Commercial
Discovery
Also called
- Inception
- Scoping phase
Discovery is where the problem gets defined before anyone commits to a solution. Stakeholder interviews, process observation, data and systems review, then options with real costs, real risks and a clear recommendation — including the option of doing nothing.
It is paid for a specific reason: free discovery is sales, and sales discovery always concludes that you should buy the thing. A firm with no fee at risk in the recommendation has no reason to tell you the project is unwise.
The output should be usable by someone else. If the discovery document is only actionable by the firm that wrote it, it was a proposal wearing a costume.
A $20,000 discovery that concludes 'do not build this' is the cheapest possible outcome of a bad idea.
Commonly misunderstood
What people get wrong
The claim
“We already know what we need, so we can skip discovery.”
What is actually true
Sometimes true, and worth saying. But 'we know what we want to build' and 'we know what problem it solves and how we will know it worked' are different claims, and only the second one makes a fixed price safe.
Where this comes up
Services where it matters
Related terms
Next step
Working through a discovery decision?
Tell us the situation. We will give you the tradeoffs as we see them, including when the answer is that you do not need what you are being sold.
No pitch deck. A 30-minute conversation about what you are trying to achieve.