Discovery phase
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The development starts with the discovery phase. This stage supposes gathering and analyzing data about a project, its prospective market, and target audience. This phase allows getting an exhaustive and deep understanding of the purposes, scope, and challenges.
Besides, it helps to find the best solutions, both from a business and technical point of view. It includes researching and scoping a project by a team of business analysts, project managers, UX/UI designers, and software architects. At Code&Care this phase takes from four to six weeks.
Why Does A Project
Discovery Phase Matter
The discovery phase requires quite a lot of work and coordination, but it is a vital part of putting together a successful plan.
With so many different moving parts and elements, it is extremely important to set expectations ahead of time before getting down to business. But what other benefits do the research phase of a project offer?
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Sets a much more accurate estimate based on your budget.
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Optimizes development costs to stay on budget.
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Provides a comprehensive and clear vision of your ultimate goal.
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Minimizes risk by reviewing issues and details ahead of time.
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Establishes and maintains good relationships with suppliers and customers throughout the whole process.
Why Should You Start Your Project With the Discovery Stage
The research phase of the project helps to decrease risks and minimize costs, as well as to guarantee that the product is ideally suited to the market from a technological point of view.
The discovery phase is a good idea for both startups and established businesses.
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/Startups
Starting in the discovery phase, you will be able to define your business goals, develop a project plan, and get UX/UI concepts that will later become clickable UX/UI prototypes – a critical time to raise your first round of funding.
Let's define the goals of the discovery phase:
/01Design the architecture and functionality to be implemented. From a software development perspective, this is the key purpose of the discovery phase. At this stage, the main functional points are determined, and all redundant or superfluous elements are set aside. This is where working with experienced professionals pays off.
A well-defined scope of work is the main result of project research, how and in what order it will be done, how long it will take, and what resources and people you will need to implement the project.
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/Established businesses
In this case, the discovery phase will help you decide which processes can be automated in your business and how. Through this step, you will receive initial documentation, project requirements, an amazing technology stack, and a cost estimate.
/02Drawing up a detailed estimate of the cost of the project. Once the fundamentals of the software product are laid out, the budget for the project can be estimated. Software development is a complex process. It is very difficult to estimate the project cost and development time frame without a thorough analysis of the overall concept, business situation, tasks, technical details, and requirements. When you take the time to start and collect all the details of a project in one place to see the highest possible final cost, hidden costs and risks become visible. This way, you don't have to deal with unplanned expenses or over budget.
The project team, as well as clients, senior management, and marketing teams, can use these guidelines to make important decisions.
/Startups
/Established businesses
Roles & Responsibilities
During the discovery phase, a team of business analysts, software architects, UX/UI designers, project managers, and stakeholders work simultaneously to maximize the efficiency of the requirements capture process.
Business Analyst
Business Analyst
Software Architect
Software Architect
UX/UI Designer
UX/UI Designer
Project Manager
Project Manager
Stakeholders
Stakeholders
Business Analyst
Software Architect
UX/UI Designer
Project Manager
Stakeholders
Main Stages of the
Discovery Phase
During the 4-6 weeks it takes to accomplish the discovery phase, we run requirements elicitation sessions with the team every 2-3 days.
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Stage 1 Business Goals Definition
Your goals determine what features are included in the product. At this point, the business analyst will sit down with you and other stakeholders to discuss your vision and goals. Note that, if necessary, a business analyst can do a separate study to find out if there is a market for your product and analyze the competition in your niche.
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Stage 2 Market & Competitor Analyzing
The discovery team explores the way competitors handle similar challenges and monitor actual market trends.
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Stage 3 Customer Journey Map
UI/UX designer visualizes the customer journey and business process to make sure there are no gaps in customer experience.
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Stage 4 UX/UI Mockup creation
At this stage, we will create wireframes. Thus, you will be able to see the structure of your product and get a better idea of what kind of user experience it will provide.
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Stage 5 Development Guidelines
Technical expert based on the results of the previous stages creates software infrastructure. It includes architecture diagrams, API endpoint designs, and component diagrams
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Stage 6 Deliverables Finalization
We prepare all documentation, reports, and other results. Typically, we conduct another workshop with the client and other stakeholders to communicate the results of our research, explain the proposed strategy, and propose a step-by-step plan for the development of the system.
Advantages Of
Discovery Phase
You'll Get
The Discovery Phase
Artifacts You'll Receive
Here is a list of the artifacts you can get at the end of the discovery phase. You may get some or all of the results listed below. It depends on many factors, including the stage of development, project goals, collaboration pattern, and available resources.
UI/UX Mockups
A mockup is a static, high-fidelity simulation of a finished product that provides the visual appearance of a product design, including typography, iconography, color, and overall style. Where prototype focuses on interaction design, layouts define how users will interpret the brand through its visual identity.
Software Requirement Specification
A software requirements specification (SRS) is a description of the software system that is being developed. A software requirements specification establishes functional and non-functional requirements and can include a set of use cases that describe the user interactions that the software must provide to the user for a perfect user experience.
Business Process Diagram
A business process diagram is a visual representation of one of your main business processes. It shows on the screen what happens when data is transferred from one task to another until it is completed.
Detailed Estimate
A detailed estimate is a meaningful document that provides you with a complete cost breakdown for your project. He divides the entire scope of work into elementary parts - features. Each feature is assessed separately by our cross-functional teams.
Software Development Proposal
The Software Development Proposal (SDP) is a description of the software development procedures and software life cycle(s) to be used to satisfy the software development process activities. SDP includes user story, architecture concept, mockups, project plan roadmap, development cost proposal, required team members, terms.
Why Choose Us?
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Clear Code
We write clean and forward-looking code, taking into account the product's needs for scalability and fast request processing
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CONTROl
Each part of the project starts according to the planned budget and schedule, with all the necessary technical details that are documented, monitored, and very well communicated.
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Transparency
The project management structure is tailored to each project to provide a clear understanding of the project status and needs at any stage. All team members are engaged in communication.
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Cost-Effective Development
We provide our clients with innovative and cost-effective business solutions through the quality discovery phase.
Choose the Suitable Model
of Collaboration
The team includes a business analyst, project manager, and software architect. UX/UI Designer may be optionally involved for mockups creation. Everything depends on the project’s needs.
As a result, at the end of the discovery phase, you will get
The final price varies
from
$8000to
$12000The final duration varies
from
4 Weeksto
6 Weeks
Have a project in mind? Let's have a discovery call. Send a request.
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GETTING HELLO
Work with the best developers
Code & Care offers corporate innovators, businesses and startups a free 15-minute project consultation and/or demo of our services.
- What happens next?
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Sales manager contacts you within one business day to gather your high-level requirements.
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We sign an NDA to protect your idea.
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A pre-sale business analyst maps out an approximate timeline and gives you an estimate.
Please, fill out this application form
What risks can arise if you skip the discovery phase?
If you omit the discovery phase, you may experience communication issues with the development team and misidentification of requirements. As a result, the team may develop something different from what you planned to release. In addition to this, you may overlook the identification of major risks and/or opportunities, leading to serious underestimation.
When can you omit the discovery phase?
There are two cases. First, the development team has all the necessary documents for successful development. This may be when the required documentation has been prepared by another vendor or staff member of your company, and you just share it with the development team. Second, the team does not create a product from scratch but makes small adjustments to it.
What specialists are required?
The development team typically includes the following members: Project Manager. UX/UI expert. Business analyst. Technical expert. In an ideal world, a similar team from the client-side would also be involved in the discovery phase
How long does the discovery phase last?
Usually, at Code&Care it takes from four to six weeks.