role, workflow or business outcome that’s worse off without it or what that team is currently duct-taping together that needs a real solution. - Bruno Billy, APGARForbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?Start With The Problem, Not The ProductAs a founder, I’ve learned the best way to validate new technology is to start with the problem, not the product. Take the time to travel, see people in person and understand how their pain points are evolving. Prototype quickly from there, leveraging AI to make this possible. The best products solve problems people already recognize and care about. - Kevin Tian, DoppelMap The Full User JourneyStart with the human experience before any technology conversation begins. Journey mapping, done properly with the people doing the actual work, surfaces the problems worth solving. It’s how we identified our highest-priority AI use cases and returned 43,000 hours annually to operations. The problem finds you when you map the experience first. - Jenny Larsson, Intact Insurance Specialty SolutionsActively Gather User FeedbackKeep users at the center of the decision-making process. By actively sourcing feedback and involving them, we not only build trust but also gain a look into the challenges they encounter each day. That inherently builds better technology and ensures that our work is aligned with their needs. - Jerry Haywood, boost.aiConfirm Your Solution Creates Measurable ValueAs companies race to launch technology, many validate features, not relevance. The real test is whether the solution changes behavior, removes friction or creates measurable value within a real operating context. In the augmented intelligent enterprise, innovation succeeds when human desirability, business viability and technical feasibility converge, not when technology alone impresses. - Motaz Agamawi, PwCObserve Real Users In Their EnvironmentDo a Gemba walk. Borrowed from Lean Manufacturing, it means going where the problem actually lives—observing real users in their environment, not in a focus group. Technology teams too often validate through proxies: surveys, personas, product managers. Direct observation reveals friction, workarounds and unmet needs that no requirements doc captures. Build what you see, not what you assume. - Brij MohanIdentify The Existing ‘Shadow Budget’Validate by finding the “shadow budget.” Every real problem already has money, time or headcount quietly allocated to manage it, including manual reconciliations, duplicate tools or ops teams stitching gaps. If you can’t identify what existing spend or effort your product would replace, you’re likely solving a hypothetical problem, not a real one. - Abhishek Kumar, New York Life CompanyHave Real Practitioners Review Your WorkBuild with practitioners in the room, not just for them. The fastest validation comes when someone who has actually lived the problem reviews your work in progress and tells you what’s fake, what’s missing and what’s overengineered. A demo that impresses an outsider often falls apart the moment a real practitioner uses it. - Chris Szymansky, FieldguideMake Sure Users Can Clearly Explain The Pain PointBefore building, prove the problem is real. Listen to the people who will use it, test assumptions against data and ask whether the outcome is practical, measurable and worth funding. Technology should solve a real operational need, not chase a trend. The best validation is knowing whether the user can explain the pain, the business can measure the value, and the solution holds up in practice. - Susan Odle, StorMagicAsk What The Problem Is Already Costing PeopleThe best way to figure out if people really need a solution is not to ask if they want it. It is to think about how much the problem’s already costing them. The clearest sign that technology is really helping to solve a problem is when you can find people who are willing to talk about the problem. - Maitrik Patel, AppleImmerse Yourself In The ProblemBe mission-obsessed. Immerse yourself in the problem until you understand every input, transformation and output. Systems thinking reveals what surveys miss. The best validation isn’t a focus group or an MVP launch; it’s working the problem daily until you feel every friction point your customer feels. - Gary Daemer, InfusionPoints, LLCBuild A Listening Infrastructure FirstBuild a listening infrastructure before you build the product. Ensure that every customer conversation is transcribed and searchable so you are not relying solely on the generic reason for feedback. Listening helps you discover “feature gap” losses, like onboarding friction, better than playing the guessing game does. If you can’t name the customer who needed a feature, you can’t validate the product. - Ben Hussey, Katana Cloud InventoryCollaborate Directly With End UsersIn life sciences, technology built without input from clinicians, patients or regulators risks adoption failure, no matter how innovative. Improving patient outcomes is the objective; technology is the enabler. Development must happen in collaboration with end users, supported by quality, regulatory, safety and clinical professionals who understand the regulated environment. - Michael King, IQVIAEmbed Continuous Problem Discovery Into DevelopmentCompanies should embed continuous problem discovery into development, not just upfront research. This means regularly interviewing real users, observing actual behavior (not just stated preferences), and tracking whether people change habits because of the product. If users need an extensive explanation to see the value, the problem-solution fit likely isn’t there yet. - Dennis-Kenji Kipker, cyberintelligence.instituteStudy The Workarounds People Already UseEvery real problem has a workaround. If people are duct-taping spreadsheets, Slack threads and manual processes together to solve something, that is your validation. The messier and more widespread the workaround, the more real the problem. You are not building new behavior. You are replacing friction that already exists with something better. - Luis Peralta, Parallel Plus, Inc.Test Early And OftenTest and test! Run tests in A/B format and get into the consumer feedback loop as soon as possible. Depending on the test you run, there may even be less clarity afterward, in which case both directions are valid and you may not want to abandon either. Whatever the case, become data-driven and test your product bit by bit versus as a whole, because if you don’t, your product may never see the light of day or may be too late when it does. - WaiJe Coler, InfoTracerLook For Budget Problems Your Product Can ImproveNothing validates a product like orders. But for prerevenue companies, take a look at the biggest problems within existing budgets—areas where a new product can deliver tangible improvement. For instance, while AI has become a go-to corporate cure-all, the utility industry spends billions on repaving roads every year, and a small improvement would yield tremendous savings. - Steve Smith, National Grid PartnersLook For Repeat UsageShip the smallest viable version to 10 real users before writing the marketing page. Validation from internal demos and friendly advisors is biased; the only honest signal is whether someone with a real problem chooses to use it again next week. Repeat use is the proof. Pageviews, signups and intros from your network are not. - Nikhil Jathar, AvanSaber TechnologiesStay Focused On The ‘Why’ Behind The ProblemThe best product teams stay obsessed with the “why” behind user behavior and the pain they are relieving for their users. Metrics alone aren’t enough—leaders need tight feedback loops between data, user research and product iteration to understand whether a technology meaningfully improves people’s lives or workflows. - Mahati Kumar, Meta Platforms Inc.