What a good Discovery feels like
Discovery is often misunderstood. People may want to treat it like a checklist to get through before the real work starts, something to tick off so you can get to delivery.
A good discovery will help you learn what the people you want to use your product or service are trying to achieve, or areas to improve things if something already exists.
You’ll learn about important things that could have a massive impact on your ‘thing’; legislation, policy, technology, organisational constraints, team skills, funding pressures, internal processes or blockers, support needs for users with access or inclusion barriers, existing services or systems people are already using, data or security considerations, risks you hadn’t thought of, political sensitivities (especially for public sector work).
But a good discovery isn’t just about what you produce. It’s about how the team works together, what they learn, how they share it, and how it sets the tone for everything that comes after. It’s not about speed and it’s rarely about making decisions quickly.
After twenty years of leading projects, I’ve come to recognise a few quiet signals that show when a discovery is working well. The following are an collection of the things I’ve learned leading discoveries for the Department for Education, the University of Sheffield, NHS England, the Co-op and more.
People are asking good questions
In a healthy discovery, you’ll hear people say “I’m not sure” or “We need to know more about…” more often than “I think the answer is…”
There’s curiosity in the room. The team feels comfortable sitting with uncertainty and asking questions they don’t yet know the answers to. That’s a good sign.
You might notice this when a researcher shares a playback of interviews, and the team isn’t just nodding along they’re asking questions like “Why do you think they said that?” or “Have we misunderstood what matters most to them?”. This curiosity is a sign a team is present, open, reflective, and focused on understanding rather than confirming just doing.
The team listens well
When discovery is going well, listening starts to outweigh talking. People pay attention to users, to each other, and to the problem in front of them and not just their own discipline or deliverables.
There’s space in the room. People aren’t trying to win arguments or move things along too quickly.
This often shows up when a researcher shares a tough insight, like a user struggling to access a service because of eligibility rules, and instead of brushing past it, the policy lead asks what can be changed. And then the designer then builds on it, suggesting ways to make the process simpler.
In that moment, you’re not just hearing the insight, the team is actively working together to respond to it. It’s a very lovely feeling.
There’s momentum, not pressure
Good discovery feels active but not frantic. The team is learning, exploring, making sense of things but not rushing to solutions before they’re ready.
The pace is steady. There’s focus without panic. Progress without stress.
A few years ago, I led a discovery for a highly-sensitive government service that needed improving. Before we’d even started, some stakeholders had already lined up the ‘off the shelf’ tool they wanted to buy. There was pressure to move quickly and get going with it. But instead of jumping straight in, I helped the team set up a shared space to hold all the ideas, including their own and including stakeholders’, until we’d finished our research.
I explained why we were doing it this way, and although there was some initial pushback, the group understood and backed the approach. By the end of discovery, we had a much clearer view of what users actually needed. What went into alpha was completely different from that original idea and far better aligned with user needs and long-term value. No tool was bought off any shelf.
Stakeholders feel involved, not sidelined
Strong discovery includes the right people from the start. Not just in meetings, but in thinking, decision-making, sharing and learning.
When stakeholders feel ownership, not just visibility, things move more smoothly later on.
While working on a Department for Education teaching service, our research kept surfacing the same issue. Teachers didn’t fully understand the policy the service was based on. Some were trying to make a claim when they weren’t eligible. Others, who were eligible, were ruling themselves out. The policy team was hesitant at first. They assumed most teachers already had the right knowledge to assess their eligibility. Instead of pushing back, we invited them into the research playbacks and analysis sessions. Seeing the evidence first-hand made a real difference. It helped shift the conversation from defending the policy to understanding the problem. Together, we were able to redesign that part of the process so it made sense to the people using it.
People can say when something feels wrong
This is probably the most important one.
In a good discovery, people can say when something doesn’t feel right. This might be when the user's need doesn’t ring true, when the scope feels off, when a decision is being made too early or stuff like that.
If your team can’t raise concerns without fear or defensiveness, it doesn’t matter how sharp your research is, you’ll miss what matters.
During a project with a university, we were mapping the user journey around accessing sensitive data. Early on, someone from the support side quietly raised a concern. They felt we were underestimating how confused and anxious researchers were about what actually counted as sensitive data. Some people thought the issue was more about compliance than clarity. But we listened, looked more closely during interviews, and that concern helped us dig deeper. It shifted our framing and revealed a much bigger need, clearer guidance and a simpler, more human way to talk about risk. That one insight helped shape our research, our recommendations, and ultimately, the University’s priorities.
And what it isn’t
A few things I’ve learned discovery is not:
A sales pitch for an idea you’ve already decided on
A box to tick before the “real” work starts
A race to get to Alpha as fast as possible
A way to validate someone’s hunch
A solo effort led by one discipline
A tidy process with neat answers
Something that magically avoids mess or risk
A process that ends with a big deck and a pat on the back
Just interviews and a journey map
A phase to “get through” so you can build something
Discovery is a chance to understand what’s really going on, for users, for teams, and for organisations. That doesn’t always come with tidy answers.
How it should feel
The best discoveries I’ve been part of have felt calm, focused and collaborative. Not always easy, but never chaotic. The team has enough time to think, enough support to speak up, and enough trust to learn together.
When that’s in place, good work usually follows.