Product Consultancy / Sales Enablement / DesignOps / Scoping
Defining and aligning on discovery improvements to increase sales
Combating the lack of understanding and negative perception clients have about the discovery process.
WHAT’S BIG NERD RANCH? Big Nerd Ranch is a Product Consulting company that was struggling with selling and conducting client discoveries. They had a lack of understanding, expectations and clarity impact our clients trust and value in the BNR discovery process. BNR’s lack of consistency, documentation, communication and organization has lead to misalignment.
2022
DURATION: 3 Months
PLATFORM: Internal Process Improvements
ROLE: Lead Experience Designer, Big Nerd Ranch
PROBLEM:
Recently several projects had been scoped and sold inaccurately, causing a loss of revenue, extended timelines and very unhappy clients. Come to find out this has been an ongoing problems with little to no investigation into the “why” behind it.
SOLUTION:
To conduct a design led discovery into our internal processes to uncover what the real problem was and bring cross-functional teams together to solution and mitigate the problem.
IMPACT:
A more clearly defined and communicated discovery process will affect client and internal team alignment — resulting in more successful outcomes. With an easy understandable discovery process will lead to better sales materials and client value — ultimately leading to more sales.
What’s a discovery?
Do we really know what it means?
How we at Big Nerd Ranch defined a discovery.
Help clients understand what needs to be built to solve the problem
A time to do deep learning
Discovery examines the intersection of what users, business and product needs
Understand the background and what at a high-level they want us to do
It’s the framework of a project
Help us understand our users
Define scope, backlog of activities and the roadmap
A discovery is a preliminary phase that involves researching the problem space, framing the problem(s), and gathering enough evidence and initial direction on what to do next. They are crucial to setting projects off in the right direction by focusing on the right problems and building the right thing.
NN/g Nielsen Norman Group
World’s Leaders in Research-Based User Experience
Searching for pain points
We conducted a series of workshops to identifying our primary pain points, so we can narrow our focus.
PROCESS:
Conducting a series of stakeholder interviews with 13 team members across 3 teams
Mapped out the "current" workflow to understand the current process
Conducted an analysis of previous discoveries; went well/what didn't
Reviewed and leveraged existing documentation across both P202 and BNR teams
OBSERVATIONS:
Clients have a negative perception because they don't understand the value and outcomes from a discovery
No one really agrees the current process is the right process and most said there was no process
Overall lack of communication and documentation beginning with tech sales through a discovery project to a delivery project
Synthesizing results
What makes a successful discovery…
Clients have an understanding of product development, value design before building it
Using the same team from discovery to delivery
Works well when its not tied to a budget or timeline
Strong Project Strategists are essential for Discoveries, especially complicated/ambiguous ones.
When clients know how we work and we know how they work
What makes a unsuccessful discovery…
Client does not have a PO or lacks understanding of the role of a PO
Discoveries are sold to mitigate risks
When clients thought they had everything they needed, but we disagreed
We use discoveries to scope projects
Clients needed lots of coaching and tend to be stubborn
Hard to articulate what that discovery phase was going to be — lack of a plan and to ambiguous
PS’s are 50% billable so they don’t want to get too involved because they don’t have the time
Connecting the dots
PROCESS:
Synthesized the all of the data collected
Crafted a problem statement based on findings
Created a clear set of goals and outcomes for us to measure
Made a hypotheses for us to validate throughout the process
OBSERVATIONS:
We identified 3 areas of focus: Communications, Process and Education
Identified value in creating client types and discovery types
Areas of focus
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• Its unclear what work needs to be done in a post-discovery project.
• Unclear if the discovery is perceived as a project.
• Clients needs to understand what a discovery is and why it’s beneficial.
• Clients experience discovery fatigue. The same conversations happen multiple times.
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• We rely on the SOW to tell us what we need to know.
• We’re focused to investigate and find our own way when onboarding.
• To much variation and not enough of a consistent process.
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• Clients don’t understand the value, outcomes of a discovery.
• Sales leaves, then we have to re-educate.
• Educate on product ownership. Show them the BNR way of doing things.
Our goals
Well defined Discovery documentation
Alignment on strategy and execution of the Discovery process
Clear communication of the Discovery process
A successful execution of the Discovery process with a plan to iterate as needed
Improvements to our tech sales process
Confidence that our clients value, trust and want to invest in our recommended solution
Indirect improvements to the BNRs project process
Recommended solutions that users desire and are viable to clients
EXPECTED OUTCOMES:
Well defined Discovery documentation both internally and externally
Alignment on strategy and execution of the Discovery process
Clear communication of the Discovery process along with defined roles and responsibilities
A successful execution of the Discovery process with a plan to iterate as needed
Improvements to our tech sales process and SOW strategy
Confidence that our clients value, trust and want to invest in our recommended solution
Dicovery types
A Discovery can be something we sell as a service OR as a part of a standard Project Delivery.
PRODUCT IDEATION:
Client with an idea needing further product
research, stakeholder validation, product or feature exploration and market fit before designing and building.
PRODUCT VALIDATION:
Client with a basic understanding of what needs to be done based on light research but needs further research, audit, validation and expertise.
PRODUCT DISCOVERIES:
Client has an existing product and has done a significant amount of research, validating needs and preliminary user testing but they need help getting to the next level.
Getting real
Based on our themes we prioritized our areas of focus and created a path forward. And, have begun crafting tangible assets to begin testing.
PROCESS:
Identified key deliverables that work towards improving the key areas of focus
Realized a need to test and share the new process across all BNR teams
DELIVERABLES:
Sales — internal: Playbook on how to communicate and sell a Discovery. Questions, checklist, how-to/strategy
Standardized BNR Discovery playbook discovery process
Templates for Discovery deliverables
Discovery Report — client
Executive Summary/Discovery Diary — Internal source of truth
Guidelines for handing over a disc from sales phase to delivery phase.
Rollout strategy/next steps (feedback loop)
She has expert skills and very experienced in all things UX and UI. I'm particularly impressed in her workshop skills. She has a long list of methodologies in her toolbox, and is adept at choosing the right one for the job. Her facilitation skills are fantastic and yielded solid design deliverables to build upon for the Discovery project.
Matt Raufman
Principal Experience Designer, Big Nerd Ranch
Outcome
A more clearly defined and communicated discovery process will affect client and internal team alignment — resulting in more successful outcomes. With an easy understandable discovery process will lead to better sales materials and client value — ultimately leading to more sales.