Discovery Principles
When undertaking a Discovery phase, it helps to remember these principles:
A discovery is not intended to come up with the complete detailed project plan. It is an exploration of a problem and potential solutions. It identifies obstacles and risks, opportunities, ideas and more. But it is just the start of a learning journey — not both the start and end.
You aren't restricted to only having one discovery. It's healthy to have them regularly. Certainly after six months or more of delivery you're more than likely to need at least a mini discovery as there'll be plenty of change and new learning.
A discovery is designed to find problems. Don't be disheartened if it does, be glad they were discovered now rather than later.
A discovery needs a full cross-functional team. Don't just get a consultant or business analyst to do it. You need the viewpoints of design and development and so on too.
The continuity of team is highly beneficial, as the main output is the thinking and learning journey itself, which can't be captured in a document. Don't expect to get one team to do discovery and then hand a fat document to another team to deliver it.
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