Discovery Phase – Online PMO

Purpose:

Matures investments that are typically longer term, riskier, and more uncertain.

Objective:

Provides the locomotive that organizations utilize to grow and transform the business.

Description:

Sometimes called the fuzzy front end, the discovery phase occurs during the concept and idea stages of basic research. This phase matures investments that are typically longer term, riskier, and more uncertain than the other two phases discussed below. The discovery phase provides the locomotive that an organization can utilize to grow and transform their business. Investments in this phase are inventoried, assessed, balanced, optimized, and selected in the discovery portfolio.

The discovery portfolio is a framework used in the front end of the life cycle. In the discovery phase, investments are classified as concepts or ideas; thus, value, costs, benefits, and risks are somewhat difficult to quantify. The discovery portfolio aligns, prioritizes, and balances new technologies, which form the basis of strategic enablers and transformation. It has been susceptible to cost-cutting, as many organizations focus on short-term, sustaining, low-risk initiatives bypass the experimental, higher-risk, longer-term innovation, and incubation initiatives. The discovery portfolio only functions optimally when IT and business have a highly functional relationship, which, according to research, occurs in only 2% of companies.

Many companies now recognize that mergers and acquisitions, geographic expansion, increase in business development, or cost-cutting efforts will not drive consistent and sustainable growth. As resources have become tighter over recent years, discovery and research have become accountable and performance-oriented. They are inextricably linked to delivering elements of the business and strategic objectives, producing targeted and measurable results that increase value and growth consistent with the strategic intent.

Unlike the mid to late 20th century, when discovery and research could take a decade or more from initial idea through commercialization, the majority of companies today cannot afford to spend a sizable amount of resources over such a long period of time. The discovery portfolio provides the framework to assure investments are in line with expectations.

Entrance Criteria:

Critical success factors
Key performance indicators
Balance scorecard

Exit Criteria:

Updated Portfolio
Updated Portfolio Roadmap

Process and Procedures:

Tailoring Guidelines:

None

Process Verification Record(s):

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Measure(s):

An effective set of policies is defined and maintained

References & Related Standards

ISO/IEC 20000
ISO/IEC27002
ITIL V3 2011
TOGAF9
Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA)

When your employees have questions, they want immediate answers. And when different needs arise during the workday, employees are motivated to learn at the moment.

In-the-flow learning delivers real-time education when your employees need it most and unleashes opportunities to:

Identify skills that need to be developed
Implement practical approaches to support learning
Discover how to better support skills development

Here are the training modules for Decision Analysis and Resolution:

5 Tools to Gain Competitive Advantage
5 Essential Business Strategy Tools
Do Business Better
Managing Project Scope
Strategy requires core functions and new ideas, companies during this pandemic must protect core businesses even as they create mechanisms for thinking about new opportunities, write Boris Groysberg and Katherine Connolly Baden of Harvard Business School. Cross-functional teams and agile structures can be valuable in identifying areas of inefficiency, along with tactics such as “the clean sheet of paper exercise,” which asks executives to imagine rebuilding the company from scratch.
5 reasons business experiments fail, businesses that test ideas need to ensure those experiments are lengthy and broad enough to generate meaningful results — and not just initial findings. Another key is to tie the test back to the business, both in terms of goals and in having experienced managers involved.
Use this framework to create cascading goals, the structure of cascading goals works best when employee and corporate goals are aligned, with those goals regularly evaluated through frequent check-ins. Building cascading goals with the question What are the next three things we need to focus on this quarter or year to really move the needle?