What Is Discovery, and Why Do We Need It for Software Development?

A business analyst will be able to help you choose the most important features for a minimum viable product that you can test on the market. After releasing your MVP, you can change your feature list slightly according to the response of your target audience. However, at the start of a project it’s good to learn what potential features you can add later. In addition, you can face the need to change the project under development. The discovery phase in software development allows you to clearly understand what you can modify at the particular point, where it would lead you, and how the entire development process will change.

• This is one of the most crucial software product discovery process stages that you should pay maximum attention to.
• Let’s cover the common questions you might have about the project discovery phase.
• At Syberry, our agile team is technology-agnostic, meaning we don’t limit our capabilities by selling or promote specific technologies.
• They communicated well with our team throughout the process, breaking down steps and utilizing a streamlined management system to keep everyone in the loop at all times.
• We can help you with both the software development discovery phase and development itself.
• Software discovery allows you to develop a product that users need.
• Similar happens to the defined product development tasks as your team members don’t have a great deal of time to conduct super-wide research, test each hypothesis, optimize, and so on.

You can take advantage of these tools to analyze your competitors’ ad banners to see what they offer to customers. As always, you should begin any product creation activities with validation to know if somebody needs and wants it. There are multiple ways to succeed with validating your idea, but we want to share the most time- and cost-effective options. A developer – reviews the project requirements and selects the best technology stack for the future software. Let’s now talk about what a discovery phase of a project actually provides you with. When the discovery phase is done, you draw conclusions about the specific agency. You can continue cooperation or find another one to deliver the product.

Discovery Phase of Software Development FAQ

You’ve collected users’ feedback from the previous step to analyze it and generated data-driven product ideas before launching a new product release. These words shouldn’t force you to hurry up the product discovery process, but they perfectly describe the rapid pace of a product market. Most likely, successful startups and solutions have created websites to provide their product description, pricing, testimonials, blog articles, and other content. You can analyze your market rivals’ websites by using such competitor analysis tools as SimilarWeb, SEMrush, Ahrefs, SpyFu, Ubersuggest, etc. Development plan and detailed estimates — Shows how the project will be developed step by step and sets deadlines and a budget. Estimates are made by a project manager and development team lead. UI/UX concept — Shows the business logic and overall feel of your project.

• The software development discovery phase is a process of going into detail on a future product, defining its features and all possible business and technical specifics.
• Discovery, is the initial stage in software development where the main focus is to get to know the end-user, clarify project vision, goals & scope, and identify risks.
• User research, MVP development, and continuous feedback from users allow you to build only those features that your customers require.
• A business analyst will now draw up a specification document that defines all the technical, functional, and usability requirements of your product.
• Let’s now talk about what a discovery phase of a project actually provides you with.
• Note that if you aren’t sure how to answer some of these questions, a business analyst will be able to help you.
• There was an existing platform that required it to be rewritten from scratch.

Developers, quality assurance specialists, stakeholders, and project managers will all be able to look at the project plan and see exactly what they should do. During the discovery phase, you’ll be asked to approve each detail of the project plan. This means you’ll know exactly what you’ll get in the end, at what cost, and when.

Top 5 FAQ on discovery phase software development:

Forming PRD that includes all technical specifications for your product release. It lists out all desired functionality for the future software product. Communication with stakeholders.Senior management and all interested parties should be involved in discussing the future software project. Conducting Interviews, collecting needed documentations, setting KPIs and other metrics – are usually done during this step. Discussing existing business processes and drawing the concept of the future project. At this stage, it is critical to align the client’s expectations and wishes with real deadlines.

Learn about our products and CRM consulting services at our sister website. In case professionals realize that they cannot include everything they need within the allocated time, they most likely start prioritizing their tasks and decisions. This helps to visualize a step-by-step guide on how to build a product feature from A to Z and how much time is needed. When people are limited with any resources, they most likely start generating creatively different ideas to succeed. Twitter is a great example as users only have 140 characters to catch attention, engage, and convert.

Step 7. Preparing for the development (Tech Stack, code audit & high-level, architecture)

To achieve this, all the stakeholders (including client, users, project team, sponsor, etc.) need to have a common understanding. At FreshWorks we facilitate this process as it requires someone experienced to do so. Detailed acceptance criteria for those user stories and full system design generally happen after discovery is complete. The biggest product discovery phase we completed at Mobindustry took around 4 months of work.

The UI/UX concept demonstrates how your goals will be achieved during interactions with a user. The UX discovery process is tightly connected to user personas and project goals. Note that if you aren’t sure how to answer some of these questions, a business analyst will be able to help you. Our business analysts have expertise in software development and know both the technical and business standards across different markets. Before you lay the foundation and start construction on a house, you need to have a detailed plan.

Product Discovery Process Donts’

The team work on multiple projects and deliver according to predetermined design specifications. We provided staff augmentation resources for a development project. The team contributed engineers to follow an established roadmap to perform updates and add features. Taking over for another vendor, we served as the ongoing software engineering partner for an energy company’s cloud-based platform. The company provided scoping, development, testing, and deployment services. Our team built video streaming software as a web and desktop app for a third-party client. We completed end-to-end development—from scoping to feedback cycles to QA—using PHP and Wowza Streaming Engine.

• The team gets a general vision of the project, determines the scope of business goals and objectives.
• At Mobindustry, the initial phase of a project usually starts even before we sign a contract.
• At TechMagic, we carry out project discovery phase at the initiation or execution stage.
• As one good idea is voiced, the team usually stops thinking about other ways around.
• In turn, Key Results refer to a range of metrics that evaluate your progress towards the set Objective.
• Their stellar project management, highly responsive communication, and proactive attitude set them apart.