> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.kowalah.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Discoveries

> Time-bounded, Kowalah-led engagements that surface 20 to 30 AI opportunities from across your organization.

export const DiscoveryDefinition = () => <>
    A <strong>Discovery</strong> is a time-bounded, Kowalah-led engagement that surfaces 20 to 30 AI opportunities from across your organization. Kowalah invites a cohort of people from your team, they submit ideas through chat or the web, and Kowalah triages everything that comes in. Discoveries are usually included in the scope of an initial project or in your Managed Services contract.
  </>;

<DiscoveryDefinition />

A Discovery is the structured way Kowalah finds the AI opportunities that are actually worth pursuing in your organization. Instead of one workshop with the leadership team, Kowalah invites a cohort of people from across your business — finance analysts, HR managers, ops leads, customer service reps — and gathers ideas through the channels they already use.

<Note>
  Discoveries are typically included in your initial project scope or in your [Kowalah Managed Services](/get-started/what-is-kowalah) contract. They're Kowalah-led, but the value is your team's ideas — Discoveries make sure the right people get asked.
</Note>

## When to run a Discovery

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="At the start of a new engagement" icon="play">
    A Discovery is often the first thing Kowalah runs after a contract starts, to build a pipeline of opportunities to feed into Deliverables and Expert Requests.
  </Card>

  <Card title="When you want department-level coverage" icon="layers">
    Run a Discovery focused on a specific department — finance, HR, operations — to surface opportunities you'd never hear about from a leadership-only conversation.
  </Card>

  <Card title="When AI adoption has plateaued" icon="trending-up">
    A targeted Discovery re-engages people who haven't surfaced ideas yet and finds the next wave of work.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Before a Change Enablement rollout" icon="users">
    Use a Discovery to identify the use cases that will make the rollout land — real problems people in the business actually want solved.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## How a Discovery works

<Steps>
  <Step title="Kowalah scopes the Discovery">
    Your Kowalah partner sets a goal, an open and close date, and a target opportunity count (typically 20 to 30). They also configure the **business value context** — a short brief that helps the AI score and triage incoming ideas in line with your strategy.
  </Step>

  <Step title="You build the audience">
    Kowalah works with you to nominate the cohort: the people across your organization who'll be invited to submit ideas. Each person is added with their email, department, and optional display name. You can keep adding people throughout the Discovery — the audience isn't fixed at launch.
  </Step>

  <Step title="The Discovery launches">
    Each person in the audience gets an invitation through the channels you've enabled — typically web, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Chat, or email. They can submit Opportunities at any time during the Discovery window, in their own words, on their own schedule.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Reminders go out automatically">
    People who haven't responded get a series of polite reminders before the close date. You can see who has and hasn't submitted yet from the Discovery dashboard.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Opportunities flow in and get triaged">
    Every idea submitted during the Discovery becomes an [Opportunity](/platform/opportunities), automatically scored on Impact, Confidence, and Ease, and tagged with the Discovery it came from. Your Kowalah team triages them as they arrive, not in a single batch at the end.
  </Step>

  <Step title="The Discovery closes">
    After the close date, no new opportunities can be submitted to the Discovery (though they can still be raised standalone). Kowalah produces a closeout summary covering the top opportunities, recommended next steps, and proposed Deliverables and Expert Requests.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## What you see in the platform

Each Discovery has a dashboard that shows:

| Section              | What it covers                                                                          |
| -------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Goal and context** | The brief Kowalah set, including the business value context                             |
| **Audience**         | Who's been invited, their status (invited / responded / declined), and reminder history |
| **Opportunities**    | Every Opportunity submitted to this Discovery, with their ICE scores                    |
| **Channels**         | Which channels are enabled (web, Slack, Teams, Google Chat, email)                      |
| **Timeline**         | Open date, launch date, close date, completion date                                     |

<Tip>
  The Discovery page is the single place to watch a campaign land. If response rates are low halfway through the window, that's the moment to ask Kowalah whether the cohort needs widening, or whether the framing of the brief should be sharpened.
</Tip>

## Channels

A Discovery can run through any combination of these channels:

| Channel             | Best for                                                                   |
| ------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Web**             | Anyone with a Kowalah account; gives the richest submission form           |
| **Slack**           | Teams already in Slack daily — `@Kowalah` mentions become Opportunities    |
| **Microsoft Teams** | Same as Slack but for Teams-first organizations                            |
| **Google Chat**     | For organizations standardized on Google Workspace                         |
| **Email**           | For people who don't use Slack or Teams, or for cross-organization cohorts |

Choosing the right channel mix is part of the Discovery setup — Kowalah typically recommends enabling the channels your audience already uses, rather than forcing them into a new tool just to participate.

## Audience and consent

The audience is the list of people invited to a Discovery. Each row tracks:

* **Email and optional display name**
* **Department**
* **Status** — invited, responded, declined
* **Invitation, reminder, and first-response timestamps**
* **Consent** — captured when someone first engages with the Discovery

<Info>
  Anyone in the audience can submit any number of Opportunities during the window — there's no per-person cap. The target opportunity count is for the Discovery overall, not per person.
</Info>

## After the Discovery closes

Once a Discovery completes, the Opportunities it surfaced live on:

* **Top-scoring Opportunities** are typically promoted into [Deliverables](/platform/projects/deliverables) inside a Kowalah-managed project
* **Smaller, scoped pieces of work** become [Expert Requests](/platform/expert-requests) directly
* **Lower-scoring or out-of-scope Opportunities** stay in the platform as a backlog you can return to

The Discovery itself stays in the platform as a record of what was asked, who participated, and what came out of it — useful when planning the next round.

## Identifier

Every Discovery gets an ID like `DISC-0001`, scoped to your organization. You'll see this on the Discovery page, in any Opportunities that came from it, and in chats where Kowalah refers to the Discovery.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Opportunities" icon="lightbulb" href="/platform/opportunities">
    The ideas a Discovery surfaces — captured, scored, and triaged
  </Card>

  <Card title="ICE Scoring" icon="gauge" href="/platform/scoring">
    How the Opportunities a Discovery surfaces get scored
  </Card>

  <Card title="Kowalah Agent" icon="message-circle" href="/platform/kowalah-agent">
    The Slack / Teams / Google Chat front door for Discovery submissions
  </Card>

  <Card title="Projects" icon="folder-open" href="/platform/projects/overview">
    Where promoted Opportunities become Deliverables
  </Card>
</CardGroup>