Why I still slow projects down at the start
After nearly four decades working around learning, technology, and organisational change, you’d think I’d have learned to move faster.
In some ways, I have.
But one thing I’ve learned very clearly is this:
Most projects that struggle do so because everyone moved too quickly at the beginning.
Not because people were careless.
Not because they lacked skill.
But because the pressure to “get going” drowned out the need to think.
The rush to solutions
Most organisations are very good at action. When a problem appears, the instinct is to fix it:
We need to offer learning.
We need a platform.
We need content.
We need to roll something out now!
Those responses are understandable. They feel productive. They feel decisive.
But they often come before the problem itself has been properly understood.
What discovery actually is
When I talk about discovery, I’m not talking about a workshop for the sake of it, or a box to tick before delivery begins.
For me, discovery is a structured pause.
It’s time spent listening carefully, surfacing assumptions, and making sense of what’s really going on before anyone commits to building anything.
It’s not flashy. It doesn’t produce instant outputs. And it can feel uncomfortable, because it exposes uncertainty that was previously hidden.
That discomfort is useful.
What usually comes out of it
What emerges from good discovery is rarely dramatic. It’s almost always clarity.
- Clarity about the real problem, not just the visible symptoms.
- Clarity about where people are aligned and where they quietly aren’t.
- Clarity about risks that everyone sensed but hadn’t named.
- Clarity about what not to do.
Sometimes that clarity leads directly to a learning solution.
Sometimes it reveals that training isn’t the answer at all.
Both outcomes are valuable.
The cost of skipping it
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard some version of the same sentence at the end of a project.
“I wish we’d done this earlier.”
Earlier discovery doesn’t slow projects down in the long run. It prevents months of rework, misalignment, and quiet frustration later.
Slowing down at the start is often the fastest route overall.
If you’re about to start something new, or trying to fix something that’s never quite landed, it’s worth asking a simple question:
Have we really understood the problem yet?
And if you ever want to talk that question through, you know I’m always happy to chat.
