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- Interviews.
- Observation.
- Document analysis.
- Data analysis.
- Business context diagrams.
- Business process modeling.
ScienceSoft's Approach to Discovery in Software Development
By treating discovery as a crucial project step rather than a mere formality, we can reduce development costs by up to 50% and achieve up to 20% faster delivery.
Our Way to Conduct Effective and Fast Discovery
Stakeholder-centric communication: we speak business language with non-IT stakeholders and switch to technical jargon with IT experts to speed up discovery and make sure all parties are heard, valued, and aligned.
Respect for time and priorities: our consultants only involve necessary participants in each meeting and share agendas in advance to ensure everyone is ready to answer our questions and knows why their presence is needed.
Flexibility: our teams can perform discovery activities remotely or onsite at your business locations.
Visual aids and prototypes: we actively use charts, graphs, and prototypes to clarify complex ideas and illustrate their impact, enhancing the understanding and engagement of stakeholders.
Effective compromises: we recognize stakeholders' diverse opinions and priorities and design synergistic solutions.
Accurate information recording: we capture information exactly as given, clearly separating problems from suggested solutions and avoiding free interpretations.
How Long Does Discovery Last?
The duration of the development project discovery phase varies depending on the software scope and complexity. Typically, we need:
About 3 weeks
for small-scale and simple projects
From 3 weeks to 2+ months
for large and complex projects
Close and regular communication with your key stakeholders and SMEs is paramount during the discovery stage. This helps us progress faster, fully capture your needs, and address any concerns swiftly. We can collaborate to set up a meeting schedule that works best for your team and project, be it daily, multiple times a day, or several times a week. Each meeting will be structured to last between 1 to 2.5 hours — a timeframe we have found to be most productive.
We understand that business stakeholders have demanding schedules.
Before each meeting, we provide a detailed agenda so you can come prepared with any necessary information and feedback. We also actively use visual aids and prototypes to clearly illustrate potential impacts and benefits, ensuring you are well-informed and can make confident decisions.
At the conclusion of each meeting, we will define action items and deadlines so everyone knows their responsibilities and timelines. To ensure continuity, we will identify backup contacts within your organization who can step in if primary stakeholders are unavailable.
Three Main Phases of Large-Scale Discovery
Below, our consultants share sample discovery steps, timelines, and deliverables for a large-scale project. If your initiative is smaller, the first two phases can be shortened to a week each.
3 weeks
Initiation and analysis:
- Kick-off sessions with stakeholders on your side to align on goals, roles, timelines, communication plans, etc.
- Eliciting requirements by working closely with stakeholders on your side.
- Defining business requirements.
Interim deliverables: High-level feature list.
3 weeks
Design and planning:
- Defining project scope.
- Visualizing core user interfaces.
- Defining technical requirements.
- Designing software architecture.
- Collaborative review and validation of documentation with stakeholders on your side.
Interim deliverables: UI wireframes.
1 week
Finalization:
- Ad-hoc sessions with stakeholders on your side to fill the potential gaps in the collected requirements.
- Estimating solution implementation efforts and timelines.
Final deliverables:
- Vision and scope document, including key project objectives, target users, and software functionalities.
- Technical vision document, including tools, technologies, and architectural approaches to be used.
- Project roadmap with a timeline of key deliverables, milestones, and phases of the project.
Roles that We Typically Involve for Comprehensive Discovery
| Roles* | Responsibilities | Involvement |
|---|---|---|
|
Roles*
Project manager (5–8 years of experience on average; PMP, PSM I, PSPO I, ICP-APM certification) |
Responsibilities
|
Involvement
Throughout the discovery phase. |
|
Roles*
Senior or Lead business analyst (5+ years of experience in the relevant industry) |
Responsibilities
|
Involvement
Throughout the discovery phase. |
|
Roles*
Solution architect or Lead developer (7+ years of experience) |
Responsibilities
|
Involvement
Design and planning phase. |
|
Roles*
Senior developers (on demand) |
Responsibilities
|
Involvement
Design and planning phase, mainly during feasibility analysis and prototype validation. Finalization phase, mainly during resource estimation. |
|
Roles*
Senior UX/UI designer (on demand) |
Responsibilities
|
Involvement
Design and planning phase. |
* A broad pool of additional talents can join the discovery team on demand: compliance experts, database and network architects, data scientists, security engineers, and more.
Our Sample Discovery Process Options
Below, you will find sample discovery team arrangements and deliverables. These examples serve as general suggestions only. We understand that each client’s situation is unique and requires a tailored approach, so we avoid rigid, pre-defined service packages. The primary goals of the discovery period — determining the scope of work, identifying constraints, establishing a technical vision, and outlining a roadmap — are consistent across all projects. But sometimes, the focus is more technical, involving detailed software architecture and one or more PoCs. In other cases, discovery may be dedicated to in-depth UX planning.
Examples of our key discovery deliverables
A fragment of our Vision & Scope document
A fragment of our feature list
Sample personas
Sample user stories
A sample user journey map
Sample UX wireframes
An example of a clickable prototype
An example of our complete UI kit
A fragment of our ballpark estimates for an entire project
Sample estimates for specific scope units and functions
Techniques We Use at Every Stage of Discovery
ScienceSoft uses over 35 techniques to design clear requirements, identify risks, and propose feasible, cost-effective solutions. Our business analysts choose the best methods for each unique case.
Requirements gathering and management
Data gathering
Problem and goal analysis
- Gap analysis.
- Problem or goal decomposition.
- Root cause analysis.
- Value stream mapping.
- Business objective models.
Solution ideation
- Brainstorming.
- Facilitated workshops.
- Concept mapping.
- User story mapping.
- Impact mapping.
- Functional decomposition.
- Entity relationship diagrams.
Solution evaluation and prioritization
- CRUD matrices.
- Kano models.
Check our dedicated pages to learn more about our discovery practices beyond requirements gathering:
What Our Customers Say About ScienceSoft’s Discovery
After thorough due diligence and planning, we engaged ScienceSoft as our development partner. ScienceSoft coordinated knowledge transfer, discovery of our internal systems, then transitioned into supporting those systems and taking on projects to evolve their functionality.
By working with ScienceSoft, we’ve been able to achieve exactly what we set out to accomplish with this strategy, and we recommend them as a trustworthy partner with skilled technical specialists on board.
In less than 4 months, ScienceSoft’s team performed a discovery phase to help us define an optimal approach to crypto wallet development. They came up with a go-to architecture, features, and tech stack for our multi-chain wallet, and introduced a detailed roadmap for crypto wallet implementation, including cost and time estimates.
We highly appreciated ScienceSoft’s approach to consulting and their mature project management culture. We decided to continue the cooperation with ScienceSoft and would certainly recommend them as a reliable blockchain tech partner.
When we first contacted ScienceSoft, we needed expert advice on the creation of the centralized analytical solution to achieve company-wide transparent analytics and reporting. After a series of interviews, ScienceSoft’s consultants analyzed our workloads, documentation, and the existing infrastructure and provided us with a clear project roadmap.
The invoicing system created by ScienceSoft automates data integration from different sources, invoice generation, and provides visibility into the invoicing process. We have already engaged ScienceSoft in supporting the solution and would definitely consider ScienceSoft as an IT vendor in the future.
Catherine Roller Tyrrell
Founder
We turned to ScienceSoft with the idea of creating an all-in-one web platform for all the key beauty industry stakeholders. ScienceSoft helped us create a clear product vision and prioritize key features. They also created clickable prototypes. Thanks to ScienceSoft, we now have everything we need to raise funding for the project and start MVP implementation.
Being in the process of an online marketplace launch, we looked for a consulting partner to help us shape a final product vision with strong competitive advantages.
ScienceSoft provided a report featuring our core competitors: their products' efficiencies and drawbacks, and monetization models. They also did a great job creating a dynamic UX prototype of our marketplace and planning integrations important for fast and effective business workflows.
Abdulaziz Alibrahim
Founder
Having partnered with ScienceSoft, I started working with a business consultant who helped validate the feasibility of my business idea. He conducted market entry consulting, which included competitors' assessment (product efficiencies and drawbacks, pricing and monetization strategies, customer feedback analysis), research of regulatory barriers, and mobile app conceptualization. I want to thank ScienceSoft for the productive work so far.