What a discovery is
The GOV.UK Service Manual says that the purpose of the discovery phase “is to understand the problem that needs to be solved.”
In a discovery you learn about:
your users and what they’re trying to achieve
any constraints – for example due to technology or legislation
policy intent – the thing government wants to change or make happen
opportunities to improve things
What you learn during a discovery phase helps to work out whether to move forward to an alpha phase. You do not start building a digital service during a discovery.
The scope of a discovery may start off broad, and then become narrower as the team learn more about the problem. A discovery focuses on exploring one problem at a time. The team may uncover further problems to be explored in the future.
Narrowing the focus of a discovery helps to ensure the team can properly understand the problem area and make recommendations that would add the most value for users. We often need to make improvements quickly, which means breaking the problem down into manageable chunks and focusing on one area at a time.
A discovery takes as long as it takes to explore the problem. For problems no one has researched before, it may take longer. For problems where we already know a fair bit, it might be shorter. This discovery is planned for 16 weeks.
Why we do discoveries
We do discoveries to:
create a space for innovation and improvement
help teams achieve a shared understanding of what we’re doing and what we might design
prevent unnecessary work from happening
shift from requirements gathering to understanding real problems, identifying assumptions, and developing a plan to validate or invalidate them
The end of a discovery
A discovery is finished when the team know:
there is a viable service that could be built to make it easier for users to do the thing they need to do
it's cost effective to pursue the problem
It’s not a failure to stop at the end of the discovery phase if research shows that’s the best thing to do. In fact, you’ll be saving time and money that could be better spent elsewhere.
All discoveries at DfE are required to have a discovery peer review at the end of the phase. This is a 2 hour informal review of the team’s work for:
- feedback
- recommendations
- reassurance that the team have understood the problem and should move onto the alpha phase
Why we’re doing this discovery
In ESFA’s 2024 to 2025 business plan, a key outcome is “those we fund have certainty in their funding enabling them to plan effectively”.
The business plan outlines that providers need to know:
- what funding they will be getting (their funding allocation)
- how much they’ll be paid and when (their payment information)
The scope for our discovery is to look at how we currently communicate this information, and to make recommendations for improvements.
The funding service has secured funding via a business case for the next 3 years, which includes this work.
Previous work has been done in this area. This work has focused on specific platforms and funding streams. The DfE Schools Account programme is also working to make it easier for academies to find the information they need from DfE. Insights from all of this work will be used to inform our discovery.
This is the first time a discovery will look at the totality of an education provider’s experience of accessing information about all of their funding and payments.
This discovery embodies the ESFA behaviour of being “user centric” - putting users at the heart of what we do. We’ll be conducting user research with as many users as we can. It’s also an example of being “collaborative”, as we’ll work closely with colleagues from across ESFA and DfE.
How we work
We work in an agile way, which includes working in 2 week periods called sprints.
The delivery team working on this discovery is made up of digital professionals, including civil servants and contractors. The roles in our team are listed below.
Product manager
A product manager sets the direction and priorities for the delivery team.
Our product manager also covers the delivery manager role. This means they are responsible for setting up the team’s agile ways of working and removing any blockers.
User researcher
A user researcher helps the team learn about the people who are experiencing the problem – the users. They carry out research using a range of methods.
Business analyst
In the discovery phase, business analysts research and understand existing processes.
Content designer
Content designers make things easier for people to understand and use. In a discovery, a content designer is analysing existing content that exists in the problem space.
Service designer
Service designers design the end-to-end journey of a service. In a discovery, a service designer is looking at the existing services that exist in the problem area, and the journeys users take to currently do the thing they’re trying to do.