Following the proper steps is always important to meet the needs of your target group and to make your final product relatable to reality. The project discovery phase services offer steps that can bring your application closer to success.

According to the statistics, over 70% of all IT projects struggle with delaying deadlines. Timely opting for discovery phase services helps you join the group of projects delivered on time. To accomplish this, VITech investigates the details of your project and incorporates recommendations into a practical plan to fit your requirements. The robust and quick-performing software can only be made with prior business analysis and profound research. 

Our experienced team of professionals must fully understand the purpose of specific features to choose the most appropriate technology stack. 

The ultimate goal of the project discovery phase services is to understand all aspects of the problem and minimize uncertainty. Moreover, VITech experts ensure optimal solution definition, provide clients with accurate project estimation, and speed up the implementation phase of software development with well-defined client expectations and project requirements. So, if you have an app idea and nothing else - this consulting service is dedicated to you!

About discovery phase services for software development

The proper implementation of the business idea demands thorough research by business analysts beforehand at least from the moment the idea has been presented to the company. The request for discovery phase consulting services is almost urgent if the company and the client understand that their further work and product success depend on improvements during this stage. What do the discovery phase services reveal to the client? In general, it is an estimation of whether the client's solutions and requirements for the app match business needs correctly.

It is essential to bring the maximum value for end-users and product owners via fulfilled business needs. Evaluation of business, functional and non-functional requirements, advice on the system's functionality, and searching users' pain points to solve them through designed software are critical pillars of the discovery stage. To evaluate the idea accurately, the stakeholders must analyze all the details. That is the prime road to the consistency of the project plan and clarified vision of product usage and the benefits it gives users.

Did you know that over 60% of technology and over 40% of software development projects go over budget and end in total or partial failure? That's why the discovery phase services are essential to product development.

How can discovery phase services help the client? Generally, the software discovery phase service must clarify whether the client's requirements for the solution or app match business needs.

A team of dedicated experts will help you validate your product concept by creating a prototype and testing its market viability. The discovery phase services allow you to understand the following:

• How long will the development lifecycle take?
• What risks can be avoided?
• Potential costs of the project.

The discovery phase services help to create the most detailed and budget-oriented startup development plan possible. Here are a few more reasons each project needs a discovery phase:

1. To validate an idea.
2. Once the project feasibility is identified, we analyze the market, competitors, and target audience to create a valuable customer-focused product.
3. To plan a budget.
4. The discovery phase services allow focusing on the core features per the project roadmap. It makes iterations predictable and budget-stable with no additional cost.
5. To finalize software requirements.
6. Well-thought-out requirements reduce the chances of creating a large backlog of uncovered pitfalls. Requirements also provide the founder with a clear and precise budget estimate.

Why is the discovery phase Important?

The proper software development discovery phase needs a profound investigation. This research has to be done before you start the software development process. During the discovery phase, investors, stakeholders, and business owners define the total work scope, set deadlines, and represent the target group and the project's primary goal.

The discovery phase is helpful:

• To design a perfect user experience.
• To create a product validated by the market.
• To set reasonable deadlines and clear goals.
• To make your team understand the market.
• To get a detailed scope and project estimates.

Without the proper project discovery phase, you may:

• Develop a product that nobody needs.
• Create an unrealistic budget.
• Miss the deadlines.
• Get your team to feel lost.

The main reasons why you may need the discovery phase service of a software project:

• You are a newly-born startup with a great idea in mind. The project discovery phase will allow you to define your business goals clearly, set realistic expectations about your future product, and create the first UX/UI wireframes and prototypes. These will play a significant role during your negotiations with investors.
• You are a functioning business researching new opportunities. Suppose you already have an established business and want to optimize your processes or look for new niches. In that case, the software product discovery phase will serve as a solid foundation for change. The discovery phase will require the necessary documentation, tech stack, and budget estimate.
• You have a new product initiative within a business ecosystem. If you want to develop a new product to support your business ecosystem, a discovery phase will help you identify if your initiative is worth the risk. If it is, you will have all the necessary tools to start full-scale development.
• It would help if you had an overhaul of an existing product. The product you already have may need to improve or have some issues you must fix. With the help of a thorough discovery research phase, you will be able to identify bottlenecks and examine the opportunities for change.

What results will you get?

UI/UX concept

VITech creates a compelling and well-designed prototype that shows how the app works. We make the project vision that describes the project's general goals and the proposed solution, allowing you to understand better the product's potential.

Project documentation

You'll get all the necessary documentation with the description of all business processes related to the product: functional requirements and development specification, system architecture documentation, technology stack, frameworks, and software components to use, cloud provider and technologies, CI/CD pipeline, implementation plan, efficient resource management, cost proposal with time estimations, established roadmap and MVP milestones, recommendations for task execution sequences, risks, and dependencies.

How do we provide the discovery phase as a service?

We provide the discovery phase services for our clients as follows:

• We help to develop the startup idea into a market-driven product.
• We analyze competitors' solutions.
• We define the product features with the client.
• We design wireframes and create a clickable prototype.
• We create specifications.

The following are the steps needed to take during the discovery phase:

Business analysis

We start the discovery phase services by defining the structure and overall strategy backed by technical research, then identifying the main product features and technologies and analyzing your competitors' projects.

Visualization

VITech works on visualizing the business idea and delivering the project based on specific needs. We provide the client with UI mockups & wireframes.

Technical analysis

We do technical research to identify the essential product features and technology stack, develop technical documentation and provide third-party API testing reports.

Prioritizing

We can organize and prioritize project tasks, create a queue of iterations, and plan project development on both the business and engineering sides.

Roadmapping

We can create a clear and developed roadmap for your approval, including in-depth processes, work scope, timeframes, tech stack, and price. Our clients receive development iterations, team composition, and risk estimation.

Optimization

We optimize the plan at every step along the way, based on the project's specific needs, and make on-demand changes to any specifications even after the project is complete.

Final estimate

We deliver a completed statement of work with a breakdown of cost estimates and suggested timeframes.

Our approach

The project discovery phase as a service may be helpful for various types of businesses. For example, startups usually need project discovery phase services to validate the idea and create the PoC of a future unicorn. On the other hand, large enterprise companies generally use such services to improve, optimize, and grow existing businesses. Meanwhile, successful product companies might consider the discovery phase the first step to launch a new product line or solve existing product challenges.

We conduct the discovery phase using the design thinking approach based on VITech's experience, best practices, and industry standards. This approach ensures consistency and transparency among all stakeholders involved in the project implementation throughout the whole lifecycle.

VITech experts do profound research and intensive brainstorming before the development begins. Our discovery phase involves collecting information about a project to define and deeply understand its vision, goals, scope, timeline, business, purposive market, target group, and technical strategies. VITech experts determine requirements, architecture, system specification, and future product design during the project discovery phase.

Benefits of project discovery phase services for software development

Project discovery phase services are helpful for software development and allow for avoiding irrelevant project planning and common pitfalls. Opting for the project discovery phase, you will be able to:

• Focus on real user issues
• Create the best suitable user path
• Identify the most common risks and eliminate them
• Prevent unwanted changes to the general plan
• Optimize costs of software development 
• Benefit from professional technical help
• Stay better than competitors
• Create a solid basis for long-term business growth
• Launch a unique product
• Prepare accurate estimates
• Receive the data crucial for the decision about continuing the development.
• Validate users
• Receive a clickable prototype to perform beta tests and have honest user feedback
• Create transparent and necessary project development steps
• Receive a profound understanding of the project goals

Why VITech?

Business-oriented approach. The process of software development involves many steps and knowledge. We think about the general goals of your business, not just write code and create UA.

Safety. The first step of the collaboration with us is signing a non-disclosure agreement to protect all your data. We use the best security practices to ensure you are safe with us.

Product innovation. We usually start our projects with the discovery phase to investigate the project details and adequately implement our software development lifecycle. We have experience creating our own projects from scratch and apply this experience to your project. 

Effective communication. VTech has been developing web and mobile software for many years and has a portfolio of successfully finished projects. We know that effective communication is the key to success.

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