All projects should include some element of website discovery. You can’t build a website if you don’t understand the problems you’re hired to solve. Website discovery involves learning more about the context of the project, and answering questions like:
Why are we creating this website?
Who are the stakeholders?
What are the goals?
Who will be coming to the site and why?
Who is the company / organization behind the website?
What messages are we trying to communicate?