Numerous business owners have dedicated all of their time, energy, and resources to their projects only to watch them crumble under the weight of disinterest from the market. Startups continue to fail at an alarmingly high rate, with an astounding 9 out of 10 businesses failing during the first few years of existence.
Why does this happen, and how can a thoroughly conducted discovery phase help?
The unfortunate fact is that many business owners need to focus more on how crucial it is to comprehend the market and the wants of potential clients. Instead, they become so preoccupied with their product or service that they fail to consider whether there is actually a market need for it. The outcome is a useless product, a crew of unemployed developers, and a huge investment loss.
The discovery stage, a crucial first step in bringing a novel product to market, is a vital part of the product development process that is often neglected. Its core purpose is to validate that a product idea is feasible, viable, and desirable. This is achievable when the user needs, and market offerings are aligned. Only then can businesses justify the investment in a product and avoid costly mistakes.
A thorough user research identifies potential barriers that may affect the adoption and usage of a product. It helps refine the product concept, prioritize top features, and create a roadmap clearly stating the user’s needs and business goals. If done right, this research can help mitigate potential risks and challenges by identifying and addressing them early in development.
Constantly coming up with solutions to solve market problems is an iterative process. That is why discovery typically involves a cross-functional team of experts with user research, product management, design, and engineering backgrounds.
Brough together, these experts will be responsible for several key steps of discovery.
With what BA deliver, teams can start generating ideas for future product. This step may involve brainstorming and user feedback sessions where customers can provide feedback about different ideas. Observing customer behavior, conducting user interviews, and gathering data and input from various sources – all come in handy for the best outcome.
In this step, the team selects the most promising ideas and creates prototypes or mock-ups to test with customers. It involves getting user feedback to determine whether the proposed solutions meet their needs.
Identifying business priorities before the product launch saves both time and resources that would have been used to rectify issues later on. As a result, the team can determine which solutions to move forward with based on their potential impact and feasibility.
Based on the prioritized solutions, the team creates a product roadmap that outlines the timeline, milestones, and dependencies. It will guide the team throughout the project and ensure that they stay focused on the end goal.
This step involves developing a minimum viable product (MVP) with the core features needed to solve the customer’s problems. An MVP should be created as quickly as possible so the team can start getting feedback and measuring the product’s success.
Once the MVP is launched, the team should continue to gather user feedback and iterate the product to improve and add new features that further solve customers’ core problems.
Creating estimates and timelines with milestones (that are realistic and achievable) will help the team stay on track and coordinate product delivery within the agreed timeframe.
The right team composition is crucial for ensuring every aspect of the product is explored, and the strategy developed for reaching business objectives is accurate.
Come first are business analysts, responsible for conducting market research and analysis to identify user pain points and needs. They will also analyze the product’s market potential and profitability. BA defines the functional and non-functional project requirements and aligns them with the business objectives, providing a smooth start to the product development process.
The team’s coordination lies on the shoulders of project managers, who supervise and organize the team’s work, plan meetings, and take notes of all crucial project details. The project manager needs to orchestrate communication between the product discovery and development team throughout the phase.
The tech lead works closely with stakeholders to define the product’s technical requirements, create a development approach and sequence, and give estimates on the timeline. The product’s usability and intuitive navigation are the responsibility of a UX/UI designer. They will create storyboards, sitemaps, process flows, and interface elements based on user and product research results.
The solution architect is responsible for the analytical aspects of the product. They will analyze the technology environment, including the product’s performance, scalability, and maintainability, and investigate third-party frameworks and platforms while assessing their risks and benefits. This information will be critical in shaping the product’s architecture.
The deliverables produced during this phase form the foundation of the entire software development process. Let’s list the most essential ones:
We hope this piece was useful. In our next article, we will focus on the reasons behind skipping the discovery stage and why it’s a bad idea. So stay close!