Discovery-driven Planning - Five Disciplines

Five Disciplines

A discovery driven plan incorporates five disciplines or plan elements:

1. Definition of success for the plan or initiative, including a 'reverse' income statement
2. Benchmarking against market and competitive parameters
3. Specification of operational requirements
4. Documentation of assumptions
5. Specification of key checkpoints

Using discovery-driven planning, it is often possible to iterate the ideas in a plan, encouraging experimentation at lowest possible cost. The methodology is consistent with the application of real options reasoning to business planning, in which ventures are considered 'real' options. A real option is a small investment made today which buys the right, but not the obligation to make further investments.