Run a targeted Discovery Day

Use this guide when something about a workflow makes you want to understand it better. A live review can show where a handoff, decision, exception, or side tool shapes the work.

Start with the signal that prompted your interest, then write the question it raises. Keep that question in mind, but leave the demonstration open. The person doing the work should show how they normally handle it. Follow the work across people, tools, and unexpected paths as they come up. A session often takes 30–60 minutes; give the work room to unfold, and arrange a follow-up if it needs more time.

Before the session

1. Start with the signal, then write your question

Name what prompted you to look: a system change, repeated confusion, a handoff that is hard to follow, or a gap between the documented method and what people report doing. Then write the question that follows from it. For example, if a handoff is unclear: “Can you show me how you usually handle a request like this?”

The question helps you pay attention; it is not a hypothesis to prove or a script for the practitioner. Follow what they actually do, including steps or people you did not expect. Handle urgent service or safety needs first.

2. Set a light boundary and invite the demonstration

Record enough to guide your notes and protect privacy. Do not set the person's steps or limit the demonstration to one role, tool, or output.

• Signal: what prompted this look?
• Question: what do you want to understand?
• People: whose work or handoffs may help answer it?
• Time: what window is workable, with room to continue if the work needs it?
• Limits: what information must be kept out of notes or screenshots?

Invite the people closest to the work and, where useful, those on either side of a handoff. Explain that this is a review of the work, not a performance rating. Ask them to show a normal example and let them choose how to demonstrate it. Do not ask them to prepare, rehearse, or follow a made-up case. If privacy rules prevent showing a live task, agree on a close example with private details removed.

Set one firm rule for the session: we are here to capture what happens, not to correct it in the moment. Do not coach the person, change a step, update a system, or remove a workaround while observing. Record what you notice and discuss possible changes after the walkthrough, when the current work has been captured.

3. Prepare to take useful notes

Bring the note sheet below. Agree where the notes will be stored and who may read them. Do not capture resident, owner, employee, account, or property details unless there is a clear approved need and a safe place to keep them. Usually, a short description without identifying information is enough.

During the session

1. Invite a normal demonstration

Start with: “I want to understand how this usually works. Could you show me how you handle it in your normal way? I’m here to watch and learn, not change anything while you work. If the work takes us somewhere unexpected, just follow it and I’ll take notes.”

Let the practitioner choose a representative example and work in their usual way. Do not prescribe which steps to follow, which system to open, or what result to produce. Do not take over the task, test the person, teach a new process, or compare the demonstration with a procedure while they are working.

If you see a mistake or a step you would change, note the action and keep observing. Do not correct the person or alter the workflow during the session. If an immediate safety or service issue needs action, pause the observation and address that issue through the proper response. Resume only if it is still appropriate.

2. Listen, watch, and follow the work

Give the person room to demonstrate. Ask a short question only when it helps you understand what you just saw; do not turn the prompts into a quiz or interrupt a decision in progress. For example:

• What are you looking at now?
• What are you thinking about here?
• What happens next for you?
• Who or what do you rely on at this point?
• Does this ever go another way?
• Is there anything else you normally check or record?

Follow detours, handoffs, exceptions, and other tools that appear in the demonstration. Notice waiting, repeated entry, memory-based steps, and work that moves outside the official system. Do not assume any of these is a problem; first capture what happened and ask what the person was doing when you need help understanding it. Do not steer the work back to the question's expected path.

3. Keep fact and guess separate

Write down the action or words you observed. In a different column, note what you think it may mean and what you still need to check. Avoid labels about a person's attitude or ability. A workaround may be useful, risky, or both; the session alone may not settle that question.

After the session

1. Play back what you saw

Summarize the steps, decisions, handoffs, exceptions, workarounds, and visible proof of completion. Ask the practitioner what you missed or misunderstood. Correct the notes before sharing them more widely.

2. Choose the next action

For each finding, choose one next step:

• no change; record what was checked and when to revisit it;
• correct the method or training;
• check a system setting, report, or data source;
• observe another bounded case because one walkthrough did not answer the question; or
• redesign the workflow because the current method no longer serves the needed result.

Name one owner and a due point for each action. Keep the finding separate from the fix; do not present an idea as an approved change.

3. Recheck the work

After a change, ask someone who does the work to use the updated method. Check the same decision, handoff, exception, or completion point that raised the question. If it still fails, record what happened and choose the next step.

Example: the official record and the working tracker

In one approved anonymous example, the team updated its designated system while using a separate tracking tool to manage the real progression of work. An interview or a check of the official record alone would not show the same picture as watching the work and asking what the second tool was doing.

The example does not identify a company, people, system, workflow, date, or outcome. It shows why it can help to ask, “Where else do you check or record this work?” It does not prove that the extra tracker was wrong or that removing it improved anything.

Copyable observation note sheet

Field

Notes

Signal that prompted the review

Question to keep in mind (not a script)

People, roles, and tools observed

Steps observed, in order

Decision: what was weighed and what happened next

Handoff: sender, receiver, and needed information

Exception or workaround

Waiting, repeat entry, or rework

Evidence of completion

What I observed

What I think it may mean

What still needs checking

Next action, owner, and due point

How and when the work will be rechecked

Use general labels in notes. Keep sensitive details out of the worksheet.