Professional and Non-professional Approaches to Discovery

Skipping the discovery stage of a project may play a dirty trick on you: there is a risk of losing money and an equally valuable resource – time. Our team has seen numerous cases when poor planning and misunderstanding of the market and technologies led companies to stagnation. We would like to help you prevent such an outcome by offering the discovery service. Do not try to do the job yourself: in most cases, it ends sadly. In our new article, we're explaining to you why.

Basics about the Discovery Phase

The discovery phase is the first stage in product development, which is sometimes unfairly ignored. And this is one of the unforgivable mistakes that may compromise the future of your solution.

So, let’s find out what the discovery phase proposal includes.

• Basic marketing research. Specialists compose a list of necessary features and requirements from the market. Important things always underlie the MVP to guarantee ample demand from your target audience. It’s obligatory to clarify your company’s goals, business and user needs, and assess competitors.

• Tools. Solution architects, senior developers, UX/UI designers, and other technical experts are involved in the work process, so they are able to name the main and secondary tools, which should be used.

• Ways to decrease costs. After analyzing the complexity of your project, specialists may reduce some expenses by advising cost-effective solutions. By the way, an implementation subject matter expert is working on some discovery phase activities. It is a person who is already familiar with your kind of product and knows all pitfalls.

• Clear strategy. You’ll understand key actions targeted at bringing your initial ideas to life (how to promote and expand the functionality of your product effectively). Otherwise, without the discovery stage of the project, you risk going the wrong way.

Actually, the discovery phase includes various activities conducted to help you succeed. Please, follow the link to get acquainted with all of them: “Why You Need to Start Your Project with the Discovery Phase”.

What If You Do It Yourself?

You as a CEO may sort out most of the marketing issues but there can be a lot of challenges in other areas of work. The first one is the misunderstanding of modern technologies that often leads to cost overruns. Also, we would like to distinguish the following things, which thwart your purposes:

• Poor experience. If it’s your first project, you don’t probably know where to start. Every large-scale case requires competence that is a derivative of experience.

• Time-consuming process. When you run your own research, usually the picture looks like the far you go, the messier it gets. Are you able to cope with the unfamiliar responsibilities of diverse specialists? You had better accept the discovery phase proposal of our professional team.

• Unreliable results. Gathering data is just one of the stairs during product implementation. Another important part is to properly analyze the collected information. What if your kind of application is still popular but after a while, your development will be replaced by a more perfect solution in the market? Or technologies used will be outdated in the near future. Our developers are always aware of current trends and foundations of the software market.

Benefits of a Professional Approach to the Discovery Phase

When experts are involved, the probability of success increases significantly. The main arguments in favor of professional assistance are:

• Knowledge in conjunction with real experience. Knowing the theory is mandatory. But the more valuable thing is the presence of successfully launched cases, which are similar to your solution. The discovery stage of the project will prevent the commission of common mistakes and reduce the time to market;

• All required experts are available. Creating a product that would feed you is not the right time for experiments. Don’t try to fulfill the work of other specialists: focus on well-known issues related to your occupation. Discovery phase activities are about the cooperation of a project manager, UX/UI designer, business analyst, solution architect, subject matter expert, and implementation subject matter expert. The best results are achieved when one team is working on product development;

• Opportunity to conduct Agile Discovery. During the product implementation, your priorities may shift. Our team practices the Agile approach that allows changing your solution at every stage of development. These stages are called sprints. So, every sprint includes some parts of the discovery phase. That’s why we recommend cooperating with a single company in order to prevent misunderstandings and miscommunication.

Conclusion

We don’t doubt your professionalism but there are some circumstances when it is better to delegate tasks. Such an approach is going to save you the most valuable resource: your time. Moreover, little investments in the discovery phase activities will prevent big losses if your product turnes out to be unclaimed (we hope otherwise).

Agilie is ready to bring all your ideas to life. But first of all, we’ll figure out the state of your market and the requirements of your target audience. Feel free to call us or email using the following link: agilie.com/contacts