Three weeks into a discovery project, the Head of Product mentioned "the new direction" like it had already been decided.

I had not been in that meeting. Neither had most of the room.

Interviews scheduled, research plan built, six weeks of work ahead. But none of it was going to matter. The direction was set before I arrived. What the client needed was not findings. It was a document to point to.

The tell was there in week one. The brief was too clean. Real problems arrive messy, stakeholders disagree, the data pulls in different directions. This one had a fully formed hypothesis already.

I now ask one question before any engagement starts: what finding from this research would actually change your mind?

A real answer is specific. A vague one is usually the sound of a decision that already happened.

Ask that question in your next first stakeholder call. If the answer is vague, you are not running discovery. You are producing a document.

More on this in this week's issue of Design is Dead. Link in the comments.