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How to Run a Discovery Requirements Workshop

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In this lesson, you will learn:

  • Why Discovery needs more than one workshop
  • Who attends each workshop
  • How to capture and confirm answers

🔁 Quick look back: Last time: Governance and Status Reporting. You learned how to report status and handle scope changes.

1 The Problem: Workshops That Wander Get Vague Answers

One big meeting with everyone rarely works for Discovery:

  • Network questions bore the CMDB team.
  • Security questions get pushed to ‘later’.
  • People guess instead of checking.

🎯 The problem: Workshops that wander get vague answers.

👉 The fix: Run three short, focused workshops, each with the right people and a clear list of questions.

Three workshops: infrastructure, CMDB use, security.
Figure 1. The three Clear View requirements workshops.

2 Planning a workshop

  1. Pick one topic and the people who really know it.
  2. Send the questions two days before.
  3. Ask people to bring facts: lists, diagrams, exports.
  4. Keep it under two hours.
  5. Send notes the same day, and ask for corrections.

💡 Good to know: Need a refresher? See ITSM Implementation › Implementation Methodology › Scoping and Requirements Workshops for general workshop skills.

3 During the workshop

  • Ask open questions first: ‘What does the network look like?’
  • Then pin down facts: ‘Which subnet is the DMZ?’
  • Write every ‘I think’ as ‘to confirm’, with an owner.
  • Park topics that belong to another workshop.

⭐ Remember: A guess written as a fact is worse than a known gap. Mark gaps clearly.

4 Project Clear View: How We Implemented It

📍 Situation: The questionnaire answers came back half complete.

🧭 Decision: Run three focused workshops in weeks 1-2, one per topic.

🛠️ Steps we took:

  1. Held the infrastructure workshop with Ravi, Priya, Kenji and Oliver.
  2. Held the CMDB use workshop with Hana, Riya, Arjun and a Service Desk lead.
  3. Held the security workshop with Farah and Ravi.
  4. Sent notes the same day, with ‘to confirm’ items and owners.

✅ What we verified:

  • Each workshop’s notes were corrected and confirmed within two days.
  • Twelve ‘to confirm’ items were closed by the end of week 2.

📁 Evidence: Three sets of workshop notes. They feed the requirements document (see Requirements Gathering › Writing and Signing Off the Requirements).

5 Quick recap

  • Run separate workshops for infrastructure, CMDB use and security.
  • Send questions before, and ask for real facts.
  • Mark every guess as ‘to confirm’, with an owner.
  • Send notes the same day.

6 Check yourself

Think of your answer first. Then tap to check.

1 Why run three workshops instead of one? Show answer

Each topic needs different people. Focused workshops get clearer answers.

2 What do you do with an answer that starts ‘I think’? Show answer

Write it as ‘to confirm’ with an owner, not as a fact.

3 When do you send workshop notes? Show answer

The same day, asking for corrections.

Nice work! You can run a focused Discovery workshop. 🎉
Next up: The Discovery Questionnaire: Questions to Ask

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