Discovery Phase: Building the Foundation for Software Project Success

Discovery Phase Building the Foundation for Software Project Success

The success of software development projects is determined by a variety of factors. For instance, budget, complexity of the project, technologies used, and skills of the development team members, etc. all directly affect the success of your project. But a lesser-known key to success is a good discovery phase.

The discovery phase is crucial to achieving the goals of a software development project. Let’s take a look at what you should pay attention to.

In the discovery phase, the team researches, collects, and analyzes information to plan the software development lifecycle (SDLC). In another way of saying, it means analyzing data to determine the right strategy. At this stage, you need to evaluate whether the product concept is feasible, achievable, and viable.

Additionally, in this discovery phase, the objectives and needs of the project are assessed. A plan is developed to achieve the goals and potential obstacles and risks are identified.

The discovery phase will be critical to connect the team to collective success. The purpose of this phase is to:

  • Analyze, verify, and document the current status of the software system.
  • Recommend improvements to the existing technology stack and platform.
  • Define a robust incident response plan.
  • Accelerate the hiring process to grow your product team.
  • Define and agree on key success indicators.
  • Develop a risk mitigation plan and risk matrix for each objective. For all of the above, IT governance must be in place. 

 

For example, during the discovery phase, Trustify Technology and our client, a prominent investment firm, identified the formats and features they require, the state of the existing platform, and future solutions. After establishing all the requirements, the team identified the technical solutions needed to provide the client with a flexible and scalable platform.

There is no set timeline for this process. Because, factors such as the complexity of the project and the objectives should be considered. Starting a project from scratch with an outsourcing company is different from hiring several external developers to enhance an internal team capacity or taking over an existing project from another vendor.

Once all the due diligence was completed, all existing documents analyzed, a strategy created, and a game plan written, it is time to get started.

This discovery phase is divided into the following sub-phases.

Identify Requirements

This phase involves reviewing all documents collected prior to the discovery stage so we can pick up key-decision criteria from all the participants. Includes functional requirements, user scenarios, success criteria, goals, and more.

Additionally, we also have the environment setup, which includes providing access, creating a development environment, and testing the local deployment. An assessment is also underway in which we assess the current state of infrastructure, CI/CD pipeline, workflow, quality assurance, systems and data.

Define Potential Solution Approaches

At this stage of the discovery process, possible solutions for each objective/function should be described based on definitions and requirements, especially during the assessment step mentioned above.

Once the goals are outlined, we can move on to prioritization analysis and solution selection, this is where we decide which goals we will achieve first and how we will achieve them.

Backlog Setup and Prioritization

At this step, the team fills in several weeks of activities in the backlog. The number of weeks may change depending on the project.

Once the backlog is completely filled and all results of the assessment have been collected, we can initiate the initial prioritization of the backlog to identify key milestones and timelines.

Construct and Test CI/CD Framework

CI/CD pipeline construction and testing are vital steps toward efficient solution delivery. You need to be able to test at the same time when you develop. Gone are the days of performing software testing at the very end of the project, which we referred to as waterfall development, where you design, build and then test. 

So start the testing process as soon as possible. This allows you to automate your testing processes while detecting errors and bugs faster. And the sooner you catch them, the less likely they are to affect the software.

Validate and Finalize Project Documentation

This is the final step of the discovery phase. At this step, the client and software development company will review minimum viable product solution scenarios for final sign-off and beginning the project.

Steps for Taking Over From a Former Vendor

As previously mentioned, there are times when a software development company takes over a project from another vendor. If it is the case, then there are certain steps you need to take before entering the discovery phase. This is called the pre-discovery phase.

First and foremost, you need to have access to all of the development repositories. If you don’t have the codebase, you will have to start over again from scratch. This is extremely frustrating and time-consuming and has happened before. We have to rebuild the whole system.

There are many factors to consider when deciding to switch software outsourcing vendors. We have written a lot about how to choose a qualified software outsourcing company. If this is the case, it should be followed by an introductory meeting or a conversation where the next steps are clearly mapped out.

After choosing and deciding to proceed with another outsourcing company, the first step is to start the pre-discovery, where you should be able to provide:

  • Access to code repository
  • Access to resources (wiki, ticket system)
  • Projects Documentation from team members and existing vendors.
  • Definition of the technology stack (current and future, if different)
  • The story of what happened
  • Software architecture diagram
  • Testing approach
  • Credentials to log in to the Cloud Solutions console in a secure environment 

Once you complete this phase, you can begin the discovery phase.

Final-Notes

The discovery phase is critical to the success of any software development project. No matter how complex the project is, whether it’s a routine project with new or advanced technologies, built from scratch, or a continuation of something someone else was doing, the discovery phase is an important part of the SDLC.

For this reason, finding a trusted software development partner is a necessity to achieve all the project goals. At Trutify Technology, we have successfully executed and delivered more than 50 software development projects. We can take care of all your software development needs.