Do you need data sharing in a "Discovery" Phase?

Many consultants suggest that before they can help you, they need to "discover" the underpinning causes by interviewing, collecting, and analyzing. This is typically a great starting point in any consultative relationship - it introduces all the players to each other and the consultant may also see issues that are higher priority or have greater impact than those who live in the situation.

Data from systems, reports, and meeting notes is optimal but not necessary for a Discovery Project. Recommendations can be based upon staff and executive interviews and personal insight. As long as you have an experienced consultant, their best practices and expertise will guide the action plans as is.

In no way is lacking data a show-stopper to most discovery projects. It is in fact an incredible finding and one that targets a consultant on where you are and what is next to do. The path is clear with this finding – the team is in the initial stage of Maturity. Usually upon hearing the team’s history, there are good reasons for being in this stage. Again, a good consultant will recommend that instead of looking to the past, you drive a stake in the ground and move forward with good decisions and action plans to accomplish the goals quickly.

Typically when the staff cannot produce data, it means that people are managing and working from intuition and “gut feel”. This can be tactically effective for a short time as long as no one leaves the organization. As soon as someone leaves, the continuity is lost and there is a long term of ad-hoc in order to catch-up.

There are three main components of an organization’s Operational Capacity – Process, People, and Tools. With documentation and data not collected, part of the Discovery Finding is that there are no resources to compile and/or collect data for decision-making projects/strategies.