Scoping without the spiral
How to keep your project kickoff from collapsing under its own weight.
Back in January, I created a scoping canvas. I called it the Project Discovery Canvas.
Ten boxes. Five question prompts in each box.
Not a method. Not a framework. Just a tool. A thinking surface to help teams get clearer before greenlighting big, blurry projects.
The kind where everyone’s nodding but no one’s aligned.
I shared it with a small group of peers and later posted it on LinkedIn.
The response?
Polite. Curious. But mostly:
“This is cool… I just don’t know what to do with it.”
Which, to be honest, stung.
I still believed in the content. I still do. But I hadn’t given people a way in. No pacing. No structure.
No clarity on how to move through it or when to stop.
Just ten boxes and an invitation to explore.
A maze to decipher on your own.
Given the lukewarm response, I shelved it.
The long shelf life of a tool that’s too much
What happened next surprised me.
While the original scoping canvas gathered dust, I radically simplified one small part of it into what became the Evidence Box. That tool took off. It became the backbone of Proof Sprint. Everything else—the Compass, the Lens, the Field Map—followed.
But the scoping canvas? It stayed in the shadows.
Until last week.
I was running a Proof Lab with someone I trust, a peer whose judgment I genuinely respect. Out of nowhere, she mentioned she’d tried using the canvas.
And her words stopped me.
“It’s good,” she said.
“But it felt like playing 50-questions with execs.”
I winced. Because that wasn’t the intention at all.
And yet… it was exactly how it felt.
When you hand someone a map, but no sense of direction
I’d done the equivalent of handing someone a beautifully drawn map of every interesting place in the city, but I hadn’t marked where they were standing. Or where they needed to go.
It was too open. Too ambitious. Too unanchored.
That’s on me.
But the bones were still good. The questions still mattered. What it needed wasn’t a rewrite. It needed a better way in.
So I brought it back
I gave it a new name: Scope Check.
Same sections. Same prompts. New rhythm.
Scope Check isn’t a replacement for Proof Sprint. It’s what comes before. When the project is still hazy and the pressure to deliver is already mounting.
It’s how you catch misalignment before it calcifies.
How you pull focus before you pull budget.
Here’s how it works.
The Scope Check
You move through the canvas in three focused passes:
Scan – build a confidence heatmap
Zoom – go deeper where it’s unclear
Anchor – identify one next step per gap, and link to the Evidence Box
You don’t have to fill every box. You just need to find out where you’re standing on shifting sands.
1. Scan
Get the lay of the land.
Walk through each section of the canvas with your stakeholders. No deep dive yet. Just ask:
“How confident are we about this part of the project?”
Each person votes:
✅ Confident – We've talked about this. Feels solid.
⚠️ Mixed – Some clarity, but still fog.
❌ Concerned – No shared understanding. Big risk.
How to collect votes:
In person: dot stickers or sticky notes
Online: emoji reactions, Miro comments, type in chat
Timebox it: 2–3 minutes per section
You’re not looking for answers here.
You’re building a confidence map.
Even if someone reacts strongly, pause the urge to dive in. Keep moving. The conversation comes in the next step.
2. Zoom
Dig into the risky areas.
Look at your heatmap. Choose 2–3 sections with the most ⚠️ or ❌ votes.
For each, say:
“This area raised some uncertainty. Let’s unpack what’s behind that.”
Then use the prompts in that canvas box. This is the moment they’re meant for.
They're not a script. They're scaffolding. Use them to unlock thinking, not to interrogate.
You’ll be surprised how fast the conversation sharpens. The prompts just need the right moment.
Facilitation tips:
Ask someone who voted ❌ to share what gave them pause
Let a team member summarize what’s known so far
Use a 5–7 minute timer per section to avoid spiraling
You're not trying to close the gap in the room.
You’re trying to name the shape of it.
3. Anchor
Turn insight into action.
For each section you zoomed into, ask:
“What’s one thing we can do to reduce this uncertainty?”
Examples:
A follow-up conversation: “We should loop in Finance.”
A validation activity: “Let’s test this assumption with a quick data check.”
A decision checkpoint: “We’ll wait until the vendor confirms feasibility.”
You only need one action per area. That’s enough.
And here’s the important bit:
📦 Document those actions in the Evidence Box.
This is how the Scope Check links into the rest of the Proof Sprint method. It gives you a landing zone, a way to carry forward what they uncovered without losing it in post-meeting limbo.
What you capture becomes the seed for what you’ll validate later:
Unclear problem statements → “What we suspect matters”
Blocked questions → “Constraints or lessons”
Team insights → “What made it real”
You’re not solving everything. You’re starting the right loop.
Don’t ignore the canvas prompts
Use them at the right time.
This part matters.
Each section has 5 question prompts for a reason. But they don’t belong in the Scan phase. Answering all of them upfront turns a sense-making tool into an interrogation.
Use them where they belong. In the Zoom phase, and only for the sections that surfaced as risky (red ❌ or yellow ⚠️).
Read them out loud. See which ones get a reaction. Follow the energy.
They were always meant to open up the conversation, not overwhelm it.
This tool isn’t new
I almost let this one go.
The early feedback was lukewarm. The framing didn’t land. And I shelved it—not because it didn’t matter, but because I couldn’t yet see how to make it usable.
Now I can.
This isn’t just a canvas anymore. It’s the Scope Check.
It won’t give you instant alignment.
It won’t fill in every gap.
But it will show you what’s known, what’s unclear, and what still needs proving, before you commit the team to solving the wrong thing, too soon, too fast.
That’s what I meant to build all along.
And now, it’s ready to be used.
Try it. Test it. Let it be rough the first time.
If it works, great. If it breaks, tell me how.
I’ll be in the loop with you.
Until next time,
Pragati
Curious how this plays out on real projects? Join a free Proof Lab.
For business analysts, product thinkers, and leaders who know: Shipping isn't the hard part. Knowing what's worth building is.
Cool idea!