Start with the day, not the feature list
A feature list tells you what a product contains. A day-in-the-life story tells you what the product needs to make possible.
For Victory Football, the useful starting point was the matchday itself: what has to be known, when it has to be known, and who needs to act.
Make the invisible visible
Good systems expose the state of a process. They show what is happening, what is blocked and what needs attention next. This is often more valuable than adding more functionality.
Build the smallest honest model
Before reaching for a complex architecture, I try to model the smallest version that explains the problem. If the model is clear, the interface usually has a better chance of being clear too.