Information discovery: project history, enterprise and strategy analysis
Key Takeaway
Information discovery gathers the facts for the right solution, and strategy analysis is what moves a team with competing goals to an agreed direction.
Information discovery, one of the most important phases of the project lifecycle, is where a consultant gathers the facts needed to design the right solution. Most of the groundwork for a project happens in this phase. Without the right information, you cannot reach the best conclusions, and sometimes you cannot reach any conclusion. Discovery information falls into three high-level categories: project history, analysis and elicitation. Analysis includes enterprise analysis, stakeholder analysis and strategy analysis.
Exploring every area of the project
The goal of discovery is to gather as much information as possible by exploring every area of the project. Exploring every area gives you a cross section of data that moves the project toward the best solution.
A simple way to cover every area is to ask who, what, where, why, when and how questions. For example:
- Who are the stakeholders, and who hands things off?
- What problem are we trying to solve?
- Where does information go after it is input?
- Why is this important?
- When do we need a solution?
- How does this work now, and how should it work?