Incorporating a Through Line into Your Discovery & Design Sessions

Today, we’re going to focus on the importance of a through line as you work through different phases of a digital transformation initiative. Let’s ground ourselves in what this is before seeing how it applies.

A through line is a concept that storytellers use to establish a common thread from start to finish that guides the audience, which allows different loops or hooks to extend out that add complexity and nuance.

Using this is a helpful tool for discovery and design sessions, during which there are many ideas to explore, which may lead to competing opinions or tangents.

It’s especially helpful when you have multiple sessions in the same day, which is often the case as I lead half and full day intensives.

Ideally, a through line ties into the initiative’s overarching objectives, yet it probably shouldn’t be the objective by itself.

Instead, it can take a few different flavors:

• A question meant to spark curiosity or provoke a divergence from the current state like “how do we eliminate friction between us and our prospects?”
• A statement that declares the intent of the program like “we will produce the same output, but in a radically different way”
• A paradox that needs resolution like “maintaining enterprise discipline and embracing the velocity of a startup”

In terms of when to introduce or revisit the through line, here’s a few times that make sense:

• At the beginning of your sessions, before diving into specific topics or exercises
• When stakeholders join in the middle for specific activities
• When the group appears to be losing focus or appears to be stonewalling
• At the end of multiple sessions when concluding with the core project team

If you’re collaborating in-person, put the through line in the corner of your whiteboard or easel pad. For those that are collaborating remotely or in a hybrid context, keep a text file or doc open on the edge of your screen while sharing.

TLDR: Before diving into your next discovery kickoff, define the through line that serves as the guiding narrative for what you’re hoping to accomplish.