brainstorming

You MUST use this before any creative or build work: creating features, building components, adding functionality, modifying behavior, or planning anything new, in software or out of it (a website, a talk, a business). Finds out what the user actually wants and why, one question at a time, compares 2-3 approaches and gets a design doc approved before anything is built. Use it even if they never say brainstorm or design; skip it only for fully specified one-line tasks.