Introduction

Professors from the University of Michigan were researching toxic mud from coal dumping that made the water too dangerous to swim and fish from on the shores of Lake Superior. They held a community engagement session and invited residents to join. Among others who joined, there was a large attendance from the elders of the Bad River Indian Nation tribe. 

The professors were two white men who were there to engage the community. They gave a 30-minute presentation to the group and followed it by opening the floor to questions. One of the elders stood up and asked, “Who fires you?”.  It was at that moment that these men realized they were under-prepared. They did not know anyone who they were talking to. The members of the tribe have seen this happen over and over again for hundreds of years, outsiders would attempt to fix things, and they would do little to no research on the client group. 

This session emphasizes doing homework to avoid making the same mistakes as those professors.

The Client Discovery process is a crucial step in any consulting engagement. It involves gathering comprehensive information about the client, their business, and their goals. This process lays the foundation for building strong relationships, understanding client needs, and developing practical solutions. By conducting a thorough client discovery process, designers can gain a deep understanding of their client's challenges and opportunities, enabling them to deliver tailored solutions that drive results.

Challenges  

All of these problems that we are working with are wicked problems. They all relate to each other, and there is no real final solution. 

A wicked problem can be defined as “a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often hard to recognize. It refers to an idea or problem that cannot be fixed, where there is no single solution to the problem; and wicked denotes resistance to resolution rather than evil.” - Wikipedia.

During the client discovery process, we are asking our clients to define very complex situations that may be very difficult to define. At the same time, simultaneously, we may be limited in our knowledge. 

At this time, the group went into breakouts to discuss their significant challenges when working with client groups. Here are some of the responses:

• How do I connect with a new industry or domain? 

• Jumping to solutions too early in the discovery process. 

• Learning how to facilitate different points of view and creating a balance between the built environment and the people we have.

• The ability to notice small details that make a difference in the outcome. 

• What is your current state of practice with client discovery vs. what is intuitive? 

• How do you start the discovery call? 

Having the solution

One problem you may have dealt with during a client discovery is that you already have the skillset, the tools, or the methods to create or find the solution. But the solution is only one-third of the engagement. As facilitators, we rush ahead because that is where we feel comfortable. We are not fully completing the job when we skip over the other dimensions. Our job is to help the system or the community to become more intelligent, not just to deliver our solution. 

It is essential to set a foundation and to know where the discovery process falls in the sales process. You must decide how much advice to provide in the opening pre-sale conversation versus a post-sale or post-engagement discovery process. The goal is to find the proper engagement so you can price it accordingly.

The model below is an MG Taylor model that can be helpful in this process. 

At the Baseline, the client presents the problem. 

Level 1 is contextual language. For someone who is outside of the industry or company, they need to learn the language. What are the terms of art or pattern language specific to the problem, group, company, or industry? 

Level 2  is similar patterns. This ties into the question of how much consulting should be thrown in. This is an area where we can lean on models, frameworks, and different workflows.

Level 3 is the last level up. It speaks to a model's framework outside of the organization that might be helpful in stretching the clients into thinking differently. 

What are good questions to ask?

Tom Sylvest, a member of TVW, has put together a list of phrases useful for your and the client's understanding, establishing a point of view and changing assumptions. These are essential seeds to plant with your clients so that when you broaden the number of participants, you can refer back to the importance of establishing different points of view.

Below are who and what questions Rob Evans uses when developing a sponsor team.

It is important to Ask various ‘what’ questions. By doing this, you are helping the client decide 

“Yes this is a large enough set of stakes that we need to invest time energy, and resources in order to get it right and we need u to help us build a process.”- Peter Durand

Who questions can be used to determine who should be invited to design this engagement and who should be a participant.

Your Host

Peter Durand is an artist, educator, and graphic facilitator in Houston, Texas (USA). He was born in the highlands of Kenya but grew up near the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States. He studied painting, illustration, and printmaking at Washington University in St. Louis, the Cité des Arts in Paris, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland. He worked his first DesignShop® in 1996, founded Alphachimp in 1998, and has been involved in growing the practice of graphic recording and facilitation ever since.

Since 2007, he has facilitated the MGT-designed NavCenter at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. He has worked with talented clinicians, administrators, faculty, students, and patients in one of the nation’s leading healthcare networks.