Bringing Structure to Discovery: Operationalizing UX in an Agile Environment

Project Summary

As the UX team at a leading health insurance company matured within a scaled agile organization, it became increasingly difficult to align UX discovery efforts with product delivery timelines. Designers struggled to distinguish between discovery and delivery work, and product managers weren’t sure when or how to engage UX earlier in the process. I introduced a lightweight framework and a discovery roadmap to bring clarity, improve alignment, and make UX efforts more visible and strategic across the business.

My Role

  • UX Strategist

  • Discovery Process Lead

Outcomes & Impact

UX Discovery became part of the product planning process, incorporated into the software development lifecycle, and no longer viewed as just a side activity. This effort also led to:

  • Clearer scoping decisions — designers could confidently identify when research was needed

  • Better alignment with PMs and engineering

  • UX was represented earlier in the product lifecycle

  • Discovery became visible and prioritized at the leadership level

  • Teams began incorporating the framework and roadmap into their planning rituals

“I feel the UX and Product teams are in sync and working together in a way like we haven’t in the past.”

— Sr. Director, Product Management

The Challenge

UX work was often reactive, with discovery happening too late — if at all. Designers received work with unclear scope or vague user stories, while product teams expected design deliverables with limited context or input.

Key problems included:

  • Uncertainty about whether incoming work needed research or was ready for design

  • No shared framework for identifying discovery work early

  • UX work lacked visibility in planning processes

  • Discovery efforts were duplicative or disconnected across teams

UX needed a scalable way to triage incoming work, advocate for earlier research, and communicate ongoing initiatives.

Decision tree for scoping UX work: discovery or delivery?

Approach

Decision Framework: Discovery vs. Delivery

I created a visual decision tree to help designers and product owners quickly determine whether a piece of work was discovery or delivery:

  • Paired it with a kickoff question set to clarify scope, goals, and constraints

  • Focused on defining the “What,” “Why,” and “Who” behind each request

  • Shared and trained teams on using the model during backlog grooming and sprint planning

Guiding questions to align on user needs, scope, and business value before starting work

UX Discovery Roadmap

To bring visibility to discovery work, I created and maintained a UX discovery roadmap. I facilitated reviews of the roadmap every two weeks with business and product leadership.

It included:

  • Active and upcoming discovery work

  • RACI documentation for each project

  • Status of research and synthesis

  • Backlog items awaiting discovery

  • Strategic alignment across times

  • Milestones and checkins

This gave stakeholders a clear view into where UX was engaged and what was needed to move work forward.

UX discovery roadmap reviewed biweekly with business stakeholders

Evangelizing Dual Track Agile

I also created internal materials to explain dual track agile and why it matters:

  • Benefits of separating validated discovery from delivery

  • Role clarity across tracks

  • How UX, product, and engineering collaborate at each stage

Internal education material: What is dual track agile and why it matters

Mapping UX Across the Software Development Lifecycle

To further operationalize discovery work, I created a visual that maps key UX capabilities to each stage of the software development lifecycle. This helped product and engineering partners better understand when and how to engage UX, clarified where discovery ends and delivery begins, gave teams a shared vocabulary for planning work, and helped set expectations of what

This artifact supported more strategic roadmapping, realistic design timelines, and stronger cross-functional alignment — especially in an environment where UX was often brought in too late.

By framing UX as a continuous partner throughout the SDLC — not just a design phase — I helped shift our org’s perception of UX from service function to strategic contributor.

Key Artifacts

  • Discovery vs. Delivery Decision Tree

  • UX Discovery Kickoff Questions

  • UX Discovery Roadmap

  • Visualization of UX Capabilities by Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC)Phase

How discovery flows into delivery: UX process embedded within product planning and not a side activity