{"id":43759,"date":"2018-01-19T04:49:16","date_gmt":"2018-01-19T11:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taterboy.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/10-tips-for-a-successful-discovery-phase\/"},"modified":"2018-01-19T04:49:16","modified_gmt":"2018-01-19T11:49:16","slug":"10-tips-for-a-successful-discovery-phase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taterboy.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/10-tips-for-a-successful-discovery-phase\/","title":{"rendered":"10 tips for a successful Discovery phase"},"content":{"rendered":"
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How to ensure your public service transformation gets off on the right\u00a0foot.<\/p>\n

Hi, I\u2019m Alastair from Pilot Works. We\u2019re a digital product and service design consultancy focused on the Discovery and Alpha phases of public service transformation.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll be at UKgovcamp this weekend, keen to talk to others about their experience of these phases so we can continue to learn and share best practice.<\/p>\n

We are also running a two-day training course starting Feb 28th on How to do Discovery<\/a> for those planning a Discovery phase.<\/p>\n

For now, here are some tips for anyone planning a Discovery. We look forward to your comments!<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Make a commitment?<\/strong>\u2014?discovery is vital, make time for\u00a0it<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    When you are familiar with a product or service and can see where it can be improved it\u2019s tempting to reduce the amount of resource spent on Discovery in an effort to make progress faster. But it pays to take Discovery seriously for two reasons. Firstly it\u2019s quite likely that going through the process methodically will reveal bigger opportunities for improvement than you had allowed yourself to consider before. Secondly, you will need evidence to back up your decisions and bring stakeholders with you. When someone asks, why couldn\u2019t we just do X, you\u2019ll have a good answer and your initiative can remain on\u00a0track.<\/p>\n

    2. Gather a multi-disciplinary team<\/strong>?\u2014?you\u2019ll need different perspectives, knowledge and\u00a0contacts<\/p>\n

    At Pilot Works we are strong believers cross-functional teams working on shared goals. It\u2019s common now in agile delivery teams, but it also applies in Discovery. You need technologists to dig into what\u2019s technically possible, policy people to keep you focused on their aims, user researchers and designers to get everyone involved in understanding needs and visualising solutions; and you need everyone in a constructive conversation which so often leads to the best ideas. Ideas which are feasible because the right people have been involved from the\u00a0start.<\/p>\n

    3. Create a shared backlog<\/strong>?\u2014?assign appropriate questions to team\u00a0members<\/p>\n

    Your multidisciplinary team needs to focus and work together efficiently. A shared backlog of tasks and the use of agile ceremonies (standups, show and tells, retros) really helps to get that happening. This is especially important when teams are not co-located. We tend to use Trello<\/a> for this\u00a0purpose.<\/p>\n

    4. Start recruitment early<\/strong>?\u2014?it can take time to find participants<\/p>\n

    If there is a \u2018critical path\u2019 then recruitment of users for research is definitely on it. Sometimes finding the right users to speak to is time-consuming, particularly those lower on the Digital Inclusion Scale, so it makes sense to start recruitment directly after your inception workshop, in which you define your recruitment brief.<\/p>\n

    5. Challenge assumptions<\/strong>?\u2014?now is the time to ask why it has to be that\u00a0way<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s so easy to accept the status quo as we go through our daily working lives, but discovery is an opportunity to ask those \u2018dumb questions\u2019 you\u2019ve always wondered about. Why do we need to collect that data? Why do we need that approval? Now is the time to really question anything that does not clearly address user\u00a0needs.<\/p>\n

    6. Stay open<\/strong>?\u2014?allow yourself to consider new perspectives<\/p>\n

    We all bring our own biases to the research process and when time is tight it\u2019s all too easy to use data to backup our preconceptions. To counter this, make sure you ask open questions, listen carefully and reflect back what you\u2019re hearing; observe actual behaviours and involve other team members in the\u00a0process.<\/p>\n

    7. Show options<\/strong>?\u2014?users need orientation sometimes<\/p>\n

    We have found that towards the end of an interview it helps to give users something to react to. For example, when researching the needs of Healthy Start recipients (see case study) we described three options for how we might offer the service digitally. This surfaced, not only their feedback on the options, but helped them talk about their experiences with similar technology which was really valuable.<\/p>\n

    8. Share as you learn<\/strong>?\u2014?so others can build on\u00a0it<\/p>\n

    Keep that \u2018one team\u2019 spirit alive by working transparently, sharing updates and insights verbally or on Slack and Trello as they happen. Think of yourselves as detectives working on a case, sharing tit bits of knowledge which may spark new lines of enquiry. It\u2019s great for stakeholders too, as they can see not only the results but the activity and thinking that has created\u00a0them.<\/p>\n

    9. Map and sketch<\/strong>?\u2014?visualising ideas makes them easier to understand<\/p>\n

    Have you ever left a meeting thinking it\u2019s clear what we\u2019re going to deliver, and then later found that others have different ideas? Talk is cheap but it\u2019s open to interpretation. Mapping journeys and sketching ideas is still inexpensive but it vastly reduces the risk of misunderstandings and it stops us having to hold lots of information in our heads at once. Jeff Patton does a great job of explaining this in his User Story Mapping<\/a> book?\u2014?check the cakewrecks!<\/p>\n

    10. Stay humble<\/strong>?\u2014?you\u2019re beginning to understand needs, but your ideas remain\u00a0untested<\/p>\n

    Congratulations, you\u2019ve done everything right and you\u2019re feeling confident you know what needs to be built in order to meet user needs. But stay humble. More detailed needs will emerge as you enter prototyping and you may find that your initial solution ideas aren\u2019t working so well. So be proud you\u2019ve taken the first step, but remember there\u2019s still lots to\u00a0do.<\/p>\n

    For more thoughts on product and service discovery, head to pilot.works<\/a> and subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on the\u00a0twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

    \n

    10 tips for a successful Discovery phase<\/a> was originally published in Pilot Works<\/a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.<\/p>\n

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    How to ensure your public service transformation gets off on the right\u00a0foot. Hi, I\u2019m Alastair from Pilot Works. We\u2019re a digital product and service design consultancy focused on the Discovery and Alpha phases of public service transformation. We\u2019ll be at UKgovcamp this weekend, keen to talk to others about their experience of these phases so… Read the full article…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":43760,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-info"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t