AGENTS/skills/basecamp-project/references/discovery-loop.md

Discovery Loop Reference

Purpose

Use discovery to gather only the information needed to set up a useful Basecamp project and produce a workable plan. Keep the conversation focused, practical, and easy for the requester to answer.

Conversation Principles

• Ask one question at a time.
• Prefer multiple-choice questions with a free-text escape hatch, such as "Other / describe briefly."
• Use progressive disclosure: start with essentials, then ask follow-ups only when the answer changes setup or planning decisions.
• Reflect confirmed answers briefly before moving to the next topic.
• Avoid forcing certainty; capture assumptions and risks when the requester is unsure.

Discovery Ledger

A discovery ledger is the running record of confirmed project facts, open questions, assumptions, and decisions. Keep it concise and update it after each meaningful answer.

Suggested ledger fields:

• Confirmed facts
• Open questions
• Assumptions
• Decisions made
• Risks and constraints
• Basecamp setup implications

Discovery Topics

Project Name

Confirm the exact project name to use. If the requester has no name, offer a short working-name option and mark it as provisional.

Language

Confirm the primary language for the Basecamp project, kickoff message, tasks, and docs. Ask whether any stakeholders need translated or bilingual content.

Goal

Capture the project goal in one clear sentence. The goal should explain the outcome, not just the activity.

Success Criteria

Define how success will be recognized. Prefer measurable or observable criteria, such as launch date met, stakeholder approval received, adoption threshold reached, cost cap held, or deliverable accepted.

Non-Goals

Identify what is intentionally out of scope. Non-goals protect the plan from drift and help explain tradeoffs later.

Stakeholders

List key stakeholders and what each needs from the project. Include decision makers, contributors, reviewers, affected teams, and external parties where relevant.

External Visibility

Confirm whether the project is internal-only, client-facing, partner-facing, public-facing, or mixed. This affects tone, access, notification strategy, and how decisions are documented.

Project DRI

Identify the Directly Responsible Individual for the project. The DRI owns forward motion, decision routing, and status clarity even when work is delegated.

Team and Roles

Capture who is involved and each person's role. Note owners for delivery, review, approval, technical input, operations, communications, and stakeholder coordination.

Timeline

Collect important dates: desired start, kickoff, milestones, review windows, hard deadline, and flexibility. Mark whether dates are fixed, preferred, or tentative.

Constraints

Record limits on budget, capacity, tools, process, compliance, availability, quality bar, vendor access, or organizational policy.

Dependencies

List dependencies that must happen before or during the project, including people, approvals, assets, data, vendors, systems, legal review, procurement, and upstream deliverables.

Risks

Capture known uncertainties that could affect scope, timeline, quality, adoption, budget, or stakeholder alignment. Ask for likelihood and impact only when useful.

Work Structure

Determine the preferred planning structure: phases, milestones, workstreams, deliverables, checklists, approval points, or a simple task list. Match structure to complexity.

Kickoff Tone

Confirm the tone for the kickoff message: concise and operational, warm and collaborative, executive summary, client-facing polished, or another style.

Basecamp Creation Strategy

Decide how to create the Basecamp project:

• Minimal setup: project shell, kickoff message, essential to-dos, and core people.
• Standard setup: kickoff, schedule, grouped to-dos, docs, owners, and initial risks.
• Structured setup: milestones, approval gates, workstreams, risk tracking, stakeholder-specific access, and status cadence.

Choose the lightest strategy that supports coordination without overbuilding.

Minimum Clarity Gate Before Planning

Begin planning only when these items are clear enough to proceed:

• Project name or acceptable working name
• Primary language
• Goal
• Success criteria
• Key non-goals or confirmation that none are known
• Project DRI
• Core stakeholders or team
• Timeline expectations and any hard dates
• Major constraints, dependencies, and risks
• External visibility level
• Preferred work structure or permission to choose one
• Basecamp creation strategy

If one or more items remain unknown, either ask the next highest-impact question or document a clear assumption and get permission to proceed on that basis.