Align on goals, current state and plans with a Discovery Workshop

[Sabrina Sampey]

Discovery Workshop 
Discovery workshops will help you set the stage for your project. In this workshop your key stakeholders and team members will come together to discuss what is known about the current state, build consensus, and set goals and plans for the project.   

Method Overview 

You’re excited and want to jump right in, but before you can get started it is imperative to set the stage. This means coming together to establish a shared understanding of the current state, and the overall goals of your project. It also means identifying key players and how you will work together and gaining alignment on how you want to move forward.  

By skipping this step, you may be focusing on the wrong goals, and leaving key players out of your process. But done right, you will gain alignment on the goals of the project, identify the right people to involve, and create understanding of knowledge and a shared vision for the future. With a market saturated with products and services, you need to know how yours will succeed, grow, and minimize the risk of building the wrong thing.  

Outcomes 

• Alignment of vision and purpose amongst the team 
• Framed problem with clear requirements, and goals  
• Identified stakeholders, and decision-makers 
• Shared understanding of existing knowledge and history of the problem space 
• Identified gaps and potential risks 
   

Prerequisites 

• Any materials, knowledge that can be shared with the team  

Participants 

The best teams are made up of your product managers, business analysts, design strategists, developers, and stakeholders 

Materials Needed 

• Conference room, whiteboard, markers, post-it notes 
• Real-time collaboration whiteboarding tools such as Miro, or Mural 
   

Agenda 
 

Duration	Activity
15 minutes	Introductions & Workshop Expectations
45 minutes	Goal Setting: short term and long term
30 minutes	How might we
15 minutes	Break
45minutes	Ask the Experts
30 minutes	Stakeholder mapping

Learn More  

5 UX Workshop and When to Use Them: A cheat sheet