In a very predictable environment, a plan made in advance can be adhered to and can lead to the expected results. The more unpredictable the environment is, the less likely that a plan made in advance will actually lead to its desired outcomes. Instead, the plan must constantly be adjusted as new information is acquired—in fact, one of the goals of execution is to acquire useful new information that can be used to adjust the plan. In discovery-driven planning, the team tries to identify the key unknowns that will affect the plan, to organize execution so as to gather information to reduce those unknowns, and then to adjust the plan accordingly.
— War and Peace and IT: Glossary, Mark Schwartz