A field guide to discovery workshops

A good discovery workshop ends with a team that agrees on the problem — not just a wall full of colorful notes.

Prepare by gathering evidence beforehand: support tickets, interview snippets, analytics. Print them. Real quotes in the room keep the conversation grounded.

Open with silent writing. Give everyone ten minutes to capture observations individually before discussion. It stops the loudest voice from setting the agenda.

Cluster, then name the clusters as problems from the customer’s point of view. “People can’t find their invoices” is more useful than “billing UX”.

Close by voting on impact and confidence, and agree on the one or two questions you’ll investigate next. Write them down and share them within the hour.