discovery — why watching reveals what asking conceals
The accommodation
When something breaks consistently in a person's workflow, they adapt. A workaround forms. Over time it becomes fluent — so fluent it is no longer experienced as a workaround. Ask them about their process and they describe the adapted version. Watch them work and you see the original, which is still costing them something every day even though they have stopped noticing.
Gal has been grading exams the same way for four years. The tab-switching is not friction she identifies. Ask her what would help and she might say "something faster." She would not say "remove the context-switching" — because she does not experience the switching as the problem. She experiences the 47 minutes and the errors. The switching is the cause. You cannot ask for it. You have to watch for it.
The thing worth building is usually hiding inside the accommodation.
Who does discovery and for how long
The minimum unit is two people who observe together and debrief immediately — before either person opens a document. Two people consistently surface different things: one attending to the task, one attending to the person.
Feature work: Project Lead and designer together. If the feature touches significant architecture, the Tech Lead joins for the journey mapping session.
Technical work: Tech Lead and DevOps together. The Project Lead joins — even infrastructure has human stakes and the human signal must be named by someone who can see it.
How to apply this
- ✓ Before: do not read the client's description of the problem first. It primes what you will notice. Read it after, not before.
- ✓ During: write exact times, quotes, counts, sequences. Do not interpret in real time. Write what happened, not what it means.
- ✓ After: write raw notes before the debrief. Debrief together before either person opens a document.
- ✗ Do not ask 'what would help?' while observing. This converts observation into an interview mid-session.
- ✗ Do not observe the manager describing what the team does. Observe the person doing it.