Discover
Stage 1 in the Lifecycle
Discover is the initial phase of the ITIL Product and Service Lifecycle, addressing: "how do we keep product roadmaps and service offerings aligned with consumers and strategy?"
What you should take away
After reviewing this content, you should understand:
- Why Discover operates at organizational, portfolio, and product levels, with emphasis on the product level within lifecycle topics
- The PESTLE factors used for business context scanning
- The four-step Discover iteration process and typical activation triggers
Official purpose
The purpose of Discover is to ensure "continual alignment of product roadmaps and related service offerings with the needs of service consumers" and organizational strategy.
Key characteristics:
- Continual process, not one-time activity
- Monitors consumer insights, strategy, technology, team capabilities, and competitors
- Produces updated product roadmaps, improvement initiatives, and design requirements
Key facts
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Why do it? | Ensure continual alignment of product capabilities with consumer needs and organizational strategy |
| Who performs it? | Product teams, relationship managers, business analysts, service owners |
| When performed? | As frequently as needed; triggered by schedule, context changes, or stakeholder requests |
| Key outputs? | Updated product and service roadmap |
| Success metrics? | Strategic fit, market relevance, stakeholder satisfaction, commercial success |
PESTLE context
Organizations analyze business context using PESTLE: Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental factors. These insights shape the product and service portfolio, which drives requirements for individual offerings.
Three levels of discovery
| Level | Focus |
|---|---|
| Organizational | Positioning, vision, strategy, target consumers |
| Portfolio | Portfolio optimization and strategic alignment |
| Product | Keeping product capabilities and services aligned with consumers and strategy |
The Product and Service Lifecycle sections emphasize the product level. Broader organizational and portfolio discovery is covered in ITIL Digital Strategy materials.
High-level workflow (four steps)
Assess the product and service context
Agree direction and objectives
Prioritize actions and allocate resources
Communicate changes in the product and service roadmap
Cadence and triggers
- Prefer "small, frequent iterations so funding and plans can track a fast-changing context"
- Run Discover on regular schedules and when major external events shift PESTLE factors
- Without multi-disciplinary product teams, service owners, business/customer relationship managers, and business analysts typically perform this work
Extended view: how this fits your organization
Product vendor perspective
- Market and competitive research
- Product-market fit analysis
- Technology trends and innovation monitoring
- Customer segmentation and targeting
Service provider perspective
- Analysis of customer service needs
- Service portfolio analysis
- Demand management
- Early capacity planning
Related management practices
| Practice | Role in Discover |
|---|---|
| Business Analysis | Gather and analyse requirements; propose solutions |
| Strategy Management | Align with strategy |
| Portfolio Management | Manage the product and service pipeline |
| Relationship Management | Engage stakeholders |
| Risk Management | Assess risk for new initiatives |
Inputs and outputs
Inputs: User and customer feedback, Support insights, market and technology trends, strategy documents, continual improvement records
Outputs: Approved business cases, requirements documentation, feasibility studies, prioritized backlog, direction for Design phase
Metrics (examples)
- Opportunities identified
- Approval rate for business cases
- Time from idea to approval
- Strategy alignment assessment
- Satisfaction with the discovery process
ITIL Car Rental scenario: Discover in action
Context: ITIL Car Rental decided to invest in driverless cars, partnering with a major automotive manufacturer for autonomous vehicle deployment, beginning with pilot cities in the United States.
Anna (Product Manager): "Our stakeholders have urged us to include driverless cars in our innovation program. Marketing research shows growing customer interest. I recommend prioritizing an autonomous rental service evaluation."
Maria (Business Analyst): "Initial findings show customer interest but concerns about safety, control, and accountability. We must also evaluate fleet operations readiness and support team capabilities."
Max (CIO): "Our objective is assessing whether current AI platforms support real-time data exchange, fleet-level automation, and multilingual AI-driven support."
Anna: "Our objective is a safe, reliable, eco-conscious, and fully supported driverless rental experience."
This scenario illustrates the four Discover steps: assessing product context (market interest, competitor moves, customer concerns), agreeing direction (partner with automotive company, pilot in US cities), prioritizing actions (evaluate AI platforms, map customer concerns), and communicating the updated roadmap to stakeholders.