I read two articles recently that are unrelated, but rhythm. They are both about what comes before you start something. They both extend an existing framework for a development process by adding a phase before the existing first phase of a process.
Likewise, they both are solving the problem of defining why a thing should be done before the what and how.
The first article is about what in a venture studio comes before designing and building a venture. The second is about what is the software development process comes before designing and building a product or feature.
The authors of both articles argue that what is missing from the existing processes is a messy de-risking phase that decides what to build and why it should be built. Because it is costly to design and build products, not to mention businesses, investing is a distinct process of finding the business case for doing that expensive work reduces the cost and increases the quality of the eventual work product.
The super messy start of Zero to One, where one one figures out what problem should be solved, can be moved to a preliminary phase whose output is the input to Zero. ShapeUp has the identical problem of discovering what problem is being solved and why. In both of these environments the focus is outward on the customer experience. Once that is decided on, the inward focused work of shaping the product or business can begin.
Both essays argue that the skill set and motivation of the practitioners for the framing stage is different than that of the shaping stage. Also, they similarly argue that the pace and rhythm of the two phases are different.
Here are illustrations of the process from each of these articles.
To summarize, both authors argue for a distinct discovery phase in their respective domains. And, that this phase should be formalized with it own set of criteria to be met to advance to the next phase.