Three myths about discovery workshops

It comes up on almost every project, usually later than it should. A few things about discovery workshops that get repeated more often than they get checked.

The projects that go badly are rarely the ones with the hardest technical problems. Most teams find the first pass takes an afternoon and the maintenance takes minutes a month.

“It only matters for big sites”

A few focused hours prevents months of wrong direction. The cost of getting this wrong is rarely visible on the day it happens. It is worth deciding this deliberately rather than inheriting whatever the last person set up.

“We can deal with it after launch”

Sometimes true, usually expensive. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly.

“Our platform handles it”

End with written decisions, not a mood board. That sounds obvious written down. It is still the thing most often skipped. It is worth deciding this deliberately rather than inheriting whatever the last person set up.

The short version

Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. Three things worth confirming about discovery workshops before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• End with written decisions, not a mood board — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you are not sure where your systems currently stand on this, it takes us about an hour to find out.