"Before we commit to anything," you announce professionally, "we need a proper discovery phase. Two weeks to gather requirements and understand the full scope."
The CEO frowns slightly but agrees. "Fine. But that's coming out of the six months."
Day 1 of discovery: You quickly realize the business doesn't actually know what they want. They know they want "transformation" but the details are... fluid.
Day 3: You discover there are seven different stakeholder groups, each with conflicting priorities. Legal wants compliance. Marketing wants engagement. IT wants maintainability. Finance wants cost reduction.
Day 5: Legal, Compliance, and Security each request separate workshop sessions. Your calendar is a sea of back-to-back meetings.
Day 10: Your business analyst pulls you aside. "To properly understand all the requirements and dependencies? We need at least three months of discovery. Maybe four."
You've already burned two weeks of your six-month timeline and haven't written a single line of code.
The CEO emails: "How's discovery going? When do we start building?"
Your lead developer messages you: "Just tell me what to build and I'll build it."
What do you do?