A discovery project is useful when it changes a decision. For an Australian small business, that decision might be whether to replace a booking spreadsheet, connect existing tools or leave a process alone. Asking for a discovery report without defining its purpose can produce plenty of documentation and little direction.
Name the uncertainty
Write the decision in one sentence: should we create a shared job queue for our three teams? Then list what would make the answer yes, no or not yet. Perhaps the issue is duplicated administration; perhaps customers are waiting because nobody owns the handover. Those are different problems. Keep a separate list of suggested features so that attractive ideas do not quietly become established requirements before the underlying difficulty is understood.
Gather evidence from actual work
Consider a hypothetical Adelaide equipment-hire business. Its owner suspects the booking sheet is the bottleneck. Watching a recent booking reveals that staff actually wait for a supervisor to confirm unusual hire conditions. A new calendar alone would leave that delay untouched. Ask staff to walk through completed examples, including cancellations and amendments. Record the documents, decisions and waiting points involved. Use anonymised samples when sharing examples outside the business.
Buy a bounded investigation
A small discovery could produce a current workflow map, a list of observed problems, several possible responses and a recommendation about what to test next. Agree which staff will participate and which evidence the supplier can access. Deeper investigation may uncover hidden dependencies, but a broad research exercise also consumes staff time. Set a review point at which remaining uncertainty is either acceptable, worth another targeted investigation or a reason to stop.
Turn the findings into a choice
Compare at least a process change, a configuration change to an existing product and a custom build where those options are plausible. Record the evidence supporting the chosen route and the assumptions still untested. The next scope should answer the largest remaining question, such as whether supervisors can make decisions from the proposed job summary. GOV.UK's discovery guidance also frames this phase around understanding the problem before committing to delivery. Its public-service context should be adapted to your business.
Planning checklist
- Name one decision and its owner.
- Collect three recent examples of the problem.
- Agree what evidence would justify stopping.