As delivery work accelerated during the cloud migration, there was an implicit assumption that discovery was largely complete. Priorities were set, timelines were visible, and continued questioning felt inefficient — even risky — given the pressure to execute.
The team believed they had done the necessary upfront discovery. They understood the target architecture, the customer segments involved, and the intended outcomes. Continuing to explore felt like it might undermine confidence in the plan or slow momentum.
Still, small signals kept surfacing. Early usage didn’t align with expectations. Support conversations pointed to pain points the work wasn’t directly addressing. None of this was dramatic, but it was persistent enough to create unease.
Rather than treating delivery as a phase where learning paused, the team chose to keep discovery lightweight and continuous. Short conversations, quick checks on assumptions, and small probes into customer behavior ran alongside ongoing delivery.
What emerged wasn’t a reversal of direction, but a series of small invalidations. Some features mattered less than expected. Some technical improvements unlocked value in places the team hadn’t prioritized. A few decisions that looked obvious on paper proved less useful in practice.
This created tension. Adjusting priorities mid-delivery felt risky, especially with dependencies already in motion. There were moments when it would have been easier to ignore the signals and finish what was started.
Instead, the team made modest course corrections. Scope shifted slightly. Sequencing changed. A few decisions were revisited with clearer context. Delivery continued, but it was shaped by learning rather than insulated from it.
Insight: continuing discovery during delivery improved decision quality without slowing execution. Assumptions were tested earlier, investment shifted toward outcomes that actually mattered, and fewer surprises surfaced after release — making the migration more responsive to real customer behavior while maintaining pace.