Discovery operations guide

Deliverables, immediately actionables, and recommendations

At the end of a research round, with all the travel and coordination and mental exertion, it can seem daunting to go through the work of parsing and understanding the information you’ve gathered. This, however, is the final push before moving into the design phase or a new research round. Communicating your rigorous and thorough synthesis phase will allow your leadership and stakeholders to understand your project’s depth, interest, and richness. At a minimum, close your synthesis session by identifying your deliverables, immediately actionables, and recommendations.

Deliverables should be defined before the research begins. Sometimes the deliverable from a project is simply a report of your work. Sometimes it is a report plus other visualizations of your work, such as a journey map. During the synthesis session, make a plan for how you will produce these items. Assign different team members different parts of the work, if appropriate and feasible.

Immediately actionables are items you and the team identify from your research that can move directly into a design phase. Some aspects of your work will not need further research: you and the team see a gap or a need and know how to fill that gap or need. These immediately actionable items can be communicated to leadership in your report and be assigned for design and production.

Recommendations are actions you see as needed, based on the information you’ve gathered. These can include recommendations for further research, for partnership with other groups or individuals, or for project ideas. These recommendations should be formed based on the opportunities you and the team identified. They give your leadership and stakeholders visibility into what is possible for the design phase.

Once you’ve produced your project’s deliverable(s), packaged the immediate actionables for decision-making action or non-action, and organized the recommendations, the moment has come to develop a coherent, informative, and persuasive presentation of findings. Besides your oral presentation, you should also prepare a presentation deck.

Communication framework

Create a presentation deck of your findings and deliverables. Your slide progression should show the story of the project. For maximum effect, each slide should contain large photographs or drawings and only a few words.

A well-crafted deck enhances a well-crafted verbal presentation. So, to make an impactful presentation, practice your speaking component with your visual component. Finally, a good deck will be useful if you want to continue to grow the project later with the same or different stakeholders.