After this lesson, you will be able to:
- Convert a discovery sentence into a scope with explicit boundaries and a first deliverable
- Choose the first workflow using the value, feasibility, and visibility test
- Write success criteria the customer cannot quietly reinterpret later
- Say no to good ideas in a way that strengthens the engagement instead of straining it
Discovery ended with a sentence: for workflow X, owned by Y, we believe we can improve number Z. Scoping is the act of betting the engagement on that sentence, in writing, with a date.
Everything about this phase fights human nature. The customer wants everything. You want to be liked. The sentence wants to grow clauses. Scoping is the discipline of keeping it short anyway.
#Choosing the first workflow
Discovery usually produces several candidate workflows. The first one you build for is a strategic choice, and the test has three parts.
Value: improving this workflow moves a number someone already reports upward. Not a number you invented. One that exists in a dashboard or a monthly review today.
Feasibility: the data it needs passed your audit, the systems it touches will grant access this quarter, and the workflow's exceptions are survivable. You are not choosing the biggest problem. You are choosing the biggest problem you can hit from here.
Visibility: people see this workflow succeed. A back-office win nobody notices buys no momentum. The ideal first target is watched by many, owned by your champion, and small enough to finish before belief runs out.
Three candidate workflows survive discovery. A: huge value, needs data from a system whose owner has slow-walked every request. B: moderate value, clean data you already have, watched by the whole operations floor. C: high value, clean data, but its owner is a sceptic who joined the company last month. Which do you scope first?