Adapted from the USDS Discovery Sprint Playbook.
The purpose of a VA.gov discovery sprint is to quickly explore the current state of a new content area or product to help gain insight about the challenges and opportunities and to kick off the initial design and planning of a project.
By the end of a discovery sprint, we will have a good understanding of:
- Systems, teams, people involved
- User needs and motivations
- who our likely users are
- what they're trying to do
- how they're currently doing it
- the problems and frustrations they experience
- Stakeholder roles, needs, and motivations
- Technical feasibility
- Movement towards a solution
- How might we better serve these user needs
- Scope, complexity, effort required
- Documentation/evidence to support our decisions
- Project next steps
Each new project will begin with a discovery sprint. A new project could be a feature, a tool, or a content area that we know very little about. Content is a product that users will interact with just like apps and tools.
The process involves 4 phases: pre-discovery, discovery preparation, discovery, and complete and readout.
Prior to starting a discovery sprint, the Leads will do some advance work to establish the discovery sprint team, define the problem, and gather basic information.
A discovery sprint team should be small (3 to 5 people) to help it move quickly. From the outset, a sprint leader must be identified. A sprint team represents the following:
- Project leadership
- Design (e.g. user experience, research, visual, etc.)
- Technology expertise of appropriate flavors (e.g. systems, data science, front end, etc.)
- Policy savvy
- Product management
Some individuals may possess several of these skills. For example, the discovery sprint leader might be a UI designer.
Ideally, team members should be dedicated full time to the sprint for its entire duration. (Recognizing that this is not always possible, it’s best to really clear your schedule and prepare people that you will be immersed in the discovery sprint until it’s complete.) Ideally, the majority of the team should be comprised of people already in the product sprint team. In most instances, the product lead is the discovery sprint leader.
- Work with a VA.gov lead to make a copy of the Discovery Project Brief & Planning Template and fill out the Project Brief section.
- Work with the VA.gov research team to book dates for User Research on their calendar.
In order to maximize efficiency during the sprint, the Discovery Team Lead should prepare for the sprint 1 to 2 weeks in advance. The team should meet at least once before the sprint starts to meet each other and work out logistics.
See also: the USDS sprint playbook which has a great list about how to prepare for a sprint.
- Complete the Discovery Project Brief & Planning Template that was started during pre-discovery to document goals, assumptions, methods, a more complete list of stakeholders, etc.
- Have a Discovery Sprint Team kick-off meeting. See Sample Discovery Team Kickoff meeting agenda.
- Send the Discovery Project Brief and Planning Document link to Kelly to approve the final list of stakeholders you will be reaching out to. Once OK’d, update the planning doc.
- Send completed Discovery Project Brief and Planning Document link to Stacey for approval to start the sprint.
- Paste a link to the completed Discovery Project Brief in your Planning issue tagged with Research and add any additional details on User Research dates, times, attendees, and participant criteria.
Other Logistic tasks as needed:
- Consult the Research Team for help deciding what discovery activities best fit your project needs.
- Clear team members schedules for the upcoming discovery sprint.
- Schedule place for the team to co-work.
- Schedule team meetings at the beginning of each day and at the end for debriefing and planning for the next day.
- Schedule stakeholder meetings.
- Schedule user research sessions with Veterans.
- Invite the business owner and rest of team to participate in or sit in on some of the activities.
- Obtain background materials, org charts, stakeholder artifacts, etc.
- Obtain permission/access to key systems, test accounts, information, usage data, etc.
- Make travel arrangements.
- Gather materials (stickies, markers, tape, large paper, sketching templates, scripts, templates, etc.).
It’s crucial to keep to a strict time commitment (typically 1 or 2 weeks, depending on scope). While it’s easy to want to extend this timeline, time is precious and we’ve got a lot of other products that we want/need to build for VA.gov.
The duration of a discovery sprint will vary by project needs. Projects may require one discovery method or multiple; conversation with a couple of stakeholders or many. It's important to make strategic decisions about what will and will not be part of the discovery sprint. Also, keep in mind that synthesis can be time-consumming so plan accordingly.
Example:
- For all of MyHealtheVet, we might conduct a 2-week discovery sprint
- For prescription refills, we would conduct a 1-week discovery sprint
- To develop content related to navigating the appeals process, we would likely conduct NO discovery sprint because our team has high compentency in that area.
See also: Sample Discovery Sprint Schedule.
- Hold a stakeholder kickoff meeting. See also: Working With Stakeholders for method ideas.
- Conduct discovery activities.
- Synthesize results. Consult the Research Team for help.
Other Discovery tasks as needed:
- Get access to the system (and test access to verify it works)
- Get at minimum read-only access for engineers to relevant production systems
- Get test accounts for systems
- Document any data standards (e.g., all upper case inputs) for existing systems
- Identify any VA policies / legal regulations that are required
- Physically go through the process or follow someone going through the process to see it first hand
- Identify Information in Support of VA.gov ATO
- Identify existing system classification: FISMA Low, Moderate, High
- Identify existing system connections required by VA.gov
- Identify existing system data elements and actions to be performed by VA.gov (e.g. pulled, pushed, stored)
- Identify existing system POC for all things ATO-related (usually ISO)
- Define change management plan for existing VA systems with VA stakeholders
- Inventory content for rewrite; plan for sunsetting old content
- Create a migration and sunset strategy and timeline for both content and systems (redirects)
Ideally occurs on the last day of the sprint or beginning of following week.
- Present End of Discovery deck to the Leads, and rest of product sprint team about work done, current state, potential concerns, areas for opportunity, findings, and recommendations/next steps.
- Draft Stakeholder deck and send to the Leads (customize as needed).
- Conduct a discovery sprint retrospective with the Discovery Sprint Team.
- Request time on the VA.gov agenda for a 5 minute hightlights presentation where you can cover challenges, suprises, what was interesting,etc.
- Do end of project Github / documentation cleanup. Make sure all docs are in Github, issues are closed, and GitHub pages are well-organized.
- With a lead, finalize the stakeholder deck and charter and determine when and who will present to stakeholders.