Discovery-driven planning

What is discovery-driven planning?

Discovery-driven planning is a way to plan a new venture by stating its assumptions openly and testing them as you go, so the plan changes as you learn. Rita McGrath and Ian MacMillan set it out in a 1995 Harvard Business Review article. A conventional plan treats its forecasts as facts. A discovery-driven plan treats them as guesses to check at set points, before more money goes in.

Why it matters to a revenue leader

A new service line or a new territory is a venture, even inside an established services company. A CRO who launches one with a full-year quota and no stated assumptions can learn too late that the price point or the buyer was wrong. Naming the few assumptions that must hold, and when each will be known, gives the sponsor a better conversation than a missed number.

A PE-backed HVAC company plans a new controls retrofit offer and assumes a 25% close rate at $40,000 per job. After the first 20 proposals it has closed 2, a 10% rate, and buyers cite long payback periods. The team reprices the offer around energy savings before hiring more sellers.