Some of the most frequently asked questions we receive from our client in the beginning of our partnership are „What’s Discovery Workshop in MVP creation?”; „Why do I need it?”; „What’s the benefit of PD in app dev?”. In this article, we will answer them all.
First of all, we believe that Product Discovery is crucial if you want your app to succeed on the market. But what exactly are we discovering, you may ask?
The discovery phase aims to create a shared understanding of how the product is going to look like, what’s commonly called a product vision, and objectives of our product, defined through research, discussion and thorough analysis of given idea. Discovery is the first and main part of app development process as it lays foundation for design, development and deployment.
Does it makes sense to start your development with something so costly without doing a research?
In our daily work with clients, we use the „1:10:100” rule that we have discovered in Theory of Quality Management. The rule states that prevention is cheaper than correction, and correction is cheaper than failure.
What does it mean? It makes more sense to invest $1 in prevention, than to spend $10 on correction. That in turn makes more sense than to incur the cost of a $100 failure. However, what exactly are those costs?
The cost of prevention is what it costs to get it corrected at the front end. Such as taking the time to develop effective systems or offering skills training to employees.
The cost of correction is the cost of repairing problems after a problem has been found. Poorly designed processes can result in high defect levels for products. Poorly trained employees can make an disproportionate amount of mistakes. There is a major expense in every case of having to repair or rework.
The cost of failure is the resulting downstream loss if the problem is not solved. This expense is always much greater than we know. If a bad product comes to the market, then, indeed, the consumer is likely to be disappointed. Worse, they can never purchase the product again, never purchase your brand again, tell others how bad your product is, and make critical reviews about you on social media. In addition, when a poorly educated employee equally upsets a customer because they lack the expertise to deal efficiently with a complaint, the result can be the same.
In short, the cost of Product Discovery is relatively low compared to the cost of releasing an app that serves no purpose and is simply useless.
► You may also like: "How much does the application cost?"
How does the Discovery Workshop process look like?
Our main solution to start mobile app development or web app development is Discovery Workshop in MVP creation, where we ask questions and provoke product considerations, all in order to find the best solution. This is also a great tool for process optimization – no matter if it is existing process or brand new one.
Discovery Workshop is divided into many stages, in order to research, discover and prepare sketches for your upcoming product.
Stage 1. Onboarding.
We analyze materials concerning the company, product vision and information about what has already been produced.
Stage 2. Discovery Workshop
We create a shared vision of the product using event storming, adjust the product to the market and describe its most important functionalities.
Stage 3. Inside work
We work on functionalities and prepare wireframes based on materials from Discovery Workshop.
Stage 4. Feedback session
We present proposed prospects and functionalities. We discuss whether everything has been planned accordingly to the arrangements.
Stage 5. Discovery Report
The client receives all the documentation containing all the materials developed during the workshop process (which helps the Client in MVP creating) in the form of a report.
- If you’d like to know more about our Discovery Workshop, feel free to contact us. We are here to answer all of your questions!
Below are a few key elements we focus on in the discovery process:
- Collaborative meetings to identify the overall project;
- Defining the project backlog, customer accounts, and the product delivery roadmap;
- Technical reviews to define major project dependencies, e.g. APIs;
- Design planning;
- Tackle technological unknowns and find a solution;
- Identify stakeholders and contributors;
- Build a development team, strategy, schedule, design layout and scope;
- Start engagement with the project and visual design;
- Produce artifacts that reduce risk during the distribution process.
Benefits of Discovery Workshop in MVP creation
Using this approach to product management, marketing managers will concentrate on both the functionality of the app (does it actually solve problems and add value?) and the usability (what is the user's interaction with the application?). This provides the groundwork required to start creating a product that can actually bring value to your customers and have a much greater chance of success on the market. As a result, below is concise list of benefits shall include:
- Maximizing return on investment (ROI)
- Establishing business outcomes and a product vision
- Identifying and prioritizing product features
- Gain access to mobile subject matter experts
- Understanding mobile-first best practices
- Determining app metrics and success criteria
- Validating product ideas before investing in development services
- Achieving stakeholder and investor buy-in
Who should participate in Discovery Workshop?
It is tempting to not include too many people in the process of product discovery. Mainly due to the worries of overcrowding the meeting and slowing down development process. However, we think it is crucial to include all of the team members in the Discovery Workshop.
This gives us various perspectives on given idea and allows us to brainstorm more efficiently which leads to even better product.
We highly recommend incluidng respresentatives of following comeptencies in Discovery Workshop phase for the best results:
- Technical: Developers from specific platforms(e.g. iOS, Android, Flutter, Backend, QA)
- Business: Business Analyst, Business Developer
- Design: UX and/or UI Designers
- Process: Delivery Manager, Scrum Master/Agile Coach, Process Manager, Product Owner
- Stakeholders: Product Manager, Investor
- Target users
Due to the presence of such a wide variety of competences, you get an all-round insight and immediate input on the concepts you want to incorporate.
Never give up on Discovery Workshop in creating an MVP!
There are a variety of ways you can find out if your concept for an app brings market value. Always seek to address the consumer, social, economic and technological risks of your potential product prior to growth. It's often better to make mistakes than to waste a lot turning back a worthless product.
Discovery Workshop is a project process that allows you the ability to consider your customers and adapt the product to suit their needs. This process is not limited to the initial part of the project, so don't give up on exploration!