How to use it
- 01
Describe the problem first
Resist naming features. Write who struggles, with what and what it costs. A brief that begins with a solution closes off better ones before anyone has looked.
- 02
Split known from assumed
Put what you can evidence in one box and what you believe in the other. Most people find the second list longer than expected, and that discovery is worth the hour alone.
- 03
Set the boundaries
List the systems involved, the constraints that are fixed and what is out of scope. Boundaries stated early keep a workshop from spending its first day finding them.
- 04
Write three questions
Decide what you most need the discovery to answer. Afterwards, hold the results against those three lines to judge whether the work did its job.
What a discovery brief needs to say
A discovery is short, so the time spent explaining background is time taken from deciding. A brief that covers these five parts lets the first session start with the hard questions.
| Part | What it settles | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Problem | Who struggles, with what, and how they cope today | The scope of any product follows from it |
| Business | The goal, its measure, the sponsor and the budget position | Without a goal there is no basis for cutting features |
| Known and assumed | Evidence on one side, beliefs on the other | Assumptions are what a discovery exists to test |
| Boundaries | Systems, fixed constraints and what is excluded | They remove whole branches of discussion |
| Workshop | Participants, the questions to answer and expected outputs | Lets both sides judge the result afterwards |
A worked example
An inspection company prepares for discovery
The example is an invented marine inspection company. Load it to read the whole brief. Its strength is the assumptions box, which names three beliefs that could each sink the project.
- ProblemThe brief describes retyping and late reports. It does not ask for an app, although that is what the director has in mind.
- AssumptionsTablets on deck, the regulator's acceptance of digital signatures and harbour signal are all unproven. Each becomes something for the discovery to test early.
- QuestionsThe three questions are specific and answerable, and one of them asks for the smallest first release.
A workshop that starts from this brief can spend its first hour on the regulator's requirements and a trial on deck, which are the two things most likely to change the plan.
What this tool does not do
The template prepares a discovery. It is not one.
- It does not validate your assumptions. It only makes you write them down.
- It does not produce a scope or an estimate. Those are outputs of the workshop.
- It cannot tell you whether the idea is worth pursuing. Evidence from users does that.
- What you type stays in this browser until you copy or download it.
What to do with the finished document
Send the brief to whoever will run your discovery a few days ahead, and ask what else they need. If you would like us to run it, send the brief over and we will reply with how we would structure the sessions. Send it through the contact page or book a 30-minute call and bring it along.
Common questions
What is a product discovery?
It is a short, structured phase before development in which the people funding a product and the people who will build it agree what problem is being solved, for whom, what the first release contains and what it is likely to cost. It typically combines workshops, conversations with users and quick prototypes, and it ends in decisions.
Do we need a brief if the workshop will ask these questions anyway?
A brief written beforehand changes what the workshop can achieve. Without it, the first sessions are spent collecting background that you already know. With it, the same time goes to testing assumptions and making choices. It also exposes disagreements inside your own team before outsiders are in the room.
What if we cannot answer some of the questions?
Say so in the box. An honest we do not know is more useful than a confident guess, because it tells the workshop where to spend its effort. The parts people most often cannot answer are how success will be measured and what evidence exists, and both are worth an internal conversation first.
Who should write the discovery brief?
The person who sponsors the project, together with someone who knows the daily work. One sees the business goal, the other sees how the problem really appears. Briefs written by a sponsor alone tend to describe the official process, and briefs written without one tend to lack a goal and a budget position.