Discovery is something that starts off the page. 

In the insurance industry for the last few years, the focus has been on agility and the ability of a system to change business requirements quickly. That's in reference to a system already in place. The speed the market is changing has also made it even more difficult to write the specifications for a new system installation.

A request for proposal may go out a year before a signed contract. At project launch, only the broad outlines still apply to the goals the carrier now has. Even those goals may change before the project is mid-way through. The first project management goal almost seems to be what to do with the out-of-date plans. Worse is when no one realizes that the plans they've been handed are out-of-date. 

Discovery is something the continues during the project.

Before you see your system it is almost impossible to confirm it is what you want. The right balance of written expectations and openness to change is needed throughout the development process. No one can put a specification in a pre-development plan that emerges from a meeting mid-project as delivering high business value. No one can predict in a pre-development plan that a very resource-consuming specification will prove to be of little business value mid-way through the project.

It takes a balance. It takes insurance expertise to know what to ask.

At ISCS, we have developed a workbook, actually a set of Excel spreadsheets, that one major analyst has called a "potential differentiator."  It does take time to gather the information, but it sets the stage, fills in just the right level of details. We combine this with a three-day workshop.

At the end of this process, which we are happy to go over with you, we are ready to show you a working part of the system in 30 days—not a prototype or proof of concept but actual working product that can be functionally tested by you. After that initial production, you see more results every two weeks. It is between these production periods that you develop the specifications for the system you really want, the system that creates the most business value.