Discovery and Alpha phases are short by design. That is the point. But short does not mean simple — and getting them wrong is expensive. The decisions made in these early weeks set the trajectory for everything that follows.
Valtech's experience across public sector digital service delivery has taught us that the teams who get the most from Discovery and Alpha are the ones who bring two things together: the willingness to challenge how things have always been done, and a deep working knowledge of the space they are operating in. Separately, each has limits. Combined, they are the foundation of services that actually work for citizens.
Why disruptive thinking matters — and when to apply it
Disruptive thinking is not about being provocative for its own sake. It is the capacity to question accepted constraints, ask whether legacy technology should dictate user experience, and find routes to policy intent that no one has considered before.
The risk is that it runs unchecked. Open-ended exploration is valuable at the start of a Discovery. It becomes a liability if it is still happening when the team should be converging on a clear problem definition. Valtech uses the double diamond methodology to keep disruptive thinking productive — broad divergence early, followed by a deliberate switch to convergent analysis, then out again to explore solutions before converging on a recommendation.
In practice, this approach helped Valtech and LNER generate 15 testable concepts across diverse user groups in an eight-week strategy sprint — producing a concrete digital roadmap from what could have remained an open-ended futures exercise.
Why domain knowledge is not optional
A Discovery team without domain knowledge spends its first weeks establishing facts that a specialist could have walked in with on day one. That is time not spent on new research, user testing or iteration.
Domain knowledge also protects against a specific failure mode: pursuing solutions that look viable on a whiteboard but run into hard constraints — legislative, operational or commercial — that an informed team would have spotted immediately. When Valtech worked with the Department for Transport on the Blue Badge digital service, existing knowledge of the scheme and its users allowed the team to broaden the frame of reference from the application process to the full experience of travelling with a Blue Badge. Digital uptake rose from 37% to over 75%.
A framework for getting it right
The whitepaper sets out five ways to take Discoveries and Alphas to the next level — from building cross-functional teams and mapping fixed versus flexible constraints, to using Alphas to surface showstopper risks before they derail delivery. Download it below.