The Discovery Phase of a Project: A Practical Guide

Too Long; Didn't Read

Insights summarized: Out of all innovative IT projects implemented globally, merely 10% to 30% end up a success. A larger share of issues that cause software development projects to go awry can be prevented by introducing a discovery phase. A discovery phase of a project is the first stage of a software development pipeline, whose aim is to help you morph your business idea into a fully-functional solution with a competitive edge. A project discovery phase usually consists of four stages: requirements elicitation, solution design, architecting the solution, and project planning. Each stage births a set of deliverables you can use to pitch to investors and stakeholders, as well as build your development process upon. A business analyst and a representative of an engineering team are usually responsible for carrying out discoveries. An outsourced discovery phase is a worthy option as well, especially if you lack experienced in-house IT talent. Whether you opt for Waterfall or one of the Agile project management methodologies will influence the length and scope of your discovery. In Waterfall, it is typical to plan the entire scope in advance, which can take four to eight weeks or even more — depending on the scale and complexity of your project. In Agile, it is common to set up the so-called sprint 0, or the inception phase, which usually takes up to a couple of weeks or less. It is commonly followed by a discovery track that runs one or two iterations ahead of the development track. The cost of a standard discovery phase starts from $20,000.

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