Discovery workshops for small teams

The version of this that works is simpler than the version most people imagine. Most advice about discovery workshops assumes a team that does not exist at your size. Here is the version that does not.

Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. If it only works because one person remembers to do something, it does not work yet.

What to keep

A few focused hours prevents months of wrong direction. That sounds obvious written down. It is still the thing most often skipped. The failure mode is not doing it wrong, it is doing it once and assuming it stays done.

What to drop

Process that exists to coordinate ten people is overhead when there are two of you. There is a version of this that is over-engineered, and it is worth avoiding.

How we handle it

End with written decisions, not a mood board. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

What this looks like day to day

Strategy work is mostly deciding what not to do, and writing it down so it stays decided. Three things worth confirming about discovery workshops before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Get the decision-makers in the room, not just their proxies — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If any of that sounds like a description of your current setup, it is fixable.