Glossary
What is a time-boxed discovery?
A deliberate learning step taken instead of a decision: a goal, optionally the questions to answer, a time-box, and a target date on which it must conclude with recorded findings and an explicit decision.
The ending is what separates discovery from research. On the target date the demand is planned, re-decided with what was learned, parked, or declined — a reason is required to park or decline, and the findings stay on the record. A spike with no end date is not a smaller commitment; it is an unbounded one.
Related terms
- Vertical work — A delivery stream owned by a single team or discipline that produces end-to-end value within its own lane — frontend, backend, data, mobile, platform.
- Horizontal work — A cross-cutting concern that pulses into several delivery streams at specific gates — security review, legal, compliance, design, accessibility, privacy.
- Readiness (three-state) — A planning dimension has three states, not two: not assessed, assessed and nothing found, and assessed with items.
This definition comes from building DeliverySheet — it takes a vague work request to a clear delivery decision, so the shape, owner, capacity, dependencies and open questions are on the table before anyone commits people or a date.