FDE-007field-patterns/customer-discovery-and-requirements-gathering.mdUPDATED: 06/18/2026
Customer Discovery And Requirements Gathering
Pattern
Name: Customer discovery and requirements gathering
When to use it: At the start of a customer engagement, before proposing architecture, automation, or AI behavior.
Why it matters for FDE roles: The technical solution only works if it matches the real workflow, constraints, owners, and failure points.
Plain-English Description
Customer discovery is the process of learning how work actually happens. Requirements gathering turns that reality into a clear implementation target.
Situation Signals
- Job listing signal: customer discovery, requirements, stakeholder management, ambiguous environments.
- Customer signal: different people describe the workflow differently.
- Project signal: the team wants a demo before the problem is clearly scoped.
What To Ask
- What starts the workflow, and what counts as finished?
- Who owns each step, handoff, approval, and exception?
- Which systems are authoritative for each record?
- What breaks most often today?
- What would make the first version trustworthy?
What To Do
- Map the current workflow before designing the future workflow.
- Separate must-have requirements from nice-to-have requests.
- Identify data sources, owners, permissions, and failure cases.
- Confirm success criteria in plain language.
Artifacts To Produce
- Diagram: current-state workflow map.
- Checklist: open questions and assumptions.
- Demo/prototype: narrow happy path plus one exception path.
- Customer-facing note: agreed scope and success criteria.
Failure Modes
- Accepting the first description as the full truth.
- Skipping exception paths.
- Mistaking a feature request for the underlying problem.
- No named owner for decisions.
Interview Language
One sentence I could say in an interview:
I start by mapping the real workflow, owners, systems, and exception paths so the first build solves the operational problem instead of just matching a feature request.
Relevant work experience for this pattern: