Discovery-driven Planning

Discovery-driven planning recognizes that planning for a new venture involves envisioning the unknown. It is a systematic way to uncover implicit assumptions that would otherwise slip unnoticed and unchallenged into a plan.

The process introduces four related documents:

  1. a reverse income statement, which models the basic economics of the business
  2. pro forma operations specs, which lay out the operations needed to run the business
  3. a key assumptions checklist, which is used to ensure that assumptions are checked
  4. a milestone planning chart, which specifies the assumptions to be tested at each project milestone

As the venture unfolds and new data are uncovered, each of the documents is updated.

Sources

Harvard Business Review: Discovery-driven Planning

Harvard Business Review: A Refresher on Discovery-Driven Planning

Harvard Business Review: A Refresher on Discovery-Driven Planning

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