Standard : Discovery is embedded in team practice
Purpose and Strategic Importance
This standard ensures discovery is not treated as a one-off phase but embedded into team practices as a continuous discipline. By investing time in understanding customer problems, validating assumptions, and experimenting early, teams build confidence that delivery efforts are purposeful and valuable.
It supports our policy to "Discovery Before Delivery" and reinforces learning as a first-class outcome. Without this focus, teams risk building the wrong solutions, wasting resources, and damaging customer trust.
Strategic Impact
- Stronger alignment between product direction and customer needs
- Reduced risk of rework from incorrect assumptions
- Improved ability to adapt products to evolving contexts
- Increased confidence from stakeholders in product decisions
Risks of Not Having This Standard
- Building features with little or no customer value
- Wasted investment in incorrect or unnecessary solutions
- Poor morale from delivering outputs that fail to make impact
- Stakeholder misalignment due to lack of evidence-based direction
CMMI Maturity Model
Level 1 – Initial
- Discovery activities are ad hoc and dependent on individual initiative
- Teams jump to delivery without validating assumptions
Level 2 – Managed
- Discovery happens occasionally before major initiatives
- Customer input is limited but considered
Level 3 – Defined
- Discovery is structured and embedded in product practice
- Teams consistently test assumptions and validate problems
Level 4 – Quantitatively Managed
- Discovery outcomes are measured and tracked across teams
- Hypotheses are prioritised based on evidence
Level 5 – Optimising
- Discovery is continuous and systemic, integrated into daily team work
- Insights are shared widely to accelerate collective learning
Key Measures
- % of initiatives with validated assumptions before delivery
- Number of experiments/prototypes run per quarter
- Ratio of validated learning outcomes vs invalidated hypotheses
- Reduction in rework due to discovery practices