Exploration workshop

What it is for

The first conversation should change your understanding of the work. Someone may arrive asking for a new website and leave with a much better question about what the website needs to do.

Use this script to get around the company in an hour. Follow the answers that matter, skip what you already know, and write down what you still need to find out. The questions are there to help you listen. You do not have to finish the list.

The first hour — everything we need to know to write the proposal.

Tools, in order

Here is where each tool helps. Use an equivalent you already work with if it fits the task and your project’s access requirements.

1. 01

   Before the session

   Notion · Paper or a shared workshop board

   Collect the initial request, existing work, and the people who can explain it. Put the decision you need on the first page. Agree on recording, transcription, access, and retention with everyone before starting; handwritten notes are a valid alternative.

   Carry forward A brief, a prepared board, and an agreed capture method.

2. 02

   In the room

   Notion AI Meeting Notes · Paper or a shared workshop board · Phone camera

   Use the recorder to support listening, not to replace a facilitator. Ask for real examples of how work happens before proposing a solution. Write decisions and disagreements visibly; photograph the boards with permission. Pause recording whenever someone asks.

   Carry forward Authorized source notes, a transcript if agreed, and labeled board photos.

3. 03

   After the session

   Claude, ChatGPT, or Grok · Notion

   Check speaker names, quotations, numbers, and apparent agreements against the sources. Ask an assistant to draft a problem brief with evidence, constraints, and missing inputs, with a source ID for each decision and a separate list of open questions. Have participants correct the record before using it as a brief.

   Carry forward a problem brief with evidence, constraints, and missing inputs

Review the work with partners

We make and revise the work with Claude, ChatGPT, or Grok, then put selected versions on our Studio project pages for partners to review. Check the preview before sharing it. You can do the same with a private prototype or shared document; use a workspace that can access the files you need.

Name the version, say what changed, and ask the question you need answered. Keep feedback with that version and discuss conflicting requests before making the next changes. Confirm approval separately, and keep confidential work in a restricted space.

Delegate the routine work

Turn verified notes into a source-linked table, label board photos, or format the agreed action list. Give the agent only the relevant excerpts and a completed example.

Interpreting disagreement, choosing a direction, and deciding what participants actually approved stay with the facilitator and decision owner.

Sequence prompts, then delegateChoose a model for the design task

Prepare the room

1 h

From their side: the founders or whoever decides, plus anyone they want in the room. From ours: whoever will run the engagement. Keep it small enough that people answer instead of presenting.

Record the meeting and get it transcribed. The transcript is what the proposal gets built from. Ask permission to record at the start.

• One hour. Video call or in person, whichever happens sooner.
• Before the call, ask them to have documentation ready to share: deck, brand files, site analytics, anything they have.
• The goal is coverage, not depth: touch every area, note where it hurts, and go deep later in the workshop. Let them talk; the questions are prompts, not a form to fill.

Step 1 · ±10 min

The company

Start wide. The answers here decide which of the later blocks deserve the most time, and they produce the sentences the proposal quotes back.

Questions

• What does the company do, in your own words, as you'd say it to a customer?
• How do you make money, and who pays?
• What stage are you at: funding, team size, runway?
• What's working right now? What's clearly not?
• What does success look like twelve months from now?
• Why are you talking to us, and why now?
• Who decides on this engagement, and who else needs to be convinced?

Step 2 · ±10 min

Brand

Find out what exists, whether it still fits, and how far the appetite for change goes.

Questions

• How do you describe yourselves today, and does that still feel true?
• Does the current identity feel like you? Where does it pinch?
• What exists: logo files, guidelines, fonts, a design system? Who made them, when?
• What do customers say you are? Does that match what you want to be?
• Which brands do you admire, inside or outside your market?
• Are you attached to the name? The logo? Anything untouchable?
• Where does the brand have to live: site, product, deck, print, merch?

Step 3 · ±10 min

Product

Understand what users hire the product for and where it struggles. Even when the engagement is 'just' a website, the product decides what the story can honestly claim.

Questions

• What do users actually hire the product for?
• Walk me through a first use, from landing to first value. Where do people drop off?
• What's on the roadmap for the next two quarters, and why those things?
• Who builds it: team, stack, what's easy and what's expensive to change?
• What would you cut if you had to cut something?
• What do users ask for that you don't want to build?

Step 4 · ±10 min

Marketing

Map how customers arrive today and what the company claims, and whether those claims survive contact with proof.

Questions

• Where do customers come from today, channel by channel, roughly what share?
• What's the best-performing thing you've ever done? The most expensive failure?
• Who is the buyer, and is that the same person as the user?
• What claims do you make? Which can you prove with a name or a number?
• Who do you lose deals to, and what reason do you hear?
• What does marketing cost today: people, tools, spend?

Step 5 · ±10 min

Ops

How work actually moves through the company: where the hours go, what's manual, and what breaks under growth.

Questions

• Walk me through how work moves from sold to delivered to invoiced.
• What's manual that shouldn't be? What gets copied between tools by hand?
• What depends on one person? What happens when they're out?
• Which tools do you run on, and which do you pay for but barely use?
• What breaks first if you double in size?
• Where does AI already help you, and where do you suspect it could?

Step 6 · ±10 min

The ask & documentation

Close with logistics: what they can share, what happens next, and the boundaries that shape the proposal.

Ask for everything. More documentation means better deep research behind the proposal.

To collect

• The deck, and any past brand or strategy documents
• Brand assets: logos, fonts, guidelines, design files
• Site and product analytics access, or exports
• Customer quotes, testimonials, won/lost deal notes
• Any past research, audits, or agency work
• Budget range and timeline expectations, stated out loud
• A date: when they'll have the proposal, and who reviews it

What comes out

• A transcript covering every area we could help with, the documentation set, and a stated budget and timeline.
• The transcript becomes the proposal (including the deep research on positioning, gaps, competitors, and visual quality), generally within days of the call.

Leave the next person enough to work with

Write down what was decided and why, with links to the notes or examples behind it. Keep the open questions alongside the decisions. Someone joining the project should be able to tell which is which without asking you.

Project: [name]
Input sources: [references and permission]
Approved decisions: [choice, rationale, owner]
Assumptions: [what remains untested]
Open questions: [question, owner, due date]
Acceptance checks: [observable pass/fail criteria]
Next step: [person or workflow]
Approval: [name, date, version]

Before you move on

• Can someone who was not in the room understand the result?
• Are claims supported by evidence, with uncertainty labeled?
• Has the responsible person approved the decisions—not just received the document?
• Have you removed private information and checked rights to any assets?

If the summary says something was agreed and you cannot find that agreement in the notes, ask the person who decides before carrying it into the next task.