Every few engagements, the honest output of discovery is: do not build this. It is an uncomfortable conversation and it has been good for business.
The three cases
The off-the-shelf tool is good enough. The requirement is 80% of a product that already exists, and the remaining 20% is preference rather than constraint. Custom software would cost more and do less for two years.
The process needs fixing first. Software pointed at a broken process produces a faster broken process, with a maintenance bill attached.
Nobody owns it. No named person inside the client's business is accountable for the outcome. These projects launch and then quietly stop being used.
Why we say it out loud
A studio that only knows how to say yes is not giving advice, it is taking orders. The value of discovery is partly that its conclusion is not predetermined.
A week of questions is cheap compared to three months of building the wrong thing.
What happens next
Usually the engagement ends there, with the written scope handed over. Roughly half of those clients have come back within eighteen months, with a better-shaped problem and a decision-maker attached.